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1894 days ago

Fake All Black Rugby World Cup gear for sale online

Brian from New Lynn

Counterfeiters have wasted little time in offering up their own cheap versions of the All Blacks' new look for the Rugby World Cup in Japan. Cheap knock-offs of the All Blacks' Rugby World Cup gear have appeared for sale online – just a week after the striking new look was revealed. New Zealand Rugby and adidas launched the official new jerseys – which feature hand-drawn koru and fern patterns – to much fanfare on July 1. But within a week of the release of the jerseys - which have a RRP of $150 for a looser fit fan's version and $200 for a replica of the actual playing version – cheap knock-offs have appeared for sale online in China. Mufasa Sports is offering versions of both the home (black) and away (white) strips the All Blacks will wear at the upcoming Rugby World Cup in Japan, as well as the side's new blue-coloured training jersey. Prices range from $37 for a single item, down to just $23 a jersey for wholesale lots of 54 or more. There is no shipping charge. Mufasa Sports – which has its base listed as Guangdong, China, did not respond to an approach for comment. While their offerings featured the fern and koru patterns across the jersey, the Rugby World Cup logo on the right chest and the years the All Blacks had won the tournament, they do not feature the silver fern on the left chest. Another Chinese-based seller, Xiaochouya2, was also selling fully-tagged fake All Black Rugby World Cup replicas; with costs ranging from $34 for a single jersey down to $20 for bulk buys of 100 items or more. It, too, did not respond to an approach for comment. And New Zealand Rugby or adidas also did not want to engage over the latest counterfeit offerings based on the popular-selling rugby replicas. But earlier this year both spoke of their frustrations about cheap knock-off gear being sold online. "It's important Kiwis recognise that by buying fake product they're not supporting their favourite team, quite the opposite," adidas' New Zealand country manager Quentin Bleakley told.
"They're impacting the deals that help grow the sport." NZ Rugby's lucrative deal with adidas – first signed in 1999 – is estimated to be worth at least $10 million annually. Bleakley said at the time that adidas was "very familiar" with websites selling cheap All Black-branded fakes. "There's a reason why it's cheap, the quality of the goods is always poor and leaves Kiwis ultimately disappointed." NZ Rugby's chief commercial officer Richard Thomas said: "Sadly it's not a new behaviour to have unscrupulous operators trying to leverage our brand and those of our sponsor products to peddle their fake products." Prior to the investigation earlier this year, adidas' chief executive Kasper Rorsted had gone public that 10 per cent of gear featuring his company's world-famous logo in Asia were most probably rip-offs. That included products being sold both in stores and online. And Canadian lawyer David Lipkus – who has worked with top sports leagues in their crackdown against counterfeit gear – described the fight as like "whack-a-mole". "Every time you take down 10 or 15 sites, another 100 or 200 crop up," he told the TSN Hockey website. Within a week of adidas and NZ Rugby being alerted to various fake products being sold online from $38, the website offering them was taken down. But just as quickly, several others appeared selling the same counterfeit gear but for just $20. In the lead-up to the 2014 football World Cup in Brazil, a staggering seven million fake items - including team shirts - were seized by Chinese customs officials.
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More messages from your neighbours
3 days ago

Poll: Should drivers retake the theory test every 10 years?

The Team from Neighbourly.co.nz

Drivers get where they need to go, but sometimes it seems that we are all abiding by different road rules (for example, the varying ways drivers indicate around a roundabout).
Do you think drivers should be required to take a quick driving theory test every 10 years?

Vote in the poll and share any road rules that you've seen bent! 😱

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Should drivers retake the theory test every 10 years?
  • 49.5% Yes
    49.5% Complete
  • 48.6% No
    48.6% Complete
  • 1.9% Other - I'll share below
    1.9% Complete
2627 votes
15 hours ago

Here's Thursday's thinker!

Riddler from The Neighbourly Riddler

I am lighter than air, but a hundred people cannot lift me. What am I?

Do you think you know the answer to our daily riddle? Don't spoil it for your neighbours! Simply 'Like' this post and we'll post the answer in the comments below at 2pm.

Want to stop seeing riddles in your newsfeed?
Head here and hover on the Following button on the top right of the page (and it will show Unfollow) and then click it. If it is giving you the option to Follow, then you've successfully unfollowed the Riddles page.

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9 hours ago

Why make picking up reserved library books harder? What do you think? Challenge: Write the last stanza for the first poem attached below.

Alan from Titirangi

Once books are reserved in Auckland Libraries books, when they are available no longer go alphabetically by customer but instead go into a Holds pickup shelf number based presumably somehow on when each book needs to be picked up by.

I had two books reserved that arrived on two different days in the Blockhouse Bay Library and hence each book has a different shelf number. Hard to find unless you knew the shelf number in the notification email. Even if you knew the shelf number I found myself three books by the same author on the two shelf numbers.

More recently yesterday a book I reserved was on a different shelf number than was specified in my notification email (see image below).

Sadly it is clear from library staff that a numerical system for reserves is here to stay.

I suggest that so that all books for each person has the same shelf number, the shelf number becomes the last digit of a person's library card (0-9).

Within each shelf number a book is found under the day the reserve arrives in the library (01 to 31, hopefully the same date the email is sent).

Since a customer appears to have 10 days to pick up a book, ten days of the month would appear to be required at any time (for each digit 0-9).

Once there are 10 days used the next day's reserves could go back at the beginning of the shelf number after any remaining books not collected (hopefully none) are removed (along with the old day number and the new day number (01 to 31) inserted) after the last day available and future days' books remaining moved forward to make room.

Each day number (01-31) would appear once for each shelf number (0-9) before the first book on that day- perhaps cover an old withdrawn book with paper with each day number on the spine?

When a reserved book arrives in the library the last digit of the library card could be placed on a piece of paper in the book to be removed when it is put on the shelf, to be recycled the next day.

What do you think?

See the image below and page 3 below for a letter appearing in the Western Leader on 9 September:
www.neighbourly.co.nz...

PoemReservingBooks.pdf Download View