NZ V MERCENARIES

Kiwi Burling sends shot across bows of Team USA's high-paid soldiers of fortune: America’s Cup? More like a Tasman battle

Good on Peter Burling. If there’s one group a Kiwi should never miss the chance to have a lash at, it’s our cousins from across the Ditch.

It’s not as if Burling’s telling fibs with his jibe that Team USA isn’t really made up of Americans.

The reality is Team New Zealand is almost completely staffed by Kiwis while Jimmy Spittle (has there ever been a more perfect surname for a man who sprays his words?) has a team of Aussies who should thank their lucky stars they signed up for Oracle’s big bucks before Donald built his wall.

And if you’re from the great sunburnt land, don’t start playing the injured innocent card. C’mon Bruce and Beryl, you’ve been digging at us for years. We’re used as the butt of jokes in Australia the way the rest of the world uses the Irish.

Three Kiwis always seen together in Bondi. One can read, one can write, and the other likes to be seen with intellectuals. What do you call a Kiwi in a suit? The defendant. What do a call a Kiwi with 3000 girlfriends? A shepherd.

Which reminds me. Back in the past, so long ago that the Wallabies sometimes beat the All Blacks, there was an official Australian Rugby Union ad, featuring fullback Matty Burke, that ran endlessly on Sydney TV before a Bledisloe Cup test.

Matty was beaming at the camera, with a brotherly arm over the rump of a fake sheep with knocking knees. ‘‘The All Blacks are coming, and Shazza’s scared,’’ said a booming voice-over. Then Burke said, ‘‘Don’t worry Shazza, we’ll look after you.’’

You might also have hoped that in a country the size of America they might have found a handful of yachties good enough to take on Team New Zealand.

Couldn’t they have dragged Dennis Conner out of retirement? He’d seem to fill all the requirements: terrific sailor, never saw a dollar he didn’t like, and never stopped needling New Zealand. Remember his greatest hits? How Kiwis were cheats and losers who sailed a dog while Dennis sailed a cat?

For now, we’ll have to do with Jimmy and his handsomely rewarded hired hands. I bet he and Larry Ellison are glad that to sail in an American boat you have to know the words to The Star-Spangled Banner.

Proud to be Kiwi

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