Haven't posted a blog for over two weeks, really because nothing terribly interesting has happened. BUT... last night I met some of the world's greatest rugby players. For yesterday Wales took on and beat Australia at the Millennium Stadium. It was a fantastic match and neither side really deserved to lose. The Aussie players clearly agreed and decided to celebrate the fact that they'd lost by just two points by going out and getting hammered in Tiger Tiger.

And a nicer bunch of guys you really couldn't wish to meet. Lote Tuquiri was a gentleman, Matt Dunning was absolutely hilarious and once you started Wendell Sailor speaking you couldn't shut him up. They were a great bunch of lads and it was a pleasure to meet so many guys that I've admired as a rugby fan for years.

The morning after the night before. Last night I was lucky to attend the very swanky Student Journalism Awards at the Marriot Hotel in London. I was nominated in the Student Sportswriter category and was one of only two nominations for 'Epigram', the Bristol paper, the other being my great friend Kate Quilton, who was up for Features Writer. I went with the very lovely, talented, beautiful and intelligent Charlotte Lomas-Farley and together with Kate and her boyfriend Jesse, the four of us had a great night.

The awards themselves seemed to be virtually over before they'd begun. With no acceptance speaches and only a dozen or so awards, they were rattled through at a fair old lick and by 9 o'clock there was little else to do but booze and boogie. Kate Lawler, she of Big Brother 3 fame, was the host and did a magnificent job. She was energetic, funny and surprisingly eloquent. She did a commendable job in trying to whip up some enthusiasm amongst what was admittedly a fairly dour audience.

Sadly, Epigram's deadly duo were both to leave empty handed. Nonetheless, the privilege of being nominated was a great achievement in itself and though there was the innevaitable pang of disappointment to begin with, it was soon forgotten about as we all attempted to enjoy the evening.
And enjoy it we did. The four of us drank our respective body weights (Did anybody say 'free booze'?!?) and burnt up the dancefloor for several sweaty uncoordinated hours.

The night could have ended slightly better however. Jesse, Kate and I attempted to get back to West London from Canary Wharf, a challenging feat at the best of times, but at 1 in the morning and with enough drink to sink a battleship inside you, nigh-on impossible.

We began by taking the Dockland Light Railway two stops and then walking for half an hour, only to find ourselves smack-bang outside the Marriot. More walking and a nightbus somehow got us to Trafalgar Square. Now this is where it truly all went wrong. I boarded the nightbus to Fulham and found a nice wee comfy seat up top. All good so far... until I dozed off. An hour and a half later I awoke to find the bus virtually empty and in an area of London completely alien to me. Panic stations. I hopped off, made a couple of emotional phone calls and, after yet more welcoming and eventually taking refuge with a friendly and sympatetic, albeit scandalously expensive cabbie, I made it to bed only 4 hours after leaving the party.

All in all though, we had a great time. Even though we didn't have any shiny gongs or sizeable cheques to show for it, this morning's hangover was all the evidence needed of a good night.

Today's guest speaker was Kim Hollamby from IPC Media. The company are responsible for the production and publication of a huge range of magazines, everything from NME to Amateur Gardener.

Kim Hollamby spoke well. His manner was friendly, engaging and very interactive. I certainly wasn't bored for the hour and a half in which he spoke, however nor was I particularly inspired. I'm not hugely interested in online journalism and I don't massively enjoy magazines so I suppose the combination of the two was never really going to set my world on fire.

On the whole Kim Hollamby was interesting and made some points which can be applied to all forms of journalism. Some stories he told, such as the story about his around-Britain sailing adventure, were easy to listen to and mildly entertaining but it was at times difficult to see the relevance other than to lighten up what at times proved to be quite a dry talk.
He had a evident fondness for using elaborate and rather complicated diagrams which were impossible to follow and not particularly enlightening even if you could manage to actually understand it.

All in all it was a fine talk and certainly a less painful way of passing 90 minutes of my life than watching Spurs lose to Bolton had been three days earlier. However, it was not the edge-of-the-seat, riveted-to-every-word lecture that I had enjoyed with Richard Burton. One thing I definitely learnt from it is that I have no desire whatsoever of entering online magazine journalism.

