Hold The Back Page: 27/11/2010
It's a big weekend for...
Dan Carter and the All Blacks
Handsome, gifted and a marketing man's dream. But sorry, Jonny Willkinson, looks like you're about to be usurped by Dan Carter, who is, funnily enough, handsome, gifted and you know the rest.
One penalty in today's match against Wales at the Millennium Stadium and the farming lad from Southbridge on the South Island will overtake our Jonny on the all-time Test points-scoring list. Aged just 28 and far more durable than Wilkinson, Carter is going to disappear into the distance. A win – anything else against Wales is unthinkable – for the All Blacks will earn an autumn international Grand Slam, giving Carter's side a real fillip before choking at the 2011 World Cup.
We applaud you wholeheartedly...
Airport security staff
When the good Lord created man, he created some who were quite bright and others who weren't. Football hooligans, on the whole, fall into the latter category. The "Ultra Surs", a motley mob of violent lads operating under the flag of Real Madrid, proved this unscientific theory this week when they were stopped at the Spanish capital's Barajas airport, en route to Amsterdam for the Champions League match at Ajax, trying to check in a bag of sticks to hit Dutch people with. Note to hooligans everywhere: you can source sticks in most European cities.
And the stories you may have missed
Football inferiority complexes
It's a moot point as to whether England's footballers have an inferiority complex when they put on the white shirt or they're just not very good. Spain seem to play football from another planet, so have they been fielding Martians?
Maybe that's beyond the realms of reason, but, something odd is afoot in Africa, in Equatorial Guinea to be precise, where the oil is rich, the people poor and the football improving at a rate of knots. Seems the women's team is so good it's being accused of fielding men by their rivals. "Totally unfounded," said the country's federation of smears against captain Genoveva Anonma and striker Salimata Simpore. "This is evidence of an inferiority complex."
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