I am a BOP supporter, no doubt a quick reflection of our performances in the NPC in later seasons should no doubt engender me with your sympathies already. I am disgruntled, one could say rather upset with the Chiefs Super 12 squad that has been announced today, it is - quite frankly appalling, the incredible Waikato bias towards their reserve and injured players (note I am saying reserve and injured players here) over those in other provinces (notably BOP) is quite frankly disturbing.

I am sick of supporting the Chiefs, the haplessly under performing, underachieving, never made the semis and best finish 6th Chiefs. When one is a Bay supporter it is difficult enough to support one team that routinely struggles at the bottom of the table, let alone two. I am sick of calls from the Chiefs for us in the provinces to get out there and support them, their horrific advertising campaigns, their wondrous banners in the middle of the countryside, their feeble attempts to whip up support with the words "loyal" and the like.

Why on earth should we remain loyal to a franchise who's only loyalty seems to be towards it's precious Waikato players??? The bias towards players from the Waikato verges on the ridiculous, the fact that two injured players who didn't set foot in the NPC this year can get offered Chiefs contracts, the fact that Waikato players who routinely sit on the bench and can't even dictate a place in the starting line-up being picked ahead of BOP players who performed week-in, week-out in the NPC is beyond me. Let us note that Waikato finished 3rd equal in this years NPC, and gain 19 Chiefs players, BOP finish 5th, and have 4.

Dave Duley, who for two years was in the Bay's starting line-up (and often then not as an incumbent) never got a Chiefs contract, a quick transfer to Waikato and a healthy season on the bench seemed to fix all that, indeed, it seems that the white hot competition of the Waikato reserve bench seems a better place to groom  talent for the super 12 than actual playing time in the NPC.

I am sick of the WRU, sick of their hapless effort to engender themselves as a union with a bastion of competency, sick of their 15 year old Retravision Rockettes that get any red-blooded male in the crowd blushing with embarrassment rather than due to a rush of blood to the head or other bodily organs, sick of that idiot possum with his embarrassingly high-pitched squeals that give the impression that he emasculated himself with that sodden annoying chainsaw some years pervious. It's almost embarrassing to attend Chiefs games for the aforementioned two reasons above, yet alone their performances on the field. And what reward do us suffering BOP fans get for supporting the Chiefs, what pay-back, we get to see our best players toil away as amateurs and slog their guts out for the Bay to retain first division survival, and then in the first season they really stand up, really make people take notice and perform they get rewarded with nothing. We then see some of our best players leave and go over-seas to places like Japan as they're sick of giving their guts for rugby and not making any money, we get to see our players slighted with double standard selection policy's that mean if your from Waikato we'll let you play, but if your from the Bay you wont. Case in point - Nicky Collins, whose Chiefs contract wasn't renewed as he was injured and  "they couldn't select him on only 3 NPC games" never mind that Ranby and Roger Randle haven't played an NPC game this year either yet have been selected, end result Collin's goes over-seas, the Bay loses some more of it's already sparse talent.

The WRU is doing a wonderful job to alienate itself from the other Chiefs provinces, they've already barred themselves up in their ivory tower in Hamilton for the 2004 season, it's even nicer to see stand-out performers like McQuiod - who had a stellar season at 2nd - 5 to be slighted for the injured Ranby, or the bench sitting Maisey. Huge impact players like Lutui not being picked in favour of Linklater, are you kidding me??? Nili Latu not being picked in favour of some chap from Auckland who isn't even in the Chiefs franchise area??

So that's it really, I'm sick of the Chiefs constantly under-performing, constantly picking the same old under performing players, consistently having to support more Waikato reserves spending even more time sitting on benches while following the fortunes of our sparse BOP representative's in Chiefs colours. No doubt this year we can look forward to even more embarrassing defeats, once again being the worst super 12 franchise in NZ. Hell, I might  just start supporting Auckland in the super 12 and BOP in the NPC, that way I wont have to listen to that idiot possum from his cherry-picker and at least don't have to look at cheer-leaders fresh picked from Melville intermediate...

Yours in various states of discontent.
James Penniall.
Member of the BOP Mafia
http://www.bopmafia.com/