The match that wasn’t meant to be.

Local derbies in the Super 14 (and 12) have always seen the form book thrown out the window; players rising to the occasion with semi final contenders losing to leaderboard cellar dwellers. It’s a sad fact but passion suddenly returns to the game when there’s no overseas opponent. So a local final should be a cracker, an absolute trench brawl with handbags flying upfront. The grace and poise of the sharks backline measured against Derick’s boot, the Sharks pack defending the hurly burly bouncers who are the Bulls forwards with a combined IQ of 412 (if you include the four guys on the bench and Wikus is injured). Instead of the expected trash talk totally dominating sporting pages, we have the whole ‘Pick Luke’ campaign flaring up again with even a law in Parliament to get him into the team and our Premier Rasool admitting that the Stormers Captain is in fact a black man. Why the suits couldn’t do it last year when Schalk’s neck finally broke and Jake subsequently refused to use a fetcher just shows how little the MPs know about rugby(I ask you 49 times - zero answers).

It’s a pity that it’s come to this, as I fear we would have seen the real battle unfold this week…The rugger battle of the net, yes it’s Sharks vs Bulls Blogoff time.

In the black corner we have farmboy turned surfer; the one, the only AJ Venter. He’s the hard man of the engine room with l’Oreal endorsements, engaged to SA's Pam Anderson, been through six knees and should undoubtedly be banned from using MS Word (or the English language for that matter). He's obviously given up as the joke factory that is AJ VENTER dot COM seems to have shutdown this season. The archives are still worth a read till he remembers how to turn a PC on again. He had a little tiff with Seth from 2Oceansvibe who kept on slating him for being such a doos. He felt Seth was harsh for saying so many bad things as he was new to blogging (and computers and English and thinking and anything not involving bliksemming everyone wearing a different jersey to you). He was very good at spellchecking but not grammar good no. So all his sentences wear spilt write butt they maid know cents.



Here's his last offering, where he forgot to even use the dreaded F7 (take a deep breath at every fullstop, it might be the last one you see in a while).

Hi every one i will say just this, being a bussiness man takes much more time than being a rugby player. Because of my operation a few weeks ago and the fact that the Sharks are on leave gave me an opertunity to get stuck into work and i love it, we are really busy though i dont even get time to write my colums anymore, i will start writing more when the season starts again so i apologies for the limited colums these days i will trfy a bit harder.

In the Blue Corner we have the man that half the population north of the Jukskei calls dad. Yes, its our very own Neil Diamond – the one, the only Steve Hofmeyer. Technically he's not in the starting line up, but he's probably the most crucial link in the Loftus team. It's no wonder Carter and McCaw fell over last week, who could regain composure after 55 000 Klippies and Cola lubricated voices sang along with Steve for the now legendary 'Blou Bul'?


Now Steve's BLOG has a fair amount of traffic, ever since 7de Laan had a feature on it the tannies have been logging on in volumes not seen since Paris's video came on the net for the first time. It's definitely worth a peek, and a real pity that he won't be performing on Saturday.

Oh yes, go Bulls...think a sharks win might cost us the World Cup, the boks will never handle as well as them.