by Paul Thomas | Oct 29, 2015 | Sports
Paul Thomas2015-10-29 In November 2013, when the All Blacks were in London preparing to play England, a Daily Telegraph journalist exploited lax security to sneak into the hotel room where team meetings were held. It was a high-risk gambit – if he’d run into the...
by Paul Thomas | Oct 17, 2015 | Sports
Paul Thomas2015-10-17 Given that New Zealand is the world’s leading exporter of rugby players, it’s perhaps appropriate that the All Blacks were on the receiving end of the most famous performance by a foreign-born player in international rugby history. Prince...
by Paul Thomas | Oct 3, 2015 | Sports
Paul Thomas2015-10-03 As that unlikely alliance of our parents and the Rolling Stones often pointed out, you can’t always get what you want. In my 2015 wish-list (Sport, January 31), I expressed the hope that no-one would die of heat exhaustion at the Australian...
by Paul Thomas | Sep 19, 2015 | Sports
Paul Thomas2015-09-19 You could argue – as many have – that test cricket is an absurdity. Men and women in long white trousers play for six hours, pausing for lunch and afternoon tea; men’s games can go for five days, women’s four (with no guarantee of a result at the...
by Paul Thomas | Jul 11, 2015 | Canon Media Award 2016, Sports
Paul Thomas2015-07-11 Next week’s All Blacks-Samoa test in Apia will be, among other things, a celebration of the Samoan influence in New Zealand rugby. While there’s much to celebrate, it shouldn’t be forgotten that the Polynesian presence in our national game wasn’t...
by Paul Thomas | Jun 27, 2015 | Sports
Paul Thomas2015-06-27 For years the English satirical magazine Private Eye has boasted about the Curse of Gnome, the bad karma that tends to befall powerful individuals who take legal action against the Eye to prevent it publishing embarrassing material or in revenge...
