Its coming home baby

AUCKLAND 40 CANTERBURY 31

Nuff Said!!!

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sports/rugby/worldcup/rugbyworldcupstorydisplay.cfm?storyID=3528366&thesection=sport&thesubsection=rugby&thesecondsubsection=provincial

A sad sad day. However, I can take heart in a great game of rugby. Very entertaining and exciting.

Merhtens should be in Australia right now. Did you see his kicking? I think he missed just one, for 23 points total, which is pretty amazing. And the All Blacks kicking??? hmmmmm.

There is more to rugby than just kicking. Thats about all Merthens can do ... He is in no way in the same calss as Spencer. And I would much rather see Carter go into #10 than see Merthens in a AB jersey again.

But whooooooa to Auckland, bout time that shield comes back home.

*Re-Action*, Merhtens will be remembered as a significantly better # 10 than Carlos and was voted into our best All Black team of all time recently. Merhtens had an awesome game in the rangfurly shield and nearly won the game single handedly. As for Carlos when he is playing well he is very inspirational and a great attacking player but shut down his time and options and he's not half the player he normally is.

No body reads a game better than Merhtens so I hope he gets another crack next year.

Mehrtens had a great game with the boot..without him canterbury would have been buried..let's not forget young Ben Atiga(NZ U21 goalkicker) also had a blinder with his goal kicking and on attack..that last try was the shit...penalties almost cost Auckland the game..Tasesa Lavea had a good game..not bad for his second game of NPC rugby...ever...watch him next year....he was rookie of the year for Melbourne Storm in 1999...the year they won the Grand Final...at the age of 19...schoolboy rugby prodigy poached by the NRL

word is merts will replace tana if needed

and reaction shows how little he knows about rugby. No way is spencer a better all round first five than mehrtens has been.

Pleased to see the shield move, but to the worst possible place. I hoped it would move to somewhere new, not to a province who has had it a lot over the last 10 years so it doesn't mean as much.

Will make for an interesting npc next year although a full strength Auckland will be very hard to knock over.

You sound like you know quite a bit about rugby re-action....

Mehrtens is a legend, AB record points holder.

Spencer is a flashy player with the ability to be brilliant at times and rubbish other times and needs a lesson in goal kicking.

re-action, if we were to lose the world cup final by 6 points and Spencer had missed 3 penaltys would you say "theres more to rugby than kicking"?

I am sooooo stoked that Auckland won the Ranfurly Shield!! Nice work........Auckland is on the up!!! Such a good thing to see!

it's a cliche, but when Auckland rugby is strong, NZ rugby is strong. To win the shield missing so many top players to the All blacks shows that both NZ and Auckland have a lot of depth. I think Auckland are favourites to win the NPC from here, even tho they have the toughest draw.

It will be difficult for any other teams to pry the shield off a full strength Auckland squad next yearbut Canterbury will get a challenge next year and can't be discounted.

The text message I sent to all my friends in Canterbury:

"Akl won the Ranfurly shield, and we don't even care HAHAHAHA!"

Yeah that would have gone down well. I have a foot in both camps as I'm originally from ChCh but it's good for Auckland rugby.