The Great TV3 Comedy Debate - Rugby, It's Only a Game

At times in the night, when I'm flat on my back, and thinking about our boys in black, and the Silver Fern and their glistening thighs, and the slow motion look in their blood-shot eyes, that's when I grieve; have they no shame? Is it the money, or is it the fame? Or do our boys really believe that rugby, "it's only a game"...

– Ginette McDonald gets poetical in her closing address for the affirmative

I was up at the Glenmark Club the other day, having a few drinks with Grizz Wyllie and some of the boys. We ran through the usual sort of topics that we always do up there, you know: the influence of the impressionist Matisse on Jackson Pollock, neo-colonialism in New Zealand novel writing, but eventually we got around to rugby as we sometimes do, and Grizz quoted that great New Zealand philosopher Murray Mexted . . . as Murray said, "well if they think rugby's only a game, they're barking up the wrong horse".

– Rugby journalist Phil Gifford opens the argument for the negative team

Protect the children, protect the future, don't give this game any more power than it already wields. Stop the horror. Stop the horror. Stop the horror...

– Affirmative team member Oliver Driver's passionate appeal to the audience

Do you do sushi?

– Craig Parker reveals he isn't a fan of a pre-match sausage sizzle, after joining rugby fans on the streets

I wanted to bag myself an All Black as countless women in my family had done before me, and I wanted the best.

– Actor Rebecca Hobbs launches into her tale of hunting All Blacks

[Rugby is] a big part of what defines us as a nation, as a people . . . How would our drunken youths do in the subway in London if it wasn't for rugby and the haka?

– Oscar Kightley makes a powerful point for his negative team

Rugby's only a game after all: a dirty, divisive and dubious one at that. Aotearoa is grafted to rugby, locked in a battle to the death for our hearts and minds and our very sensitive souls.

– Ginette McDonald lets rip in her closing address

And you thought you could win this!

– Negative team leader Phil Gifford taunts the affirmative team in front of the Cantabrian audience