48 hours: Laws of physics take a beating

Brilliant ...

How on earth did Nathan Astle take that catch to dismiss West Indian Dwayne Smith at Christchurch? Or, more importantly, how did he return to earth inside the boundary rope, after having taken the one-hander somewhere in Michael Jordan country. Fantastic, and Astle appears to be back.

The best cricket catch I've witnessed was executed by Central Districts' Andrew Penn against Auckland at Masterton. Penn sprinted away from the wicket, with the ball coming over his shoulder, and dived full length to snaffle it at full stretch just millimetres from the turf. It was a stunner, performed in front of a crowd of about six.

When I pressed Central coach Dipak Patel on whether he'd seen one better, he nominated a similar Martin Crowe catch in the 1987 World Cup game between New Zealand and Zimbabwe in India. Crowe's miraculous catch, running then diving towards long on, dismissed century-maker David Houghton and proved to be a match winner.

Madness ...

Phil Gould - one of league's great coaches - is to be commended for his radical approach to finding a way of punishing the Warriors for salary cap breaches without punishing their fans. At least he's giving the beleaguered supporters of this crazy club a glimmer of hope before today's pow-wow in Sydney, where club administrators will plead their case to the NRL.

Gould, in his Australian newspaper column, contends that it would be unfair to strip the Warriors of points for offences relating to a previous season.

His alternative plan includes a heavy fine and the forced offload of two high-priced players to other clubs while the Warriors would still have to pay this duo's wages. While Gould didn't say as much, someone has suggested those two players would be Ruben Wiki and Steve Price.

The really brilliant part of this scheme is that it would allow the Warriors to do something they are absolutely brilliant at. After all, they've been practising giving away players for years.

But hang on ...

Hey Phil, I thought you were trying to lessen the blow for Warriors fans who are still trying to work out why Stacey Jones went all garlic on them. We can barely afford to give packets of peanuts away, let alone two decent footballers.

And if you've got your beady eyes on Wiki and Price - who are THE highly paid footballers at the Warriors - then forget it. The human wrecking ball Iafeta Paleaaesina has already skipped the country, and now you're suggesting putting Price and Wiki on an export order to grateful NRL rivals.

Here's the question: Name another Warriors prop. Ummmmmm, it's coming ... can we take this question later?

Phil, who do you suggest should cart the ball up for the Warriors? At this rate, we're getting down to Helen Clark and the Mad Butcher.

Faced with the choice of losing six points or evicting Price and Wiki, I'd wrap the points up with a few chocolates and quickly post this parcel off to David Gallop.

Then I'd send a limo around to the Price and Wiki households to give them a luxury ride to training at Ericsson Stadium. On second thoughts, maybe not. That might be another salary cap breach. No, I'd make collect calls to Price and Wiki and make sure they're okay.

Give Price and Wiki away? Whatever next - Mick Watson saying something worth listening to, the Mad Butcher selling carrot and comfrey rissoles? I don't think so.

Relief at last ...

It could be months before the Warriors get any points on the board, the way things are going. But at least the Blues are flying the flag for that struggling little sports metropolis known as Auckland, whose day job involves being this country's largest city.

You wouldn't call Saturday night's match against the Reds in Brisbane a ripper. You could have outlined most of the game with chalk.

But be grateful for small mercies, which in this case involved a Blues victory and the return of Troy Flavell.

The Flav wasn't at full speed, but the man had presence to the end, when he was alert to an important lineout steal. The best news concerning Flavell is that cruising around in the inferior Japanese league hasn't appeared to damage his ability to play at this level. The Blues have a pack leader, and Graham Henry should also be well pleased.

Flavell's major faux pas was a dramatic piece of over-acting, surrendering his hands while looking pleadingly towards the touch judge, after Reds flanker Hugh McMeniman had a bit of a swish.

It's just too much of an ask, getting the imagination to turn one of rugby's great gunslingers into the injured party.

As for the scrums, if you want to watch grown men stumbling about on a Saturday night, try central city Auckland. It's much cheaper than the price of a Super 14 ticket and a hell of a lot more fun.

The message to rugby administrators at scrum time should be: Let the players get on with it and cut out all the nit-picking.

When you've got close to 900kg of muscle slamming in to each other on a regular basis, it is very hard to operate under the sort of rules and instructions that are better suited to delicate arts like ballet and synchronised swimming.

HIGH
The return of Troy Flavell.  The break actually might have done him good.

LOW
Super 14 scrums.  Please, please, please.  Can someone sort it out.