100 reasons why we love rugby

In response to the 100 reasons why we love rugby league in Saturday's Sydney Morning Herald, here's 100 reasons why Monday Maul loves rah-rah:

Dave Brockhoff. Test matches actually mean something. No one has written: "Rugby was the winner" - until now. The Rat pies at Rat Park. No Kings Cross shootings. The World Cup is an old soccer trophy. Field goals mean something. The haka. Conversations with Ben Perkins. The gibberish before NSW-Queensland games. Buddha Handy and his wrestling singlet.

Lunch with Nick Farr-Jones at the Nippon Club. Being in New Zealand when the All Blacks lose. Bomber the kicking-tee dog. Fort Fumble. Players calling referees "Sir". George Ayoub. The green frogs at the Millner Field canteen. Vikings v Shamrocks. No one actually wears leather patches. Campo. Campo's quotes. Campo upsetting everyone. Campo laughing it off. Bordeaux oysters.

Tussling with Phil Wilkins for the lead in the SMH tips panel. Scott Johnson when doing the New Zealand poxy island routine. The craic of Dublin. It never claims to be the greatest game of all. Nick Farr-Jones meeting Ringo Starr in Monaco (ask NFJ). What other sport produces the Hammer from Kiama? The laws don't make sense. Tah Man.

Wristy le Roux's peek-a-boo photographs. Eddie Jones press conferences. Watching Fast Eddie give someone the "stink eye". Murray Mexted's bizarre commentating. Nooky Tindall. Tonga beating Australia in 1973. Spike Milligan's a big fan. Long lunches with Mark Ella. Short lunches with Ella. Any lunch with Ella. No one in Australia really caring when the Wallabies lose. Campo's "Hail Mary" pass to Tim Horan in 1991. Fab Fenton.

The steak sandwiches at Southern Districts. The SFS pies. Tom Richards. The lunatics on the mike at University Oval. Buddha Handy lighting up his face with Chartreuse. Dave Brockhoff (the legend deserves a second mention). The Bledisloe Cup disappearing for a decade. The Bledisloe Cup being named after someone who had no interest in the game. Knowing what physical acts have occurred with the cup used as a prop.

The pre-Test function at Dunedin's Speights Brewery. Waking next morning still in the brewery. Bluff oysters. Players have two-syllable-plus vocabularies. Coaches too - sometimes. 4am Chippy Lane in Cardiff - chips with curry sauce a specialty. Hearing The Land of My Fathers in Cardiff. La Marseillaise in Paris. Scotland the Brave in Edinburgh. The south of France. The luge at Rotorua (pre helmets). Stan Pilecki. John Eales complaining that nobody calls him by the nickname "nobody".

The game being a nonsense, but a serious nonsense. Tony Shaw. Shaw's 50th birthday invitation, which included "Wrestling togs are optional". Robin Williams meeting Jonah Lomu and telling onlookers: "Quickly! Tell the other villagers we go now!" Being there for the 1991 and 1999 World Cup triumphs. Bob Dwyer giving it to a referee. "Wallaby Bob" McMaster - wrestling's greatest ref. A Chinese-Midori lunch with Jeffrey Sayle. Sayle's kookaburra laugh. Nude Penrith training sessions. Australia v France, 1987, Concord. Flip Westhuizen. Subbies footy.

The mascot of the first Wallabies in 1908 being a carpet snake called Bertie. Australia almost originally called "The Rabbits". Steve Merrick. Kings Bar, Le Grande Motte, French Riviera, ask for Christy. Nugget May. It produced the worst hospital pass in history - Peter FitzSimons to Phil Scarr, NSW v Auckland, Eden Park, 1990. Classic player-coach conversations such as between Penrith coach Fab Fenton (impressed with the fitness work of his first-grade prop): "You obviously know the difference between fat and cholesterol" and the prop's response: "Don't know about that, coach, I've never woken up with a cholesterol."

ARU chief "Smokin" Joe French conducting press conferences in his pyjamas. Nelson Mandela in a Springbok jersey. Wallaby tours provide an opportunity to visit Mandela's cell on Robben Island. Watching Springbok fans hand their guns in at Johannesburg Airport. The Herald Cup flattened by a fruit truck on Parramatta Road. A night out with Dan Crowley on the Riviera. Actually remembering it. Watching Clive Woodward lose the plot. Ken Elphick. Concord Oval. Meeting more than 7000 All Black trialists in the past 20 years.

And finally, a Wallabies tour doesn't mean six weeks in Leeds.

- © Fairfax NZ News