My knowledgeable SBS colleague, Phillip Micallef, put up an interesting story on the World Game website on Tuesday headed “Kiwis make Hay while the suns shines”, ostensibly an interview with Waitakere United captain Danny Hay ahead of the club’s Club World Cup qualifying playoff against Adelaide United in Tokyo next week.

I feel a sense of déjà vu with the upcoming Australia-South Africa series. The Channel Nine commentators, noticeably aware of the possible downturn in ratings due to New Zealand’s dire performances, reassured viewers that the Kiwis were merely an entree to the main course of the Proteas. Haven’t we heard that before?

The Test season for 2008 has closed, and one poor game in Cardiff last October has not dethroned New Zealand from the summit of world rugby. The results we have seen this year is a form of savage redemption for the All Black faithful.

285-123. That’s the combined score of the matches that the three Southern Hemisphere nations – New Zealand, Australia and South Africa – competed in against their Northern Hemisphere rivals these past weeks.

Hopefully Adelaide United can beat the New Zealand team in the FIFA Club World Cup. Then the challenge will be Gamba Osaka. But not only did Osaka won the AFC Champions League, they defeated Australian opposition four times in the process.

The Wallabies have received the best draw imaginable for the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. If results go according to seedings during the pool stages of the tournament, the Wallabies cannot run into the defending champion Springboks or the top-ranked All Blacks until the final.

Former All Black Daniel Braid has only just landed but already he’s eying the job as Queensland’s Minister of Defence.

Ricky Stuart may be feeling the heat but Wayne Bennett and Craig Bellamy are adamant they don’t want his job, and even feel some empathy with the embattled Kangaroos coach.

Craig Bellamy is ready for one of the toughest challenges of his coaching career, rebuilding a Storm side shattered by NRL grand final defeat and post-season departures.

Only now is Brett Lee recovering some of the strength he lost on an arduous and often emotionally draining tour of India.

On a perfect batting strip where first-innings totals of 500 are common, New Zealand self-destructed for 270 and never recovered in the second Test against Australia at Adelaide Oval.

Less than month after their foiled tour of India, Australia has regained some sort of ascendancy in the build up to the eagerly anticipated Test series against an in-form South African outfit.

With football increasing, or argumentatively starting, its presence on the international stage, and with the AFL looking to grow the game off Australia’s shores, is a team representing the rest of the world the way to go?

The 13th test win of their year marks the most calendar test victories achieved by any side in history – as New Zealand notched their third ever touring Grand Slam.

The International Rugby Board (IRB) have confirmed that southern hemisphere sides have secured the top four positions in Monday’s pool draw for the 2011 Rugby World Cup (RWC).

Australia’s Mike Hussey averages 203 in his four Test matches at Adelaide Oval so it’s no surprise he loves the place.

The All Blacks have scaled another mini-Everest, completing New Zealand’s third rugby grand slam by effectively negating England’s spoiling tactics at Twickenham today.

Wallabies five-eighth Matt Giteau has been offered a staggering $10 million dollars to play club rugby in France. Bayonne, the club that lured Craig Gower from NRL club Penrith, has approached Giteau with a four-year deal that would make him the highest-paid player across either rugby code.

In an era where winning the World Cup is everything, the fact the All Blacks go into Saturday’s match against England here at Twickenham on the verge of a grand slam may not seem like a big deal. But don’t tell that to New Zealand captain Richie McCaw.

New Zealand’s last recognised pair of Brendon McCullum and captain Daniel Vettori have the task ahead of them on Saturday if they are to scale the peak of a first innings 500 that has been so vital for combatants in previous Adelaide Oval Tests.