SPORTRITE - My dry cleaning bill can't take much more of this

With Tim Eves
So far the public reaction, at least the stuff fielded over rapidly flattening handles of beer and laced with heartfelt expressions of wrath, has been - shall we say - vitriolic.
But fellas, when you want to express your opinion on the omnipresent issue of possible demotion of Northland rugby, we have some advice you need to take to heart: Say it, don't spray it.
Honestly, the dry cleaning bill has soared ever since NZRU figurehead Steve Tew announced that Northland and Tasman were in for the chop from the Air NZ Cup next year.
Otherwise sedate, scholarly gentlemen, blokes who usually saunter up to your shoulder and mumble wise and sage appraisals of the state of the game, have been behaving rather oddly.
They spot members of sports central from afar and march with indignation across roads, rooms, over hordes of schoolchildren and elbowing through collections of elegant females to have their say.
Some have even spilt beer en route. Yup, this is serious stuff.
As you might imagine, the opening line of "That #@%&ing; Steve Tew" should really come with a warning and an umbrella. Either that or free tetanus shots and a mandatory blood test.
You can probably guess the tone of the conversation. Indignation doesn't really sum it up sufficiently. As Baldrick of Blackadder fame might say: M'lord, the peasants are revolting.
Quite so. Especially if the last discussion, this one via email and then continued over a sly cuppa and a slightly dodgy date scone, is anything to go by. This lively exchange is hardly common but it does sum up the prevailing mood of the Northland rugby faithful.
Mind you, it falls neatly into that "lunatic fringe" folder because it requires two unlikely rugby events. Firstly, Auckland need to hold the Ranfurly Shield in a challenge against Wellington next weekend. Secondly, Northland need to uplift it two weeks later.
As the likelihood of the first seems outrageous and the chance of the second mildly delusional, we can safely reprint the following conversation.
What if we win the Shield?
Bloody cracker mate, it'd be all on then.
I reckon we take it, bring it home, then never let another first division team challenge us ever again.
No way. We take it, bring it home, parade it then get a gas torch out and burn it, then send the ashes to STew, with a message: Hey Stu, snort this, love The Taniwha.
His name's Steve ya plonker.
Oh.
Nah, nah, nah, that would be sacrilege. We can't burn it, let's plonk it on Trade Me, some uber-rich Russian oligarch will buy it for 1.7 million and before Tew realises what's happened it's gone and Northland rugby has enough money to last for the next 10 years.
Bloody beautiful mate.
More seriously though, let's stop for a moment and ask this: What the hell are we fighting for? Well, apart from the very fabric of the game in this province, it is a valid question. If Northland survives, which might be more likely now than it was two weeks ago thanks to the ever shifting sands of opinion, it might only be a brief respite from the winds of change. Reading between the lines of 53-pages of leaked submission documents, the message is this: Everything about New Zealand rugby is about to be put through the spin cycle with the door open. At the end of that those with an oligarch at hand will prosper handsomely, the rest will be left to survive on the crumbs.