KEY POINTS:
This sure is an exciting week for rugby.
Everywhere, people are biting their nails in anticipation of the All Blacks' clash against ... snorrrrrrrrrrr ... Wales.
The last time I was this excited about a rugby occasion was when I spied a touring Venezuelan team eating hamburgers in Onehunga.
It's pointless at this point going on about the great history of All Black and Welsh rugby because there isn't one. About the only thing of interest that has happened between the two countries in the past half century was the time Andy Haden dived out of a lineout at Cardiff Arms Park. Welsh rugby sure learns its lessons, because they've been heading nose first into the turf ever since.
If rugby between New Zealand and Wales was a boxing contest, they would have stopped it many rounds ago and revoked the Welsh licence.
Every year they turn up with a lot of gibbidy-gib in the talk department, and every year they play like a reserve grade team on an end-of-year trip to Majorca.
Looking at the general state of the Welsh game, the big question isn't so much, "Why haven't they beaten the All Blacks for 53 years?"
The real question is, "How the heck could a mob like that have ever beaten us in the first place?"
What is it about Welsh rugby that still fires the imagination, or does it fire the imagination at all?
Yes. The Welsh talk with an interesting lilt. If it was a talking contest, the Welsh would win hands down. Yes, they sure can sing. If it was a choral contest you'd put a tenner on their tenors, although to be honest, a bunch of Angus steers could give this country a run for its money in that department. We don't so much belt out our national anthem. We beat the bugger to death.
Yes, they've got a stadium with a roof. Maybe our city mums and dads could head to Cardiff on a fact-finding mission, although knowing our dearly beloved leaders they'd probably return carrying the plans for a go-kart track in the Isle of Anglesey.
And yes, every team Wales fields sounds as though they've scrambled all the great names from the past and pulled them out of a hat.
Welsh rugby gets away with murder, or make that suicide.
It is always busy closing the gap, although the only gap that actually disappears is the one being dealt to by its stadium roof.
Come on, Wales. Break the habit of most people's lifetime. Get mad. Get real. Get something. Go out there and win - as in scoring more points than the All Blacks rather than winning all that patronising muck that everyone heaps on your broken bones.
Okay, I hear the cry that now and then, Wales get real close. Real, real close. Real, real, real close.
And you know what? They still lose. And everyone still blathers on about their singing and their history and blah de blah de blah and how Blethyn someone or Gareth someone else had a really great game because they ran past this bloke or tackled that bloke.
Let's face it. Wales are rubbish. They are the village idiots of rugby union. They have fans who live for the game, administrators who've killed it and players who lie down for the cause.
Wales had a brilliant team of never-to-be-forgotten players 30 years ago. Since then, they've totally stuffed it up and they'll stuff it up again this weekend.
