Hi, my name's Jason and Im a sportaholic, living in this country its pretty hard not to be. We have great sportsmen and women in this country and I support them all. I think most sports in this country have their time in the limelight and its the AW's time at the moment. Can Football compete with Rugby in the long term? I hope so, but I also hope this happens with League, Hockey (well done Black Sticks),Rowing etc. A bit more of an even playing field would be great, instead of being the very Rugby dominated country that we are.

By the way, go AB's, smash the pom's this weekend

"Was November 14, 2009, the day when the nature of New Zealand sport changed forever?"

No. I'm prepared to put a substantial amount of money on this, Joseph.

"Is rugby, which for more than 120 years has been New Zealand's national game, under genuine threat from football?"

No.

Bloody happy when the AWs qualified, will be also be very happy when ABs win the RWC. Go Whites!!! Go Blacks!!!

How exactly is soccer going to kick on from this to dominate NZ sport? Kiwis like to watch their national team, and what top-class international sides are going to visit here? Can you really see Brazil, England, Italy, etc bothering with a trip here to pound us? It's the same reason the ABs don't tour Portugal or Namibia.

As for Glen #25's pathetic, childish rant: If I can respond in the same vein - give soccer a couple of years to get comfortable and the All Whites won't be interacting with the crowd as they'll all have to go and repair the chipped finger nails from those horredously painful tackles where nobody actually touched them. You're an idiot mate, and a disgrace to spotsfans everywhere.

As someone else pointed out: The AWs got 35,000 to a once in a lifetime game. The ABs get more than that 6 or 7 times a year (unless they're in Chch), and apparently everyone hates rugby at the moment. 80,000 Italians turned up to watch the ABs last weekend, and even if Italy had pulled off a massive upset I doubt the Italian rags would have hailing the new dawn of rugby and booting soccer into touch.

Romanos, give yourself an uppercut

Passing phase. Soccer will return to the also rans where it has always been. This is very reminiscent of the 1982?? Soccer world cup.

The reality is that the All Blacks play the same teams (Australian and South Africa) over and over and over and over again, every year ... Why not extend the 3-nation to more teams (Pacific islands, Argentina as an example).

Italy was allowed into the 6 nations 10 years ago despite being an inferior team, this has led to 85,000 spectators turning up in Milan to watch a rugby game, right in the very heart of European football that is the San Siro stadium.

It takes vision ... (in the meantime, let's play the Wallabies some more shall we .. ad nauseam ..)

Football's a great sport, so is rugby - completely agree with all the people who've said lay off the inferiority complex 'we're better than you' stuff.

Saturday night was awesome for football in this country. We should celebrate that. Sure we won't win the football World Cup. It is without doubt the most heavily contested international competition in the sense of numbers of genuine contenders. In not winning it we'll sit alongside 200 other nations that have also never won it, even football super powers like Spain (currently ranked #2) and Netherlands (#3). But it'll be fantastic being on the world stage in the world's biggest game. I'm sure it will have spin offs for participation and future development of football in NZ.

Don't forget also it's not just one game. We are doing better and better on the world stage - Under 17 men and women, women's teams, and the atmosphere at Phoenix matches is brilliant too.

I hope we (NZ) do in future have to qualify through Asia - I think that would bring a huge amount more genuinely competitive international matches and continue

Yes Rugby has tradition in NZ and we will probably always be closer to the top of the smaller group of genuinely strong rugby nations. It is still our national sport. I really enjoy watching it, but it certainly has challenges - the rules or referees interpretation of them being one. There is no doubt in my mind that rugby will become progresively less dominant in New Zealand than it has been in the past. There are several reasons. One is that we are (thankfully) way past the time when schools stopped boys playing any other winter sport. There are now so many different opportunities - the growth of individual sports for example triathlon, multisport, etc. An increasingly diverse community is also likely to have increasingly diverse interests.

What we should be doing is celebrating all sports and enjoying them all.

Greetings chaps,

1. Nobody cares about soccer in NZ until by a magical fluke we defeat someone and qualify for the WC. All this is a media fueled fuss - had we lost nobody would have cared.

2. NZ won by playing like drity douchebags. Faking and milking the injury time, not allowing any soccer to be played in the last 10 minutes. Part of the game? Sure, maybe. But from NZ? The good, honest, straight up, cheer for the underdog guys?

3. Soccer vs Rugby? Of course rugby dominates. Why? Because few countries in the world play rugby. Most play soccer. Being a big fish in a small pond is so much more attractive to NZers than being a small fish in a big pond. We'd rather be good at something nobody cares about than be bad at something people do care about. And you notice they do care - lots of congratulatory comments from people from all over the world were posted after the article glorifying the win. Do they do the same for the rugby world cup? No, because it doesn't matter to most.

4. Soccer, football, footy? Soccer - no it's actually football, really simple because it's played with your feet. Footy - no that's rugby sorry, calling it footy or football is ridiculous because the players hold the ball in their hands most of the time (when they do manage to keep it from slipping away). True, the only skilled part is scoring by kicking, perhaps that's why it might be mistaken with football.

5. Don't stop playing sport! All sports are good, bad, ugly, dirty, and nice at the same time!

6. The best thing about NZ going to the world cup is that we might actually get to see some games on NZ TV for a change. If they hadn't we'd most likely not be able to do that, because sports we are not good at suck anyway right boys?

IRONYHATER FTW, roger and out!

in reply to Corey S - The Pheonix are lucky to average 8,000 most of the big NPC teams are ahed of this - not including Super 14 teams which double or triple this mark the Warriors are also ahead of this figure

Why cant soccer people just celebrate their teams achievement without having a go at other sports? I know most Rugby people are thrilled for the team

What a fantastic achievement by the All Whites and I bow down to the greatness of Ryan Neilson. But, although I understand everyones points in regards to the 35,000 that turned out to watch the game and the good crowds that turn up to the Phoenix, how on earth, in one night, can football overtake not just rugby, but cricket and league as the top sports in the mindset and importantly emotions of this country. Am i to forget that 28,000 turned out last year for the Warriors prelimenary final v. the Roosters. Or the 40,000 that turn out at eden park for a 20/20 international screaming for the beige.

People are trying to tell me that in the blink of an eye Rory Fallon now means more to the New Zealand public then the likes of Sir Richard or Stacey Jones? Hmmmm...

Football will, for at least the next 200 days, take center stage (as it should) in a vast majority of the main sports news within this country. But once the cup is all over and the hype dies down what will New Zelanders will be spending their time watching the NRL or the A-League?

In terms of both emotion and entertainment, football has to come a long way in this country before it will touch the heights of rugby, league or even cricket. Although there are calls that the new black is white, I tend to agree that there is a hint of beige well in between those two colours. And I think it's about time NZers shut up and just basked in our collective glory and abilty to punch above our weight (no pun indeeded towards future heavy weight champ of the world, David Tua).

But, none the less, go the ALL WHITES,and lets just enjoy being part of the rugby, football, league, cricket, netball, IAAF, hockey, basketball, rowing, triathalon, and many othe rworld cups.

I Never really liked rugby, Soccer is more entertaining and exciting to watch, and well done the All Whites! I wouldn't be surprised if there is a change in the sports