The Silver Fern

@voodoo said in AWL's octagon-shaped midlife crisis:

Mate, if you go from 123kgs to 95kgs, you'll feel like a completely new man!

Yeah 6 foot 5 and being quite solid I've always hidden weight quite easily, but even at 13kg down I notice a lot more energy and stamina and I've got a lot more definition in my arms and shoulders from the grappling aspects of it.

I got named in the tournament team at a masters sporting event i went to recently, so its already paying dividends in other sporting endeavors too.

Cheers for the support team. It's actually really fun training. I used to dread it to start with because I was overweight and unfit - I've dropped 13kg since August last year, but now I look forward to it each week.

I train a couple of days a week in the gym, and am doing a lot of running, skipping and punching/kicking bag work at home.

Despite its brutality, it's been really good for my flexibility and general body conditioning. I'm constantly covered in bruises on my torso and limbs, have had a couple of black eyes, tore my MCL in my elbow (didn't tap out in time on an armbar) and I think I've got a broken toe at the moment (rib kick which hit an elbow). Other than that, I feel probably in better shape than I've been for a good decade.

Hey all,

Long time reader of this part of the forum, first time poster.

About this time last year, after several years of following the UFC, I signed up at a local MMA gym to do a couple of training sessions a week. I signed up with a mate (who has since left the gym) because we always used to sit there drinking piss and watching the fights saying that it looked like it'd be a cool sport to learn. He then went and signed up to a gym so I followed. At the time I figured there are worse places to have a midlife crisis, and it's cheaper and less weird than buying an MX5 roadster.

I've never been a brawler or fighter, and had done no training in any other combat sports prior to this outside of a few boxing and self-defence sessions when I was at Police college. I'm 38, so was one of the older guys in the class, with most being 18 - 25, and having had several years of experience in the sport, or things such as kickboxing or BJJ prior to joining. After a few months of feeling like a fish out of water, things started clicking, and I was able to progress from the wider class (there's a variety of ages and skill levels) to full contact sparring with some of the more experienced, but smaller, guys. I also graded to a yellow belt (karate belt system, but somewhat tailored to including all aspects of MMA). My next belt grading will be later this year.

Fast-forward to the start of this year, and my trainer asked me if I wanted to enter a proper MMA fight this year. It hadn't really ever crossed my mind, I was happy enough just doing the training, but I was really enjoying the full contact sparring, more than I ever thought I would. I had a couple of crises in my personal life last year, so sparring at the gym was a fantastic way to let out stress. I also found there's also something quite therapeutic about being punched in the face or kicked in the ribs.

I'm 6 foot 5, and currently weighing in at 110kg, but my trainer has been unable to match a fight for me despite trying at several grass roots events. Apparently it's hard to find like for like matches in amateur heavyweight MMA, because it's effectively an open weight class. I spoke to him last week about it, and he suggested I try to cut weight to light-heavyweight division, where finding a comparable match would be a lot easier because there are more fighters. Light heavyweight is circa 95kg, so it'll involve a 15kg weight loss to get there. I've definitely got 10kg of weight I could lose, so as much as anything, it just feels like a goal to try and get there.

I figured I'd chuck something up on here for a bit of a time capsule and to promote accountability to myself, plus sharing any milestones. I'm not really very active around the boards these days, and unsure if anyone actually follows this part of the forum very much, but the end goal of this will be to post a video of me fighting (and hopefully not getting the shit beat out of me) at some point in the next six months.

Feel free to chip in with words of wisdom, advice or just random MMA chat. I find the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu aspect of the training fascinating. It's probably the weakest part of my current skillset, but it's the one which interests me the most. So if there's any BJJ practitioners in here, I'd love to hear from you.

@canefan said in NRL 2022:

@mariner4life said in NRL 2022:

@aucklandwarlord said in NRL 2022:

Jones appears to have named a team without a whole heap of surprises. Wasn't expecting a reinvention of the wheel, but I was at least expecting Shaun Johnson to be playing club footy somewhere in South Auckland this weekend. He's been woeful and isn't deserving of his starting spot.

It's the same day David!!

Same team. Same holes. Jazz at prop. Fucking Berry?

