Rugby

  • Despite lots of player barfing, Roos take rugby’s Four Nations

    Posted: November 20th, 2011 - 3:24pm by Doug Powell

     This is a sports story lede in The Australian this morning; it apparently has something to do with rugby.

    Injury and illness tore through Australia's Four Nations camp before yesterday's final against England but captain Darren Lockyer was never concerned the chaos would ruin what turned out a momentous and fateful farewell for the record-breaking five-eighth.

    In his last game of rugby league, Lockyer scored a 79th-minute try from his own kick and then wrote a final, off-beat chapter in his incredible story by comically spraying the conversion attempt from almost in front. The 30-8 win went some way to restoring Australia's hard-won status as the game's top nation.

    Probably no more foreign than an Australian reading the news lede of a hockey game; or college football (what a mess).

    Back to the Roos (the Kangeroos, Australia’s national rugby league team).

    Team doctor Dave Givney said in the build-up to the game that, "Half the team were in doubt today. That's why we had 21 people warm up. I've completely run out of my gastro medication. We had five or six of them in single rooms overnight, all throwing up. They all came good.”

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    Celebrity  |  0 Comments
    Barf, four nations, rugby, Vomit
  • A (thermometer-verified) Canadian Thanksgiving in Australia

    Posted: October 9th, 2011 - 4:35am by Doug Powell

     I’ve got turkeys wandering around the yard but I can’t buy one at the grocer or butcher.

    Paul the butcher in Annerley, Brisbane, Australia, took pity on me and gave me – gave me for free – a frozen turkey breast he had in his freezer.

    “If it sucks, throw it out.”

    I threw it out.

    Paul says he does a lot of turkeys for Christmas, but Thanksgiving just isn’t an Australian thing.

    And it’s sorta weird, with spring strawberries and asparagus abundant rather than the traditional North American harvest foods.

    Was even weirder prepping food all morning while Amy played with Sorenne and listened to the K-State football game on Internet radio.

    But, we continued our tradition and had some 15 Aussies over for a Canadian Thanksgiving feast.

    And instead of North American football, there was the 2011 Rugby World Cup quarterfinals: yeah Wales (suck it Ireland); France will lose next weekend to Wales; yeah Australia (suck it South Africa), and in a few hours it should be yeah New Zealand (suck it Argentina).

     

     

     

     

     

     

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    Thermometers  |  0 Comments
    Australia, Chicken, food safety, rugby, Thanksgiving, thermometer, Turkey
  • Safety watch kept on All Blacks' World Cup dinners

    Posted: August 20th, 2011 - 6:58pm by Doug Powell

    Susie is a mysterious waitress who allegedly served the New Zealand All Blacks a dinner of food poisoning 48 hours before the 1995 Rugby World Cup in Johannesburg, which felled 27 of the 35-member squad. Or so the story goes.

    As the 2011 Rugby World Cup approaches, the Food Safety Authority has revealed that samples of food served to the team will be frozen to provide a record for food safety.

    And to ensure a level dietary playing field, Rugby World Cup 2011 will document all meals provided to all teams at the tournaments.

    But it’s not because of Susie.

    "We are following best practice,” said hospitality and logistics manager Ian Crowe, “so it's unrelated to those issues."

    Tournament organisers had been working with the authority for the past four years to ensure the best possible food safety.

    Teams and officials will be served 103,000 meals during this year's tournament.

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    Food Safety Policy  |  0 Comments
    all blacks, food safety, Poisoning, rugby, susie, Traceability
  • Ham knuckles with staph, oysters with noro fell 94 at French rugby cocktail party

    Posted: December 31st, 2010 - 1:20pm by Doug Powell

    I thought rugby match cocktail parties only happened with cans of Brockman’s beer after the games; I have seen Invictus. It’s the way hockey players do it – especially the girls.

    The Institut de Veille Sanitaire in France reports today (thanks Albert) that on Feb. 20, 2010, the Fire and Rescue Service of the Hérault district informed the Regional Health Authorities that symptoms such as stomach ache, nausea, vomiting were diagnosed among around 15 people taking part in a rugby match cocktail party.

    One person was taken to the local emergency hospital service. … A total of 94 cases and 110 controls were reported among the people taking part in the cocktail party. Two successive epidemic events were identified with distinct symptoms and median incubation periods of 3.5 and 30 hours. The results of the epidemiological, biological and veterinary investigations were in favor of an intoxication of the early cases due to the ingestion of knuckle of ham pieces contaminated by Staphylococcus aureus (OR=3.75; IC=[1.91; 7.35] p=0.001) and an intoxication of late cases due to the ingestion of oyster contaminated by Norovirus (OR=32.22; IC=[7.09 ; 146.34] p<0.001). In this investigation, food and pathogens at the origin of the contamination were identified. This outbreak stresses the importance of respecting hygiene measures in collective catering and defining first management measures as soon as the results of the investigation are known.

    Full report only in French, http://www.invs.sante.fr/publications/2010/Tiac/Rapport%20Tiac.pdf
     

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    Norovirus  |  0 Comments
    Beer, food safety, France, invictus, matt damon, norovirus, rugby, Sanitation, staphylococcus