Cheeky Bastareaud!
By LANE NICHOLS - The Dominion PostFirst the Rainbow Warrior - now this.
So he wasn't attacked by five of the capital's rugby thugs in an unprovoked street bashing - it was actually a vicious hotel table. Yeah right.
Known as the "French Nonu", powerhouse centre Mathieu Bastareaud has not just egg on his face, but a whole camembert and mushroom omelette, after issuing a public statement overnight admitting he made it up.
For those of you not up to speed with the story of the week, the 111kg dreadlocked monster claimed he was attacked from behind in the early hours of Sunday morning at a taxi rank by up to five men following his team's loss to the All Blacks at Westpac Stadium.
His callous assailants were alleged to have shouted something about "f---ing French" before breaking the guy's eye socket and leaving him with facial stitches and bruising, then disappearing in a Tui-induced stupor into the Wellington night.
But after hundreds of hours of painstaking investigations by police detectives and unquantified damage to the international reputation of Wellington as a safe tourist destination following blanket media coverage of the tale, Bastareaud has finally decided to come clean.
"I owe the truth to everybody.
"On Saturday evening, I returned to the hotel after having drunk too much.
"I fell in my bedroom and scarred my cheekbone on the table in the room."
Oh Bastareaud - how the mighty fall.
A rich French supporter of Bastareaud labelled the episode nothing more than youthful misadventure
"It was simply jolly japes by a youngster."
Perhaps he actually fell down the stairs or walked into a door. Isn't that the sort of story battered women tend to concoct after domestic violence assaults by their angry, inebriated husbands?
Whatever the truth, it's likely to come out in the coming days. Bastareaud said he panicked. His family are deeply religious and he didn't want to bring them any shame. Well that's exactly what he's now done.
It's bad enough to waste the time of officials and New Zealand's finest on a wild goose chase looking for a pack of non-existent meat axes who were supposedly marauding the streets dishing out random acts of brutality to unsuspecting members of the public.
But to tarnish the name of this good city - my city - by making up a story just to save face, sorry Bastareaud but you're seriously out of line, son.
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He has really gross skin.
But that's about all I have to say about that.
Is it wrong that when I saw the article on stuff "Lane's facelift scoops award" I thought Lane had had a facelift. My initial feeling? Why hadn't he blogged about this!
Yeah, that was my first thought too - first the Rainbow Warrior and now this!! Cheek and sheer arrogance have again contributed to another French downfall in NZ.
I feel so sucked in. I'm a huge rugby fan, went to the game and had an awesome night in town so was horrified to hear what had happened.
To find out that he is just some chump who lied to save his own bottom, well that just sucks!
I really felt so bad that this could have happened to him! GRRR!
Have we ever apologised to the South Africans for that "Suzie the deliberate food-poisoner" false accusation we all believed in 1995 when we lost the world cup again?
That French Bastareaud!
Just for that we should send 5 blokes over to mess him up.
As well as wasting 100's of hours of police team, he has damaged the reputation of Wellingon and NZ internationally due to his high profile. I strongly suggest that he is barred from entering the country again. That means he should not be attending the 2011 World Cup tournament even if he good enough to make the team. Also the Wellington Mayor is right in that the French team and management also knew the real story, and that his excuse was dreamed up to save face for the player. This was obvious when the French team weren't interested in pursuing charges because they said it would be impossible to catch the culprits....how wrong they were....in fact they are the culprits (memories of Rainbow Warrior anyone????) There is also just too much drunkenness and womanising with many of the touring rugby and league teams and it is slowly but surely tarnishing and reducing the interest in these sports. On another note, I've come up with the obvious replacement for the National Anthem which is far more lively, all of the players would have grown up with the lyrics, and is very apt for our rugby team. It's just a wonder it hasn't been suggested yet!....it starts off "It's time to put on makeup, it's time to dress up right, it's time to meet the All Blacks on the All Black show tonght....
Who cares. Michael Jackson is dead
haha he looks like 50 cent
Big deal, Wellington is probably going to get more coverage internationally now as a great place that this dude told lies about.
Must suck to be one of those columnists who wailed about the whole thing as symptomatic of some type of culture flaw related to rugby...