Wahoo! Let's hear it for "The Zoo".
For the uninitiated, that's the tag they've slapped on the west stand at Forsyth Barr Stadium, designated pretty much as a student-only area in a blatant marketing attempt to get the scarfies back to the footy.
And it's worked; well, for one game at least.
When I first read about plans to call it The Zoo, the conservative side of me thought it was a pretty dumb name, one with great potential to backfire should the students live up to its inference and have to be brought under control.
But on Saturday night there was no such embarrassment. In fact, it should be fairly stated that The Zoo's exuberant occupiers added an enormous amount to the pulsating atmosphere as the Highlanders and Crusaders went toe to toe for 80-something minutes.
It's been many years since the scarfies have been such an influential part of rugby crowds in Dunedin, having largely deserted Carisbrook for the past few seasons. But they were back to their colourful, deafening best on Saturday night and it was great to see.
• My term "80-something minutes" acknowledges the farce that surrounded the closing stages of a heart-stopping game with no-one, including the referee, seeming to know how much time was left to go.
It's obviously not a good time to be advocating for some extra spending on rugby, but surely the stadium needs a proper scoreboard. Just why the Sky TV feed of the game shown on the two big screens didn't have the same scoreline and time clock as home viewers see, showing in the top left hand corner throughout the game, puzzles me.
Instead we were shown, only intermittently, the score and the game time which, it appears, was done by someone in the stadium.
All that resulted in was one giant shemozzle, which could easily have cost the Highlanders the game. I thought the referee was always the sole judge of time but clearly that's changed.
• My thanks to all those involved in last Friday night's Taieri Toastmasters charity festival debate in Mosgiel's Coronation Hall.
I have to admit to great trepidation after agreeing last year to be on one of the teams, given I had never taken part in a public debate before.
And those feelings of unease were not helped when I learned a few weeks back that the moot was "marriage - is it still worthwhile?" and I was to be taking the negative view, quite a challenge for someone who celebrated his 39th wedding anniversary last month!However, I discovered on Friday night I was in capable hands. My team, ably led by Lindsay Wright and well supported by Ngaire Sutherland, were able to convince the judges, by the narrowest of margins, that we had made a more convincing argument than the positive team of Anna Campbell, Kate Wilson and Denis Aitken.
It was all good fun and far less stressful than I had feared, thanks to a very accommodating and responsive crowd. But, despite the result, I have already resolved to retire undefeated from the debating ranks and leave it to the experts in future.
