I´ve been in the unfortunate situation where someone has been cornered with the ugly truth and their response has been nothing short of terrifying...screaming, yelling, abusing. A wildacat on steroids.

And Peter FitzSimons is scared. Shit scared.

Peter FitzSimons knows that his beloved game of rugby union, where Australia competes yearly with the might of Samoa and Fiji, now has some serious competition. So every chance he has to lay his size 18 boots into football via one of the biggest selling newspapers in the country, he´ll do it.

The thing is, I like a good game of rugby. A good sporting contest is a good sporting contest. Any half minded sports fan (and that´s most of Australis) will probably say the same thing. I guess some people evolved more quickly from monkeys.

And companies like Air New Zealand might want to consider how many football fans and players notice Mr FitzSimons hatred of the round ball game. According to Roy Morgan Research*, 1.1 million Australians played football in the 12 months to June 2005. That´s 7% of the population. This doesn´t even include all the kids under 14 playing the game.

I wonder how many others, like me, refuse to fly Air New Zealand whilst they have a football slagging baboon promoting their airline.

*Source: http://www.roymorgan.com/news/press-releases/2005/3934/