WE WON*

The South beat the North tonight in the North vs South rugby game. It was a nail biter with a very close score 38:35 with the South winning in the final few seconds - classic rugby and well worth watching. Robert, I hope you were awake for it.

* When I say "we won" it was because I selected the South at the start of the game as the team to support. I must admit that I was a bit ambivalent until one of the 'celebrity' commentators made the silly pronouncement that the North would have it all over the South. I prefer to support the underdogs so my choice was certain.

I was born in Wellington (North Island) and lived there for 28 years before going to Auckland (North Island) where I lived  until 2009 less 4 years in Christchurch (South Island) - total 24 years.  For the last 11 years I've lived in Northland (North Island) and a couple of years overseas. Total say 9 years. So. in my lifetime I've lived over 61 years in the North Island and only 4 years in the South Island.....

....but, my parents were South Islanders. My dad was born in Marlborough and my mother in Canterbury and this shaped me for a big part of my life. I spent many school holiday periods on family farms in the South Island and have very fond memories of this.

Unfortunately today, the sense of 'roots' is long gone. In sports, with the rise of professionalism over the last 30 years the good aspects of regional identity and parochialism has disappeared. I gave up following provincial rugby when players started moving about the country. Following any one team through a sense of belonging and identity was made redundant when players would change sides year after year.

In tonight's game I found that some players who I thought represented one island or the other, were playing for the other side. It started to become meaningless.

Anyway, it was a great game of rugby showing, by the very close score that we have tremendous depth of talent here. It's a pity in the current COVID-19 world that we can't demonstrate it elsewhere.

Never mind, WE won!