The New Zealand doctor who turned his surgery into a brothel has had so little business he may have to go back to treating patients himself, a newspaper reported on Monday. The girls at Whalers — the only brothel in New Zealand’s Far North — have not exactly been flat out since Dr Neil Benson opened the doors last month.
All Black flanker Chris Masoe took a financial hit on Tuesday to add to his embarrassment after a scuffle in which reportedly he burst into tears when team-mate Tana Umaga hit him with a woman’s handbag. The New Zealand Rugby Union fined Masoe 910 and found him guilty of hitting a man in a Christchurch bar early on Sunday morning.
The Wellington Hurricanes have sounded the battle cry ”Get McCaw” as they set their plan to target the All Blacks captain in the Super 14 rugby final against the Canterbury Crusaders at Jade Stadium in Christchurch on Saturday. The Crusaders have played in seven of the past eight finals, and won five of them.
A New Zealand man with no arms has pleaded not guilty to dangerous driving after police stopped him for speeding on a major highway. The police officer who stopped the car on March 23 noticed the driver’s seat was reclined and the driver had his foot up on the dashboard. Then he saw Colin Smith (31) had no arms.
The Wellington Hurricanes became the first team to qualify for the Super 14 rugby final when a massive 50m penalty by Jimmy Gopperth secured a tough 16-14 win over the New South Wales Waratahs on Friday. They must now wait for the outcome of Saturday’s match between defending champions the Crusaders and the Bulls to determine who they will play in the final.
The Canterbury Crusaders have gone for speed and the Northern Bulls for height as they finalised their squads on Thursday for this week’s Super 14 rugby semifinal in Christchurch. The only change to the Bulls side which thumped the Stormers 43-10 to scrape into the semifinals sees the return of powerful lock Bakkies Botha.
A magnitude-7,4 earthquake struck in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of the Kermadec Islands, at 10.39am GMT on Tuesday, the United States Geological Survey reported on its website. The quake — which hit at a depth of 148km — was located about 290km south, south-west of Raoul Island, in the Kermadec Islands chain.
Richie McCaw was on Saturday named the new All Blacks rugby captain to succeed the now retired Tana Umaga. McCaw has been the only heir apparent to Umaga for the past year, and his appointment, announced by All Blacks coach Graham Henry, had been expected.
Peter Jackson, New Zealand Oscar-winning director of The Lord of the Rings, has denied he is working on a remake of the class 1954 World War II movie The Dam Busters. Jackson’s only two confirmed upcoming movies were Halo this year, of which he is executive producer, and The Lovely Bones, which he would direct next year.
The Wellington Hurricanes fanned their weak hopes of a home semifinal in the Super 14 when they beat the Queensland Reds 26-22 on Friday in the opening match of the 13th round. The Reds scored three tries to two and were the better team, but lost for the ninth time this season.
A massive earthquake with a magnitude of 7,8 rocked the island nation of Tonga on Thursday, triggering a panic evacuation in a New Zealand town after tsunami warnings were briefly issued for the South Pacific. Although the warnings were withdrawn within two hours, hundreds of people in the New Zealand coastal town of Gisborne, more than 2 200km from the quake’s epicentre, fled their homes.
The Canterbury Crusaders have surprisingly rested captain and star flanker Richie McCaw for their crunch Super 14 rugby match against the Northern Bulls in Pretoria this weekend, but denied a recurrence of head injuries. McCaw said it was tough watching from the sidelines but the break was a chance to repair niggling injuries.
Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, who fell out of a palm tree and was later involved in a jet-ski crash while vacationing in Fiji, has been airlifted to a hospital in New Zealand, local media reported on Sunday. No further details on the 62-year-old rocker’s condition were immediately available.
The on-fire New South Wales Waratahs will have to overcome rain as well as the notorious ”House of Pain” if they are to beat the Otago Highlanders and hit the front of the Super 14 rugby competition on Friday. But it is the Western Stormers in South Africa who hold the key to how the 11th round will pan out.
John ”Johnny” Checketts, a World War II fighter pilot who crippled at least 14 enemy planes and twice survived being shot down, died last week at his New Zealand home, a newspaper reported on Monday. He was 94. Checketts died in the southern city of Christchurch on Friday.
Super 14 rugby coaches will have their calculators out this weekend as the unbeaten Canterbury Crusaders head a congested pack of 12 teams still in with a chance of making the play-offs with four matches to play. In a battle of former All Black coaches, the Crusaders should be far too powerful for the winless Western Force in Perth.
The Canterbury Crusaders stamped their authority on the Super 14 rugby competition with a record breaking 16th straight win as a bottleneck of teams just outside the top four found themselves running out of time to cement a semifinal spot.
