My own view is that a nine week ban is long enough, only because it covers the rest of the Tri-Nations, which is probably why the number was chosen. I also think that the head-butt contributed to Botha’s yellow card after 13 for a professional foul, neither the referee nor his assistants saw the head-butt but it was replayed a number of times on the big screen and they would have certainly been aware of it.

First my arch-nemesis Chris Rattue from the New Zealand Herald.

Nine weeks sounds like a long rugby ban.

In the case of Bakkies Botha it isn’t long enough.

Botha should have got a year for what he did to Jimmy Cowan at Eden Park, also taking into account his history of thuggery.

Why a year? Well, I’ve plucked that figure out of the air, but it sounds about right, and much more right than nine weeks.

And to a point, he has it right. Botha is, in many respects, a throwback to the days when players meted out justice on the field but with more than 20 cameras pointed at the game, those days are long gone.

The Press rugby writer Richard Knowler labels Botha a ‘nutter’ and chronicles his many suspensions.

This incident was the latest in a raft of nasty incidents that have blighted Botha’s career and it is not only international opponents who have felt his wrath. Crusaders fans might recall he was rubbed out of the Bulls’ Super 14 semifinal in Soweto because he had been suspended for smashing Stormers fullback Gio Aplon in a ruck cleanout.

Last year Botha copped a three-week rest for belting Waratahs skipper Phil Waugh and was later controversially banned for two weeks for a dangerous charge on British and Irish Lions prop Adam Jones. Ironically, Botha was innocent on that occasion, with even Jones stating the suspension was unwarranted. Yet many people felt it was karma catching up with him.

In late 2002, Botha announced his arrival on the international circuit by being yellow-carded for stomping in his test debut against France and the following year he received an eight-week holiday for attacking the face of Wallaby hooker Brendan Cannon.

TVNZ’s John McBeth even said before the game that he hoped Botha would not stoop to his notorious illegal play. Unfortunately he did.

I didn’t mention anything about the forward play or tactics or the like. I simply stated that I hoped Bakkies Botha would play the game cleanly and not sink to his notorious low standards of illegal play.

Sadly, Botha let himself and his team down- yet again.

The reaction in the Republic has been largely the same as here in New Zealand, why did he do it? Independent Online’s Peter Bills also asks if Botha should be selected again for the Springboks given his appalling disciplinary record.

How much longer can South Africa afford Bakkies Botha and his crass indiscipline?

How can Springbok coach Peter de Villiers keep choosing Botha when he clearly cannot rely on him to keep his discipline?

Fans over at the Time Online comments say Botha is an embarrassment to the Springboks and his actions contributed to the loss.

The final word goes to my friends over at Ruggaworld, an excellent South African rugby blog, where one of their regular commenters had this to say:

They should have banned him for 12 months…….Boks need to send him packing until he sort out his kak. Danie (Rossouw) is playing much better than him in anyway.

So what are Power Rankings? Power Rankings are often used in the NFL where teams do not play every other team in the league as a means of comparing teams who will never play. They take a lot of factors into consideration such as points scored, points allowed and even the relative strength of the opposition. In the end they are expressed as numbers and the team with the higher ranking is the better team.

My particular ranking algorithm, like most, can predict most results but there will always be some left fielders which completely surprise everyone. Case in point, the Force beating the Blues at home last year, my rankings said the Blues should win easily, as did most other pundits, but then again, if my rankings were perfect I’d be spending a lot of time at my local TAB.

Let’s take a look at an example. At the end of the round robin phase of the Air New Zealand Cup, here are the quarter finalists’ Power Rankings:

Interestingly enough, the Power Rankings put Southland ahead of Bay of Plenty despite the Bay having three more points and one more win than Southland. And who won that quarter final? Southland, by some margin. After the quarter finals it became quite obvious which teams would be contesting the final with Wellington and Canterbury head and shoulders ahead of the rest, and the rankings told this story:

Ahead of the final it was clear the two best teams were playing for the title. Because of the Air New Zealand Cup’s 10 round structure with 14 teams, Wellington and Canterbury had not played each other yet. But using Sport’s After Dark’s Power Rankings it was clear that the game would be extremely close, but Canterbury had a slim advantage.

In the end Canterbury won the final by 7-6 and it doesn’t get much closer than that! Obviously Wellington were a single drop goal away from victory, so don’t be the house when the rankings are this close.

Now, for those of you looking to take advantage of these Power Rankings in an online tipping competition, I highly recommend NZ Virtual Sport’s Super 14 competition. With 94 matches over 16 weeks and 470 points up for grabs there is ample opportunity for all to vie for the title.

If you are looking for something a little more intimate than your standard picks competition then look no further than the Super 14 Challenge matches. Create your own challenge, invite your mates and compete head to head in private challenges or join one of our public challenges. The format of the challenges will follow the Super 14 competition. You will compete in 14 round robin matches and if you make the grade you will progress to the finals.

Veteran protestor John Minto and a few of his followers protested outside the ASB Tennis Centre in Auckland today, as is their right, and called for Israeli tennis player Shahar Peer to pull out of the tournament.

