Editor,
like many citizens of the Trans-Tasman republic I was keenly interested in the All Black-Wallaby game last night at Stadium Australia and listened to the live broadcast as I drove around town. An ABC radio commentator on 2BL quipped that it might be Eales' strategy to score just before the final whistle to prevent the All Blacks scoring next - and in fact that is how it turned out. It could have gone either way.
About 1 A.M. in the evening I approached Kings Cross with a passenger in the front seat only to have orange juice flung into his face through the window by two people dressed in black. Around the corner, the taxi rank was overwhelmed by a group of fifty or so young male adults mostly in black who were in an angry, defiant, and agressive mood giving everyone the index finger and pissed off that taxi drivers were avoiding them - which of course they were, not wishing to become casualties or have their cars damaged.
Outside the Stadium there was no triumphalism among Australian fans and, despite the apparent resolution ot 'the Tampa' affair, I was ashamed to be a New Zealander.
Adam Bogacki, Sydney.
afb3@primus.com.au