The naming of Chiefs’ first five Steven Donald in the pivot role for the final Bledisloe Cup test in Hong Kong ahead of Dan Carter has raised a few eyebrows, but the move shows coach Graham Henry is preparing to unleash an attacking bombardment on the Wallabies.

With Donald slotting in at first five, Carter gets moved out to inside centre, a position he has played at both Super 14 and international level with a great deal of success. The combination of Donald and Carter also gives the All Blacks a right or left foot kicking option.

But it’s not just the great skill of these players in these positions, but the fact that the All Blacks now have two playmaking options that signals a shift towards all out attack. This particular setup gives them the option to have a playmaker left and right on attacking scrums, or someone out wide who can set up the explosive backs outside them.

Carter admits the shift has been difficult to adjust to, particularly now as Donald will be calling the plays from the pivot position, leaving Carter with much less talking to do. “I’ve had to hold myself back a bit, it’s something I’ve been working on all week,” he said.

“I’ve had to sort of pull back from giving him feedback from set plays and let him run the ship,” said Carter, who last started in midfield four years ago.

“I have to sit back, he’s more than capable and does it extremely well for the Chiefs and Waikato.”

The main causalty of this shift is Ma’a Nonu, who played well at inside centre during the Tri-Nations, but is now relegated the bench. Coach Henry has gone for just three back reserves, who can cover any backline position bar fullback, so Nonu is likely to see action at centre or wing, rather than his prefered inside centre.

The addition of the Wellington pair of Conrad Smith and debutant Hosea Gear at centre and wing provides some excellent strike power out wide. Gear in particular was in magnificent form during the Air New Zealand Cup, setting a record for tries scored in a provincial season with his blistering pace and angled runs proving difficult to stop.

Up front, the All Blacks have named a powerful pack, sticking with the tested trio of Richie McCaw, Rodney So’oiala and Jerome Kaino in the loose, while Taranaki’s Andrew Hore gets the nod as first choice hooker. Exciting loose forward prospect Adam Thomson also retains his place in the side, securing a spot on the bench.

Interestingly, the Australians have not opted to match the All Blacks’ dual playmaker line up, putting hard running centre Stirling Mortlock into inside centre. This leaves the lineups the opposite of what they were when the two teams faced off in Sydney earlier in the year, and on that night it was the team with two playmakers who took the honors.

A five star performance from tournment favourites Germany has put the rest of the teams at the Under 17 Women’s World Cup on notice as the Germans crushed Costa Rica 5-0 in Christchruch.

From the beginning of the game, the physically bigger German team showed their class and skill, dominating their South American opponents for almost the full 90 minutes. Costa Rica were able to generate a couple of half chances in the early stages of the match, but never really threatened the German goal for the rest of the match.

Light rain left the pitch slippery and make a high tempo affair like the tournament opener impossible, however both teams adjusted to the conditions well, attempting to play a shorter passing game.

A noisy crowd, made up mostly of school children, cheered on both teams as they produced a very entertaining spectacle. While almost all of the fans were neutral observers, most were hoping for a German win.

Germany opened their account after just 17 minutes when a brilliant ball was played over the top to Lynn Mester who slotted the ball deftly through the keeper’s legs. Just 20 minutes later the Germans had their second goal from another ball over the top, this time chipped home by Dzsenifer Marozsan.

Costa Rica struggled against the more disciplined Germans, having trouble stringing together more than four passes and were forced to live off scraps of possession, but did look dangerous on the counter attack.

Germany went into the break up 3-0 after a second goal to Marozsan who was set up brilliantly by Isabelle Linden’s low cross.

Another goal just after the break, this time to Turid Knaak, sealed the win for Germany but to their credit they did not retreat into a defensive shell, continuing to play attacking football throughout the game. Alexandra Popp almost picked up Germany’s fifth goal after a wonderful run down the left flank, only to be denied by the woodwork but soon after Tabea Kemme did make it five, slamming the ball home after Costa Rica failed to clear from a corner.

Like their opponents, Costa Rica deserve a great deal of credit for not giving up, depsite a win being out of reach. They appeared to have picked up a consolation goal midway through the second half, only to have it ruled out for offside.

Germany’s next opponent is Ghana on Saturday, while Costa Rica take on North Korea. Ghana and North Korea drew 1-1 in their group game.

The Fifa Under 17 Women’s World Cup got underway as the hosts New Zealand took on Canada at North Harbour Stadium in Auckland.

New Zealand may be known for being mad about rugby, but 13,123 fans turned up to see the opening game of this inaugural tournament, a record for a women’s sport, beating the world champion netball team the Silver Ferns.

The game got off to a frenetic start as both teams tore around the park at lightning speed, something that favoured New Zealand’s pace. As both teams found their rhythm the game settled down, with New Zealand retaining the upper hand in the early exchanges.

Both Hannah Wall and Annalie Longo had chances as long balls split the Canadian defences open, but were denied the tournament’s opening goal by some excellent goal keeping from Genevieve Richard.

