Match Fit: ‘Old Blacks’ final episode returning to fray contains massive lie

OPINION: “This is not a great television, is it?” All Blacks mainstay Craig Dowd says in the final episode of Match Fit, as his teammates demonstrated, one by one, they have added years to their lives, as well as ripping pounds of fat from their bodies.

“Boring,” agreed Ron Cribb at issue # 8, as ‘old blacks’ were shown to have turned away from heart disease, diabetes, and other health hazards after just eight weeks of diet, exercise, and styling. healthier life.

Compared to the gasp-inducing “before” medical evidence from the first episode, the “after” were in awe of how far the old blacks had come, rather than how far they had let themselves go.

But isn’t it a great television? Boring? Wrong and wrong again. Match Fit on Three was fabulous television, on so many levels. And you didn’t even have to like rugby, you just had to like a bunch of really nice people.

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Middle-aged men facing mental demons and bulging waists are not confined to rugby. Realizing that not even a sporty Adonis will be spared from the aging process created for a great deal of personal reflection.

It was inspiring television. It was emotional television. It was really fun television. He celebrated fellowship, showed how men need other men, how men can help other men, and how far unity and teamwork can take them. It showed how important a caring family and couple are.

To sit on the couch watching was to run the gamut of emotions from sadness at one extreme to happiness at the other. When he finished, he wanted to get off the couch and get some exercise to improve his life. Horrors

On Tuesday night, as the Old Blacks prepared to play the younger barbarians, they went through all the physical tests they did on the first show, four weeks ago on TV time, eight weeks in real time. For a man, they were faster in the arduous Bronco test.

All had lost weight; center Eroni Clarke had lost 12 kg; the runner Piri Weepu, 6 kg and 7 cm waist; “Where is that?” he joked, as he looked down.

Block-shaped prop Kees Meeuws slashed 9kg of body fat and 10cm from his waist, while prankster Cribb, who stayed on the show despite a historic neck injury ruled him out of the game, was engrossed when They said he had lost 12 kg. and lowered his metabolic age from 59 to 41.

Cribb, 44, had traveled 18 years in eight weeks.

“I feel like I’m living life better than it was,” he said. “I am happy to have started it … and I will continue.”

Lock Charlie Riechelmann, 48, was on the verge of tears when his numbers recovered: 11 kg of body fat disappeared and a metabolic age 25 years younger than when he set out on the Match Fit journey.

Dowd, 51, had finished “literally with a small glass of water my playing weight in my 20s.”

It was hard to worry about who won the big game at Eden Park after all that excitement. In fact, the game was a bit depressing.

It meant the end was near, putting an end to Match Fit, a show in which the characters grew in the audience as they did on shows like M * A * S * H, Cheers, Friends, and Schitt’s Creek.

And what characters were, from the soft-spoken and religious Clarke, the germ of joy Pita Alatini, the Weepu, Cribb, Troy Flavell, Frank Bunce and Dowd comedy quintet, the sarcastic coach Sir Graham Henry and the stoic forwards Meeuws and Riechemann .

All offered so much of themselves, some of them intensely personal.

They all got very serious and All Blacky when the team they were going to play for got ahead of them. No smiles, just stern faces and analysis. A competitive air swept the room, in an instant the comedians had become competitors.

“Let’s do it, let’s go,” the roar increased as they headed for training.

“Owww, my knee,” Bunce said, as he climbed up to join them.

Match Fit takes the World Cup, not a red card.