For The Kids: May 23rd, 2016
Winter has officially arrived throughout Aotearoa as the rain and chilly temperatures swept our little country, just as Joseph Parker fever swept the nation. Parker had the biggest fight of his life on Saturday night, fighting against fellow heavyweight Carlos Takam in Auckland and Parker stepped up just as we all hoped he would.
The fight went 12 rounds and both boxers threw some big punches that would have probably made me teary eyed. Parker looked like he was in control, using his lighting fast jab to keep Takam away and Takam absorbed plenty of punishment but also hit Parker a few times with big shots.
Parker won on points at the end of the fight and we got to see Parker challenged by another very good heavyweight. We had not seen Parker go 12 rounds and we had not seen Parker fight someone as good as Takam, so it was impressive to see him win.
Parker threw 534 punches and landed 127 of those punches while Takam threw 451 punches and landed 120.
Also on Saturday night, the Warriors lost to the Canberra Raiders in the NRL. The Warriors took a home game down to New Plymouth and this was a special night for hooker Issac Luke, who is from Hawera in Taranaki. Many of Luke's friends and whanau were there to watch him play and we were treated to this special moment after the game...
Unfortunately for Luke and the Warriors, they lost to Canberra 38-12. The Warriors aren't playing very well at the moment and in the NRL, if you don't show up then the other team will put points on you easily.
The Warriors missed 31 tackles and the Raiders missed 11 tackles, which isn't good enough from the Warriors.
There was a kiwi twist though with Jordan Rapana playing very well. Rapana is a kiwi from Wellington and has been having a great season so far, he ran for 128m and had 8 tackle busts which was the most tackle busts of anyone in this game.
In London, our All Blacks Sevens won the Plate final. The kiwis finished first in Pool D, which meant they had to face United States of America in their quarter-final and unfortunately they lost to USA 42-14.
Usually, losing to USA would be shocking but with the Olympics coming up, the level of competition in Sevens is very high. The All Blacks Sevens then faced England in the Plate semi-final and they won that game 35-10, setting up a Plate final against Argentina which they also won 29-14.
The London Sevens tournament was won by Scotland. This means that Kenya, Samoa and Scotland have won the last three tournaments and it shows how strong Sevens is around the world.
Finally, it was a big weekend for our kiwi golfers with Lydia Ko, Danny Lee and Tim Wilkinson all in action.
It wasn't a good weekend for Ko. She finished tied for 18th at the Kingsmill Championship but Ko is still ranked number one in the world.
Thankfully it was a better weekend for Wilkinson and Lee. Lee also finished tied for 18th and Wilkinson finished tied for 4th at the AT&T Byron Nelson Championship.
This was a great result for Wilkinson who is ranked 541st in the world and hails from Palmerston North.