Auckland Blues centre Rua Tipoki was suspended for 16 weeks on Saturday after being found guilty of striking Western Force flyhalf James Hilgendorf in their Super 14 rugby match. The punishment, handed down at a judicial committee hearing, is the heaviest ever imposed on a New Zealand player by a Sanzar panel.
Hundreds of rare snails were given their marching orders on Wednesday by the New Zealand government after an eight month battle between conservationists and a mining company. Up to 250 powelliphanta augustus snails — only discovered in 1996 — live on a mountainous ridge containing five million tonnes of coal worth about NZ$400-million.
A South African grandmother was jailed for nearly eight and a half years on Tuesday after being caught trying to smuggle cocaine hidden in garden gnomes into New Zealand. Linda Martin (52) was sentenced in the Auckland High Court, after being caught with more than three kilograms of cocaine at Auckland Airport two years ago.
The Canterbury Crusaders remained unbeaten and the expansion Western Force stayed winless as the ninth round of rugby union’s Super 14 provided both blockbuster and B-grade attractions. The Crusaders edged the New South Wales Waratahs 17-11 in a star-studded cliffhanger which had hype and intensity but lacked the final plot twist which might have made it more memorable.
The New South Wales Waratahs and the Canterbury Crusaders will settle the Super 14 rugby pecking order on Friday and nothing will be more crucial than the head-to-head battle between flankers Richie McCaw and Phil Waugh. McCaw, the All Black captain-in-waiting, has faced a barrage of media criticism this week.
The Canterbury Crusaders shrugged off a midseason bye to beat the Wellington Hurricanes 20-11 on Saturday and retain their unbeaten record in rugby’s Super 14. Soft first-half tries to hooker Corey Flynn and halfback Andy Ellis gave the Crusaders a 17-6 half-time lead.
The unbeaten Canterbury Crusaders face fellow competition leaders the Wellington Hurricanes this weekend on the first leg of a two-week campaign that should unravel the cluttered top end of the Super 14 table. The following week they play the New South Wales Waratahs, who co-lead the championship with the Hurricanes.
The NSW Waratahs’ demolition of an inept Auckland Blues caterpulted them from third to the top of the Super 14 ladder at the weekend joining the Wellington Hurricanes who produced another late win, this time over the Sharks. The unbeaten Canterbury Crusaders, who had a bye, slipped to third but only one point behind and with a game in hand, while the ACT Brumbies clung on to a two-point win over the Waikato Chiefs.
The Canterbury Crusaders endured an anxious mid-race pitstop in rugby union’s Super 14 on the weekend, sitting idle as New South Wales and Wellington passed them and the ACT Brumbies closed in on them from behind. The Brumbies’ thrilling 28-26 win over the Waikato Chiefs on Saturday, inspired by a man-of-the-match performance from captain Stirling Mortlock, helped them consolidate fourth place and move within four points of the Crusaders.
The Wellington Hurricanes overtook the Canterbury Crusaders as leaders of the Super 14 rugby competition on Friday by beating South Africa’s Sharks 23-17 to start off the seventh round. The Crusaders had a bye as the regular season reached its halfway point.
New Zealand television network C4 apologised on Thursday for showing an episode of South Park that featured a bleeding statue of the Virgin Mary, and pledged not to repeat the episode. Roman Catholic bishops and church members condemned the decision to air the show, and on Thursday dismissed the channel’s ”so-called sincere apology” as ”self-serving”.
The Wellington Hurricanes return from overseas to confront a South African opponent on home turf on Friday at the start of the seventh round of rugby union’s Super 14. In the absence of the competition leaders, the Canterbury Crusaders — who have a bye — the Hurricanes have the chance to move into first place if they can dispatch the Sharks.
Stephen Fleming led New Zealand to an emphatic 10-wicket victory over the West Indies on the fourth day of the second cricket Test, to wrap up the series 2-0 with a game to spare in Wellington on Monday. In terms of overs bowled, the win was achieved in just three days of cricket with only foul weather forcing play into the fourth day.
The Auckland Blues tore away the predictable facade of Super 14 rugby over the weekend, while the Canterbury Crusaders had their lack of depth exposed as the competition neared the half-way stage. The Crusaders remain at the top of the league, and the Wellington Hurricanes relied on a last minute try and a questionable decision to cling to second.
The powerful Canterbury Crusaders will put their self-confidence to the test against the lowly Cats on Friday, trying to strengthen their hold on the Super 14 rugby championship while resting six front-line players, including captain Richie McCaw. The second-placed Wellington Hurricanes remain in South African to play the Bulls.