Oh, the irony.

Having on Tuesday made a plea to the government to wake up and try and learn to be a bit more proactive – that if they insist on banging on about our so called Covid success, how about they put it into action and make hay, take advantage, leverage this success and pay some bill, lift some spirits and give some people some work – i.e. get the All Blacks on the field?

They’ve cancelled the youth America’s Cup, they’ve cancelled the Women’s Cricket World Cup. They have a default position of saying no, of saying why should we, instead of why shouldn’t we?

Then Sir John Kirwan speaks up. He is pleading with the government as well. He says, as we said Tuesday, that we have all made the sacrifice, we all got locked up to attain this semi Covid free status so we could what ? Get welfare cheques? Lose our jobs? Wait an age for medical care that got put off?

Or actually do something with it, like get some teams on the parks get some crowds in the stadiums and do some business.

Why is this so damn hard? Why aren’t the government more aspirational, why is Sir John Kirwan having to plead to watch top level rugby?

And now is where it bites the government badly. Word is the Rugby Championship could be off to Australia.

Why? They’ve put together a better deal, have more enthusiasm and better quarantine options

How gutting, how humiliating, how embarrassing, how unforgivable would it be for Australia to nick this from under us.

Yes, the All Blacks would play and that’s good, but they’d play over there. The revenue is over there. The crowds here would be on the couch not the stands. The income would be on the left of the Tasman, not the right.

Next week, Australia’s economy will be shown to be better off than ours by some margin when we get our GDP figures. They then potentially further remind us that they’re more agile, more aggressive, more able to move on and up than this government knows how to be, or worse, even wants to be.

Losing to the Australians on the field has largely been dealt to these past few years. Off the field, they’re killing us. The government, sadly, aren’t in the All Blacks league.