Today saw Wales take on the All Blacks at the Millennium Stadium. After being in New Zealand for the hugely disappointing Lions Tour, I was really hoping Wales could turn them over. The build-up to the match had been incredible; newspapers and TV programmes were hyping up the match for weeks before. It was billed as the champions of the Northern Hemisphere and the champions of the Southern Hemisphere. It would be very tough though; the All Blacks were fielding virtually a full-strength side whereas Wales were without many of their Lions stars - Gethin Jenkins, Tommy Shanklin and of course Golden Boots himself, Gavin Henson.

The atmosphere on match day was absolutely incredible. Walking down St. Mary's Street, which had been closed off for the day, the scene was unbelievable; red and blacks shirts everywhere. It reminded me so much of match days back in NZ. There was just such anticipation building up and the tension was palpable.
We watched it in the Gatekeeper, a big Wetherspoons pub just opposite the Millennium Stadium. It was absolutely packed with Kiwis as well as Welsh. Hearing the Welsh national anthem bellowed out before kick-off was an unforgettable moment. To use an old cliche, the hairs were standing up on the back of my neck, such was the noise and passion with which the red shirts in the pub belted out Hen Wlad fy Nhadau.

Sadly however, one other thing that was reminiscent of the ill-fated Lions Tour was the outcome of the match. The All Blacks simply annihilated the very below-par Wales. To be fair, the 3-41 result probably flattered New Zealand. Although Wales were very poor, they didn't warrant a forty point drubbing. That said, the All Blacks were a class above. The movement in the backs, the skills with ball in hand and the power of their front five higlighted the huge gulf in quality between Southern Hemisphere and Northern Hemisphere rugby at this moment in time.

After the match, Ross and his two Kiwi mates joined me and Robin in the pub. Bill from Napier had won £500 by accurately predicting the All Blacks' winning margin. For the rest of the night her refused to let us put our hands in our pockets, buying every round and even Fish and Chips. In the end, a good day had by all and a big challenge now faces Mike Ruddock ahead of Wales' forthcoming clashes against Fiji, South Africa and Australia.

"I'm not a geek". That's how today's talk began from Richard Burton, head honcho at the Telegraph online. I'll be honest; I often find these talks patronising, irrelevant and above all else, mind-numbingly boring. Today's talk on the other hand was a breath of fresh air. For an hour and a half I was genuinely interested and absorbed in what Richard Burton had to say.

I found his attitude extremely refreshing. Here's a man who clearly loves his job. He was at great pains to emphasise to us the buzz that he gets from doing a good job well and how he wakes up in the morning looking forward to the day ahead. One couldn't help but feel enthused by his energy and I personally hope I can feel as passionate about whichever job I happen to end up in.

He also made us realise that, at least for him, journalism is a vocation, a 24/7 commitment that can't just be switched on and off. In the ever-demanding race to be the first journalists, and especially online journalists, need to be able to drop everything and turn a story around in as little as 50 seconds. Interestingly, when asked whether he thought that, in the race to be first accuracy often came second, he answered 'yes' instantly. He said that it was always a "judgment call" as to whether accuracy has to be sacrificed for speed or vice-versa.

Another ongoing theme from our lectures over the course of the last month has been the growth of online journalism and the idea that it may eventually oust newspaper journalism altogether. Richard Burton wasn't afraid to let his feeling be known. "The web can completely replace print" he said very matter-of-factly. But he went on to explain that it would be a long time before newspapers disappeared entirely, if indeed they ever did. And he also admitted that online journalism was still very much 'Coca-Cola Championship' journalism to newspaper's Premiership.

A further hugely interesting point we learned was how cut-throat and ruthless a world journalism could be. Richard Burton himself is clearly an extremely motivated businessman as well as being a journalist. For the first time on this course we actually learned about the corporate and quite false side of online journalism. He explained how he often saw things as merely pound signs and showed a frighteningly revealing candidness about advertising and money-making. His Rupert Murdoch-esque ruthlessness was interesting to see.

It is patently obvious that Richard Burton is a very intellegent and innovative man, brimming with ideas as to how to improve his medium and constantly striving for perfection, never settling for second-best. He has already brought many ideas to Telegraph online and many ideas he has for the future described just some of the ways he still hopes to improve it; selling their archive of Premiership photos, making the photo galleries bigger, more advertising and the growing use of Blackberry.