Do we have anyone left to jump in? Personally if we have some promising youth players I'd rather see them play. Having said that I don't think it is reasonable to expect Stacey to come in and chage everyone. If he can try to instill some pride in performance and some accountability that will be a start

Aaron Pene or Elisia Katoa could at least slot in on the bench, bringing Bunty or Dunamis Lui in to start at prop and Jazz could move to back into lock or similar. That would, if nothing else, add some more size into our pack. At this point we've got nothing to lose - why not give Pene some more game time, given he was signed for his potential.

Jones appears to have named a team without a whole heap of surprises. Wasn't expecting a reinvention of the wheel, but I was at least expecting Shaun Johnson to be playing club footy somewhere in South Auckland this weekend. He's been woeful and isn't deserving of his starting spot.

@Bovidae said in NRL 2022:

@aucklandwarlord said in NRL 2022:

The owner seems like a real ballbag - why is he even in the pub arguing with the players? Then we hamstring the club's salary cap by releasing our best prop.

I still can't believe Robinson (and George) did this. Robinson is supposedly a successful businessman but why didn't they call Lodge's bluff. He has been vocal in not wanting to move to NZ, so would likely have not taken up his option for 2023. Let's see who really was the alpha male and had the balls.

I am assuming if the player asks for a release the conditions for the salary cap are different.

Given they had to pay him out his full contract, they should have absolutely called his bluff. Tell him he's moving back to NZ and will be playing for the Mount Albert Lions if his attitude is shit. Either that, or he walks away without a payout and is free to play where he wants.

@bayimports said in NRL 2022:

Do they take on a completely new model that doesnt focus on defence aka the Walkers? Well possibly yes, we can't defend now, it would mean we need a functioning attack though, which we also don't have.

The Walkers were keen when we inexplicably chose Brown instead. I think the Warriors need to go back to them, cap in hand, realising that they now have zero bargaining chips, and lock them in for a couple of seasons. At worst, they're shit and we suck for the next two seasons, but we've sucked for the last two, and we now have a dented salary cap as well. We'll almost certainly lose Walsh at the end of next season too.

We're worst in the NRL for defence at the moment, so I guess we probably can't go much worse anyway. At least make our attack exciting.

@mariner4life said in NRL 2022:

@aucklandwarlord can't agree on Kearney, he was so very ordinary and needed to go, probably a lot earlier.

Jazz gone stitched up being played at prop. You're right he tries really hard, but him being penned in to the 17 every week shows just how limited our roster is.

If they were going to fire him, they should have done so in the 2019 season. I felt that even though we were 2 from 6 or something that Kearney was faring okay with what was thrown at him at the time (stuck offshore in a pandemic, players wanting to go home etc). We had a decent 2018 season under him too, but I agree he was probably ordinary in the scheme of NRL coaches, but he was still ultimately better than what he was replaced with in Brown.

How Shaun Johnson remains in the side is beyond me. I genuinely thought he had left the field against Manly because I didn't see him for about twenty minutes. Send that guy back to reserve grade. I'd rather we copped the wooden spoon from here but blooded some new players so we can hit the ground running next season that stick it out with the same players who aren't cutting it.

I've been a diehard Warriors supporter since the beginning but it's hard to think of a worse time for the club than right now.

The owner seems like a real ballbag - why is he even in the pub arguing with the players? Then we hamstring the club's salary cap by releasing our best prop.

We fired Kearney, who was faring okay, given the situation he found himself in and took on a bum of a coach with a 20 something percent win record who, unsurprisingly, turned out to be a bum and ended up with a similar win percentage.

Jazz Tevaga is hearty as hell, and arguably tries the hardest week in, week out. But he's 98kg and is our starting prop. I'm picking there isn't a lighter prop in the comp this year, or in recent years. How are our forwards meant to dominate when they're 15 - 20kg light?

Stacey Jones is a club legend, but that doesn't translate to being a good coach. I'd prefer we cleaned the current regime out and got the Walker brothers in. We need to take a chance, because what we've been doing hasn't worked in the past.

Even more frustrating from an NRL-wide perspective is that contracts don't appear to be worth the paper they're written on. Guys signing with a New Zealand club and then saying that they're not willing to relocate to NZ and being granted immediate releases. Payne Haas being signed on potential by the Broncos for less than he's currently worth and now trying to renegotiate his contract halfway through because he thinks he's being underpaid. The contract/agent system is well and truly broken.

