KEY POINTS:
A good mate of mine does an excellent job of parodying Stephen Jones, rugby writer and first-rate Kiwi baiter for the Times. Granted, it's not hard to take the piss out of the Jones boy: drop in a line about Dan Carter being nowhere near as good as Ronan O'Gara and warp whatever playing numbers you can find about Pacific Islanders in black jerseys and voila! Job done.
A while back, this mate sent me an email which I took to be a fresh bit of Jones parody. Turns out it was straight from the keyboard of the great man himself.
Yup, SJ has his own virtual community. The format for the Rolling Maul is simple: Jones rises from his slumber, pens a few lines which pop into your email box on a Thursday morning (NZ time) and awaits replies. The best replies get an often acerbic answer from the Jones pen and are included on the tail of the following week's email. You can subscribe to the forum through the link above.
A word of warning: Jones provokes. Deliberately and constantly. For a Kiwi to subscribe to the Rolling Maul is akin to a Green Party member listening to Leighton Smith on talkback. Only do it if you have the stomach for debate sans rationality and enjoy a bit of pettiness for its own sake.
But credit where it's due, the man is a master wind-up merchant.
I suspect the promo for the Rolling Maul on the Times website might have been written by someone who thinks that Mr Jones is rather a dickhead. It runs thus: "The former Sports Writer of the Year responds to your arguments - but beware, Stephen is ready to tackle you with the ferocity of a Jason White leg-cruncher."
(I had to check as well: Jason White is a Scottish player - one of those faceless lock-flankers you see gasping for breath with hands on hips under their own posts as Carter converts. I suspect a "leg-cruncher" is what an English website editor who follows soccer calls a rugby tackle).