Above all, Richard Burton was extremely engaging and very entertaining. He tells it like it is and not at all in a patronising manner. He had a very tongue-in-cheek and almost slightly irreverend outlook on modern-day journalism and society in general and I thoroughly enjoyed the talk and everything he had to say.

Neighbours Fact of the Day: The actress that plays Susan Kennedy nee Smith, Jackie Woodburne, was born in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. What a claim to fame.

Only just discovered that I am 'contractually obliged' to write about our first guest speaker, Amanda Powell from BBC News Online. Now that I'm a fully-fledged, blog-literate hack however, this is not only a painless task, but an enjoyable one.

For I liked Amanda Powell a lot. God bless her she's not exactly gifted with the ability to speak well in public and hold an audience on the edge of their seats but everything she had to say was interesting and useful. BBCi is the largest news site in Europe and certainly one that I use regularly. To get a glimpse 'behind the scenes' as it were about how the website works and the pressures involved in the industry really made me appreciate the amount of work and 24/7 dedictaion that goes into creating this website that I just take for granted when I log on and read it most days.

The lecture was not as entertaining and amusing as another more confident public speaker could have made it but the points made were valid and enlightening. Amanda Powell is just about as authorotative and powerful as you can get when it comes to online news journalism yet she was modest, polite and not in the least bit condescending as many experts tend to be. She took great care to explain the processes involved in creating the BBCi website and it was clear that she enjoys her job and imparting her knowledge to the next generation of prospective journalists.

A day of ups and downs from a sporting perspective. Today Spurs took on Arsenal at Fortress White Hart Lane. Riding high in the Premiership with our North London rivals struggling, this promised to be our best chance of beating the Gooners since 1999.

Spurs have been playing some beautiful football this season and Martin Jol has built a side brimming with young British talent. With the solid Ledley King and the hugely promissing Michael Dawson at the back, as well as the ever-reliable Paul Robinson between the sticks, Tottenham have proved an extremely difficult side to break down. Young exciting talent in the form of Jenas, Carrick and Lennon merges with the experience of the mercurial and ageless Edgar Davids in the midfield and in Jermain Defoe, Robbie Keane and Mido, Spurs have options in attack.

By contrast, Arsenal have not been at their best so far this season. Having sold talisman Patrick Vieira and missing Thierry Henry and Sol Campbell for large parts of the year, 'the Invincibles' of 2004 have quickly become 'the Incapables', losing to West Brom, Middlesborough and Chelsea and currently sitting a lowly seventh in the league.

Spurs dominated the first half and took the lead courtesy of the head of Ledley King. Jol's boys were unlucky to go in only one up at half time, with Jens Lehman making a number of excellent stops. In the second half, the enigmatic Robert Pires came off the bench and instantly Arsenal seemed revitalised. Creating chances and looking like the Arsenal of old, they eventually equalised when, having laid seige to the Tottenham penalty area, Pires poked the ball in at the back post after an uncharacteristic Paul Robinson error.

Honours were shared. A fair reflection of the pattern of the match but nonetheless disappointing for the Spurs fans who truly believed this was our chance to finally claim that elusive victory over our mortal enemies. However, with Charlton and Man United both suffering shock defeats Spurs still lie in the unaccostomed lofty heights of third in the league. Champions League remains the ultimate goal...

Sadly with the oval ball it was a more depressing day for me. Ulster travelled to Biarritz for their second Heineken Cup pool game, having trounce Treviso at Ravenhill in their first match. It was always going to be a tough encounter for the Ulstermen; Biarritz are bookies' third favourite to lift the European Cup this year and their side contains a number of French internationals. However, we couldn't have expected the appauling start which we made. Biarritz came out all guns blazing and after 15 minutes found themselves 17-0 ahead after three well-worked tries.

But Ulster know what it's like to win the European Cup and refused to lie down. With their usual grit and determination they fought their way back into the matcha nd at one stage late in the second half found themselves three points behind, with the lions share of possession and certainly in the proverbial driving seat. But another sloppy mistake and perhaps slight bit of misfortune saw Biarritz score the try that eventually killed us off. After two matches in what promises to be a tough pool, Saracens find themselves in top spot with eight points while Biarritz and Ulster are snapping at their heals with five-a-piece.

All in all, a fairly mediocre day at the office from a sporting point of view. But with both Spurs and Ulster lying third in their respective league tables, there's still plenty of reason to be smiling...