Try: P Williams
Pens: D Bowden (2), A Moeke

Words, said French philosopher Saussure, do not contain meaning. They are merely symbols and, as such, are insufficient for conveying what we truly want to convey. What he meant was that every single person has a slightly different interpretation of what a word means and because of this we can never really, truly know what another person means. (Take the word 'rage', for example. Sit down with a few chums, get them to write a one or two-sentence definition of the word, and see how - although you might get close to the sense of the meaning - not one definition will be identical to another.) See, this is the problem with trying to capture these rare moments of beauty when we stuff it so far up the Scum that it wiggles out their ears: words don't do the occasion justice. We've beaten them six times in 25 years (contrary to what Marc Hinton wrote in the Sunday Star - what is it with the mainstream Auckland media mafia and their attempts to re-write history? See the 2001 match report for further evidence.) and only three times since this site's inception. In 2001 we had to turn to William Shakespeare and in 2004 to an extremely drunk correspondent because, as we all know, we're all so much more clever and insightful when we're chopped off our tits.

Language just falls short sometimes. Take the following sentence as a sample case in point:

Auckland can blow my f**king arse coz we own the Bridge.

Most people can glean a few generalities from this. Most English speakers would, for example, understand that I am casting aspersions on something called 'Auckland' - that I am in some way scornful and demeaning of this 'Auckland'. However, to understand what I am really trying to get across, the reader would need to have prior knowledge of the following: "

• That the 'Auckland' to which I refer is the provincial rugby side (and fans) and that it encompasses the area south of the North Shore City Harbour Bridge
• That the 'blow' in fact means to insert their tongues - individually or collectively - betwixt my buttock cheeks and lap prodigiously
• That the 'f**king' is not a present verb participle suggesting that my arse is currently in the act of coitus, but rather is a pre-modifying adjective expressing intensity of feeling
• That the entire phrase 'blow my f**king arse' is an idiom which roughly translates as 'f**k off', which in turn is an idiom requiring clarification and explanation
• That the 'we' means the North Harbour team (and fans)
• That 'own' is a metaphor
• That the 'Bridge' refers to the North Shore City Harbour Bridge which spans the stretch of water separating Nirvana from Hell's Deep

Words don't work for wins against Auckland, so here's a brief synopsis instead:

What about that Tom Chamberlain, eh? Credit where it's due: the last coach obviously saw something in him that we couldn't (possibly the reason why MacDaddy's application for first-team coach was ignored last year) and the boy has just gone mental in the last couple of weeks. He's everywhere, and because of that, Vili can concentrate on doing his own work instead of the work of three men. The forwards continued to ply their trade well, as they have done for much of the season, although apparently some c*nt called Paul Williams (sponsored by 'Blind-Mrs-Williams-Olde-Farmstyle-Cookies-Of-The-Sort-I-Used-To-Bake-For-My-Son-Paul-He's-In-The-Auckland-Team-You-Know-Here's-Some-Sponsorship-Money-For-The-Williams-Man-Of-The-Match-Award-Now-Make-It-Happen-Will You?) won man of the match but you come to expect that sort of rigged shit when you visit a sewer. To be fair, he looked about as embarrassed as any Auckland player should for pulling on that disgraceful rag they call a jersey. Filo Pastry played like a man who knew that he'd started the season well then faded and needed to redeem himself, and redeem he did. King is top-drawer - the Mr Consistent of the season; Boric had his head down, arse up all day - and what a fine arse it was. I mean…according to this…girl I know, somewhere…

The backs again lacked penetration but Jack McPhee must have had his critics eating an extra big bowlful of Hubbard's Humble Oats this morning with his best game in a Harbour jersey since that one a few seasons back when he did some good stuff…Occasional aimless kick aside, the Glenfield Yeti ran like an animal, tackled like a demon - at one stage removing some Auckland nobody's spleen with a bone-shatterer - and had a hand in the one sweet backline move that either side managed to piece together all game. How heart-warming it was, too, that Mailei dotted down with a gentle caress than contained more explicit language than any grandiose gesture Carlos Spencer ever mustered. I could hear the ball murmur "Get a bit of this up your jacksies, Auckland scum" as Mailei massaged it against the turf. Harris came back in a big way with his goalkicking and although we could quibble about some of his kicking in open play, we won't because we've just beaten Auckland and on the seventh day God saw what he had done and was happy and so he rested while the rest of us lay in bed a wee bit longer and conjured up a quick hand-shandy.

Dowd and Wilson have come in for stick from the masses, some of which has been fair and some of which has been overblown and written in the heat of the moment. Our record's still poor, but we've never been far off the pace and I stand by my earlier call that we were only a game away from stringing together a bit of a run.