@canefan said in NRL 2022:

@KiwiMurph said in NRL 2022:

@mariner4life said in NRL 2022:

Brown is a shit coach

The thing is Brown was a shit coach at Newcastle for years.

Why did the Warriors think he would suddenly turn into a good coach?

The Walker brothers were dead keen to take up the reins.

https://www.ipswichjets.com/news/paul-kent-ipswich-jets-are-changing-way-rugby-league-played/#:~:text=Along with his brother Shane,turning conventional thinking upside down.

They are untested, but done very well at QLD Cup level. I fail to see how they could be any worse than Brown.

https://www.nrl.com/news/2020/07/16/warriors-ceo-why-walker-brothers-are-in-coaching-frame/

It's like George almost panicked and went for safe picks.

https://ipswichnewstoday.com.au/sport/2021/05/06/these-brothers-are-nrl-coaches-in-waiting/

As far as I can see they are still waiting for a chance. FFS we need to take a chance and do something different if we are to have any chance of getting back to something resembling the glory days

They were my preferred pick back when Brown got selected. I love the Warriors, but for a club who are prone to doing the same old thing and expecting the same old results, I thought that selecting an untried product like the Walker brothers gave us a chance to do something different and hopefully get a different result.

As M4L noted, Brown was a woeful coach before joining the Warriors - how did we expect he was going to be anything different here?

Pretty grim watching last night. Hard to remember a worse half of footy since some of those massacres the Kiwis used to take against that star-studded Kangaroo team in the early 2000s

@nzzp said in Blues vs Moana Pasifika 2022:

Great argument for a twenty minute red

I'm a fairly casual observer of super rugby these days, never been a huge fan of the blues, but definitely not a fan of that decision.

Disclaimer: I also don't know the finer nuances of the new red card rules, so I'm more than happy to be told my opinion is stupid.

Surely Clark is the more vulnerable player in the air, and the ref using the justification that "he was reckless and mistimed it because he moved from the chargedown action to trying to protect himself mid air". I'd have thought that when he realised there was going to be a collision, it's natural reflex to protect oneself and that's not hugely indicative of anything more than a guy not wanting to land on his head.

Surely at some point in contact sport, you have to accept that unfortunate contact does happen. Much like a head clash. Penalty at best and move on.

The other cringey thing was the commentators being apologetic about Covid-19 being the reason for there being 200 people in the crowd for something like South Africa v Bangaldesh, as if it would have been a sell out without any restrictions.

I expect NZ games would have had an okay attendance, but the others?

@bones said in 2022 Women's Cricket World Cup in New Zealand:

Is the fielding always this atrocious?

@bones said in 2022 Women's Cricket World Cup in New Zealand:

Is the fielding always this atrocious?

I watched three of the first maybe six games on my third screen while at work. I reckon I saw more dropped catches in those three games than about five seasons worth of watching mens cricket. It was incredibly substandard fielding.

I think I saw two sixes across three games.

I like that the sport is getting mainstream coverage, but the above is also the reason why I doubt it'll ever come close to parity with mens cricket.

I dont understand how Foster got the job in the first place.

Has everyone forgotten his prior history of poor coaching calls spanning back to the mid-2000's when, as well as ignoring other Steamers players, he snubbed Glen Jackson for David Hill?

The BoP Mafia haven't forgotten, that's for sure.

I had a 52 point buffer in my fantasy football match-up with my opponent having just Derrick Henry and Josh Allen to play for the week. They ended up scoring 60 odd fantasy points between them - Henry's 75 yard touchdown was particularly unhelpful to my cause. The guy is a beast.

Went to a few of those Counties games as a kid in the mid-late 1990s because my Dad grew up there and played age-group for Counties. That team they had with Lomu, Vidiri, the Marsh brothers, Errol Brain, Jim Coe etc was incredible.

Aside from the Steamers winning the shield, the game in Waikato where they came back from 20 something points down in the semi was one of the best games I've seen live. The atmosphere in the terraces was electric.

In Evans' defence, if you're gonna go to the bin for punching, may as well wind up on it

Next year is our year...

This Lodge performance feels like he'll do something in the next 20 minutes which will see him miss the games 1 to 3 of next season.

I like him for the most part, but this is how I feel whenever Matt Lodge throws borderline offloads in the tackle while falling to the ground a few metres short of the line