New Zealand’s fast pace saw their midfield lose shape and allowed momentum to shift to Canada. Star player Tiffany Cameron created a number of chances for herself and Nkem Ezurike but were unable to get the ball past Victoria Esson and the teams went into the shed at 0-0.

The second half had New Zealand putting a great deal of pressure on the Canadians, forcing a number of corners. One corner saw New Zealand push eight players into the box, outnumbering the defenders and creating a chance for Sarah McLaughlin who headed the ball just over the bar.

But just as the hosts looked to press home their advantage Canada’s Rachel Lamarre picked up the ball on half way, wove her way past several defenders and slotted the ball into the bottom left corner of the net for the first goal of the tournament.

Despite the Canadian goal, New Zealand continued their dominance, holding the ball in the visitor’s end and applying pressure. Some excellent defending from Canada saw the hosts unable to turn their dominance into any real chances.

New Zealand’s best chance of the night fell to Caitlin Campbell who struck a magnificent free kick from around 30 metres, only to have the ball hit the crossbar and go over.

As the match wore on, the high tempo of the game took its toll and the initially high skill level dipped a little and New Zealand began to lose their shape. The tournament also had its first injury during this period as Cameron was forced to leave the ground on a stretcher.

New Zealand pounded on the Canadian goal in the closing moments of the game, with chances falling to Rosie White and Wall but both saw their shots go agonisingly wide.

In the end Canada were the better team on the night but New Zealand really did deserve a point for their tremendous heart and grit that they showed. While they may have come away with no points from the game, the Young Football Ferns certainly did capture the attention of the nation.

This weekend has been a tough one for officials. On Friday night we saw referee Steve Walsh forced to leave his Air New Zealand Cup semi final after about 20 minutes. Walsh was knocked over by players three times in the early stages of the game, the third time taking him out of the game for good.

Then on Sunday, Major League Baseball umpire Derryl Cousins was forced to leave game 6 of the American League Championship series after taking a foul ball to the face. It looked particularly painful as the ball appeared to strike him on the edge of his mask.

Most often in sports the attention is on the players, but every now and then the officials remind us that they are human by getting injured themselves. But to see two in one weekend of action is highly unusual!

Sitting here watching the Wellington vs Taranaki game, an Air New Zealand Cup quarter final, and I can’t believe the naked bias shown by Sky commentator Stu Wilson. Now Stu is a Wellington man through and through, but the sheer blindness shown by Wilson towards decisions going against Wellington is staggering.

Firstly, after Piri Weepu knocked the ball on while trying to regather his own kick, Ma’a Nonu, who was a good metre or two in front of Weepu when he lost the ball, regained the ball only to be penalised for being offside. Wilson claimed the call was “marginal” but even someone with a pea sized brain, such as Wilson, knows that this is a clear offside penalty.

Then later in the first half, Wellington were again penalised, this time for Dane Cook and Jeremy Thrush joining a ruck from the side, very obviously and right in front of the referee. Wilson stated, “I’ve seen worse not get picked up.” Once again showing that Wilson either isn’t watching the game, or is so incapable of impartial comment that he has to hang his bias out for all to see.

Then again, this game is being broadcast by the pro-Wellington dream team, or is that nightmare team, of Stu Wilson and Grant Nisbett. Should we expect anything less?

We know how much the Americans love their statistics in sports, so much so that they’ve invented quite a few of them. While watching an NFL game this week, I got an idea to apply one of their statistics, strength of schedule, to the Air New Zealand Cup and see what happened.

Basically this statistic measures how tough your opponents are, showing you who has been beating tough opposition and who has been beating up on the minnows.

For example, in week 5 of the Air New Zealand Cup Wellington beat Bay of Plenty by 48-12 but going into that game, both teams had won all four previous games and were sitting first and second on the table. Surely there isn’t a 36 point difference between first and second right?

Well there’s not. According to their strength of schedule statistic going into that game, Wellington’s schedule was eight points higher that Bay of Plenty’s, 51 to 43, meaning that Wellington had racked up four wins against much better teams that Bay of Plenty.

Here’s the end of season figures:

Interesting to note that some of the top teams had some of the easiest schedules, which is partly caused by the fact that they didn’t play themselves and partly because the two teams with the best records, Wellington and Canterbury, didn’t play each other in the round robin.

While these numbers are technically percentages, it’s best to regard them simply as numbers and note that Hawke’s Bay finished third on the table despite having the fourth toughest schedule, while Waikato finished sixth with the second easiest schedule.

The Air New Zealand Cup playoff picture only snapped into focus with the final kick of the ball in round robin play and threw up a few surprises too.

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Rugbyheaven has currently has a story with the headline, “Williams moves back back to Blues territory.” Wow, you think, is Ali Williams headed back to the Blues? No! The story is about Paul Williams, who can hardly be moving “back” to the Blues, having not actually played for them before. I really hate these deceptive headlines, but it’s done on purpose to get me to click through to their site, and like an idiot, that’s exactly what I did.

Maybe it was the war of words leading up to the game, perhaps the extra game they played, or perhaps it was Manly’s superb defence, but whatever the reason, Manly proved they were the best side in the NRL, winning the Grand Final by 40-0.

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