Minto had already indicated that his group, Global Peace and Justice would do so in this press release and a letter to Peer herself. The reason I find this protest so disgusting, apart from the hate in his press release, is that Peer is just a person going about her normal business. I can understand people protesting the 1981 Springbok Tour, as that team represented South Africa, was chosen along racial lines and gave some legitimacy to the regime, but Peer is a professional tennis player representing herself, she just happens to be Israeli.

On the eve of the tournament last Sunday evening we wrote to Shahar requesting she respect international calls for a comprehensive boycott of Israel and withdraw from the tournament. The letter highlighted the attacks and invasion of Gaza by the Israeli army and the heavy death toll of Palestinians which includes over 100 children.

I’m not sure where these calls for a comprehensive boycott of Israel are coming from, but is he seriously suggesting that she should be unable to earn a living internationally based solely on where she was born?

The sports boycott of Israel is a key part of any boycott campaign because it is much more visible than a trade or investment boycott and can have an important psychological impact. We saw this with the successful sports boycotts against apartheid South Africa which had a big impact in South Africa and around the world.

The difference there is that sports plays a huge role in the South African national psyche, much like it does here, and that particular boycott was mostly applied to national teams, representative of the country, not the case with Miss Peer.

A new website has been launched this week at www.big.org.nz (BIG = Boycott Israeli Goods) which has begun to highlight Israeli goods for sale in New Zealand and calls on shoppers to boycott these products and the stores that continue to stock them.

Did you know Israel is one of the world’s largest manfacturers of pharmaceuticals?

Here’s some excerpts from his letter.

We are writing to request you to withdraw from the ASB Tennis Classic as part of a comprehensive international boycott of Israel.

Again, here’s this comprehensive boycott of Israel we’ve heard so much about…

Israel’s attacks on the Gaza strip are indefensible

And Hamas’s lobbing rockets into Israel from land that was given up in exchange for peace is? There is no right and wrong in this conflict, just degrees of wrongness, but Hamas’s rocket campaign is akin to whacking a big dog repeatedly with a stick and then complaining when the dog turns around and bites you.

Of course, this ignores some of the facts around the latest conflict such as Israel calling neighbours of Hamas buildings and warning them that they are about to be bombed, giving them time to get out, or the fact that Hamas cowards use women and children as human shields, then parade their dead to the media so that Israel is portrayed as the bad guy. Here’s a tactic for you, if you don’t want your women and children killed, stop deliberately putting them in harm’s way!

We realise as a professional tennis player this is a significant sacrifice you are being asked to make.

It’s so easy to be moralistic and tell others what to do when your lively hood doesn’t depend on it.

However it is much less than the sacrifice being made by Palestinian families under siege by Israel.

And this is the crux of it all. Because Israel punished Palastinians solely based on where they were born, in Minto’s eyes, he then thinks it is perfectly acceptable for him to try to do the same thing to someone else. What ever happened to “do unto others”?

A 13 hour flight and a 10 hour time difference is enough to exhaust anyone, and with just a few hours sleep I trotted off to Stad de France  for my first experience as a real reporter. Quite why the accreditation centre was on one side of the stadium and the media entrance on the other will remain a mystery to me, but with my ticket and press pass in hand I went into the stadium and stumbled into the media centre.

One of the things that struck me was how much free stuff the press gets; I got a bag full of products from the tournament’s official sponsors, a free drink and sandwich in the media restaurant and the following day in Lyon got a box of products promoting Portugal.

The atmosphere at the game was amazing to experience first hand. After the game I found my way downstairs to the press conference where I sat back and watched the English media tear into Brian Ashton after his team’s poor showing. The experience showed me that journalists should not always be cheerleaders, a trap I find myself still falling into, and they should report the good and the bad as they see it.

The story I find myself repeating most often was about the game in Lyon where the All Blacks played Portugal. We had a little trouble finding our hotel, so as a result I turned up to the game wearing an All Blacks jersey, hardly the picture of impartiality.

After picking up the last available ticket to the game for my wife, I took my seat in the press box. This was actually my first time in a press box, at Stad de France there were so many journalists that the press box was set aside for English and South African media only, the rest of us were in the stands with the fans.

As I looked around me I realized I was right in the middle of the Portuguese media contingent, but they were remarkably friendly and several asked me a number of questions: Who was leading the haka? What was the score against Italy? How do you pronounce this name? among other questions.

Seated next to me was a photo editor from Gettyimages who was hard at work, but around 20 minutes into the game he tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to identify an All Black (Isaia Toeava). This happened several times throughout the game, but I was only too happy to help out.

After the game I spoke briefly with former All Black Alan Wetton who was part of the New Zealand broadcaster’s team about the game.  He had enjoyed the game as a spectacle, but like most was not reading too much into the team’s performance.

At the press conference, this time held in a marquee, I had a chance to talk to a number of other people from the New Zealand media, some of whom were very nice, one not so.  I was also amused to hear the voices I knew from TV and radio in the same room as me.

The experience of being at the games and talking to the many people is something I will not soon forget. It has also made me hungry for more, working your dream job for a few days can do that to you. I would like to thank the people at Sportingo for making this once-in-a-lifetime experience possible, and I wish them continued success in the future.