All Canterbury rugby fans are well aware that wins for the boys in the red and black strip are vitally important. One and all acknowledge that victory is far from a matter of life and death. Yes, it is of course much more important than that. We at RugbyHeads are well aware of this, but we are also realists. We accept that acts of God, freaks of nature and raver's nipple could conceivably come between the mighty Cantab's and victory. In light of this, we feel it our place to suggest some little known "tactics" which could be employed to assist Canterbury in dishing out another humiliating, yet satisfying spanking.

It is true that any coach worth his "Magnum PI" style Ray Ban's (yes, we do mean you, Wayne Smith) will realise that it is key to know the opposition and their weaknesses. At this point you are no doubt thinking "Bollocks... I could have told you that!". And you'd be correct. But we at RugbyHeads have, as always, delved deeper. Just as a doctor ponders a cure for impotence, we have thought about it long and hard.

Careful analysis of the other NPC unions has revealed some startling weaknesses, ripe for exploitation. Due to the lack of space, and a pathetically lazy author, not all unions will be mentioned here. We do however promise to "bag" them in later articles. Fairs fair after all...

Those city slickers in Auckland earn first mention. They are a million corporate ants in a concrete jungle all wishing, hoping and praying that their cellphone will ring in a public place. My God!! they've even erected a giant shrine to their mobile phone obsession... An embarrassingly phallic 300 metre tall replica mobile phone aerial now protrudes from the central city. This of course begs the question - what would happen if a cell phone started ringing during an NPC match? Would Carlos Spencer still dodge through the defensive line? Would Robin Brooke take the line-out throw cleanly? Would Mark Carter miss another tackle? Hell no!!! They'd all be reaching for non-existent jacket pockets wearing smug "that'll be for me" expressions on their faces. OK, so Mark Carter would still miss that tackle, but you get the point.

At the other end of the spectrum we have a bunch of completely rugged blokes. The salt of the earth, swede munching, sheep chasing Southlanders. The men from the only province in New Zealand where quiche is on the Banned Substances List. The only place where a guys ears are only slightly less hairy than his armpits. REAL men! And this is of course their greatest weakness. How would they react if, instead of charging angrily at them with the ball clutched under his arm, Justin Marshall was to saunter seductively, ball held daintily and hips swinging flamboyantly? It's not a good look. We are the first to admit that. But more importantly, the lads from down south won't be too fussed either. In fact they wouldn't be seen dead near him. It will be an easy 50 metre mince to dot down another seven pointer.

Finally, we kill two birds with one stone. The MooLoo men from Waikato and the new boys from Taranaki. The people of these provinces both share a disturbing weakness just waiting to be milked: A bovine Achilles Heel in the form of a rather unhealthy love of the humble, yet strangely alluring moo-cow. Herd a couple of those babies into Jade Stadium during the rugger and suddenly the game will be as appealing as Winston Peters in a bikini to those blokes. In no time, the gently swinging udders and long brown eyelashes fluttering will have them milking and mucking out instead of rucking and mucking in. Another easy win for the Canterbury boys...

As stated early in the article, we have every confidence in the Red and Blacks coming out on tops again this year. But as they say: "When in doubt...... Cheat!"

AT

Well that should mean four wins under the belt! Given that Justin didn't play in the complete dorking of those Southland Hardmen I guess the rest of the team must have read this article!
Let us know what you think!