What A Weekend!

What a weekend for Kiwi sport!

The All Blacks marched on to beat Wales with a dominant performance in the 2nd half, rolling on 23 unanswered points, starting to see some fight in the boys again after last year’s Cup. But the All Blacks are back on the top of the IRB table, with one game left before we can claim our 3rd Grand Slam tour over the 4 ‘Home’ nations.

But that wasn’t all the good news us Kiwi’s had over the weekend, our much under-valued Kiwi Rugby League team rolled over the Kangaroos in Brisbane to win our first Rugby League World Cup. On a night where the bookies cleaned up (having NZ at $6 - $9) the Kangaroos seemed to catch a bit of the All Blacks World Cup choke, which saw them make some silly mistakes and the Kiwi’s run away with the game in the last few minutes and win 34-20.

Maybe the Aussie’s should start their own hybrid game? As for the cricket, that’s a story for another time…

In other news, the IRB Rugby Awards were handed out over the Weekend, with NZ cleaning up a few awards, and DC just missing out on the Player of the Year award.

IRB Player of the Year: Shane Williams (Wales)
IRB Team of the Year: New Zealand
IRB Coach of the Year: Graham Henry (New Zealand)
IRB Junior Player of the Year: Luke Braid (New Zealand)
IRB Sevens Player of the Year: DJ Forbes (New Zealand)
Spirit of Rugby Award: Roelien Muller and Patrick Cotter
Vernon Pugh Award for Distinguished Service: Sir Nicholas Shehadie
IRB Referee Award for Distinguished Service: Andre Watson
IRB International Women’s Personality of the Year: Carol Isherwood
IRB Development Award: Tag Rugby Development Trust and Martin Hansford
IRPA Special Merit Award: Agustin Pichot
IRPA Try of the Year: Brian O’Driscoll, Australia v Ireland

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