It’s your fearless faithful leader here. Congratulations to the mighty WBF Steamers on a brilliant year on the pitch and a damn good one off it. The BOP Mafia have also been fantastic, a great website, great support, and a great name for Waikato (Dirty Scumbags – don’t get me started).

Saint Craig Ross of Mt Maunganui was responsible for the resurrection of HoriBOP and the introduction of HonkiBOP, wondering all along if letting loose a 172 kg, 47 year old loose cannon with little regard for rules, safety or wankers (mostly Waikato supporters) was a good idea. I admit Hori and Honki seemed to have a miscommunication and/or misunderstanding of direction and/or goals to achieve – however they had some great after match functions especially due to our now famous and soon to be formidable home record. We Will Never Be Beaten At Home – I propose this motto to the BOP Mafia and hope that it will be ratified at our 1^st official meeting.

The Welcome Bay Tavern (owned by Steamers manager, Craig Morris) has agreed to be the glorious Headquarters for the marauding Mafia meetings. In time, I can see the beautiful pub becoming a shrine to the WBF Steamers as things develop. I will enlist JP (who I shall propose for sainthood for his brilliant piece on the Dirty Scumbag Whoarethey) of Rotorua to ferret out a suitable spot for the Southern Sector  and a Capo for the Eastern Sector. I have someone in mind but he truly is such a menace to society, it even bothers HoriBOP.

This year went well, Jim and Karin Smylie put their money where their mouths are. Bob Clarkson and manager Barry Andrews did a bloody great job at getting Luigi’s (WBF Stadium) up and running, Craig Ross whipped his sword out and slashed and burned his way to record crowd attendances and brilliant atmospheres and (although I’m not sure how much yet) a profit. The crowd at Rotorua for the Northland match were bloody vocal, brilliant and true blue when they gave our boys a standing ovation at half time. Vern Cotter was inspirational as was the best captain in the country (bar none) Clayton McMillan. It is truly bullshit that he was overlooked for Super 12 and would have definitely given the Chiefs the “follow me and die for the team” feeling they deperately needed. Joe Schmitt, Craig Morris & Keith Roberts supported Vern superbly and ex-All Black Kevin Schuler also put his hand up to help out.

Canterbury and Wellington treated Hori and Honki like Kings (they know class when they see it).

Next week I’ll tell some stories of the times we had around the grounds of New Zealand.