Machete and the Ghost

Lelei Lelei Jnr (aka Machete) and Neil Turnbull (aka The Ghost) came from very different backgrounds but when they eventually found each other they became the 2nd five/centre combination that ruled world rugby. On the pitch they were an unorthodox and mostly unstoppable team. On their day, when they were on the same wavelength, they were world beaters and very possibly the two best All Blacks ever to play in their positions. Then there were the days on and off the pitch when they were like fire and ice. Theirs was a passionate friendship/kinship/borderline love affair. Sometimes they were of one mind, other times they would do things so stupid it was like they had only one mind between them. Needless to say, trouble had a way of finding them, following them and even moving in to the spare room for a while. Machete & The Ghost is the book that charts the careers of the two greatest All Blacks who never existed. It chronicles their mythical on-field achievements; tells invented stories about the behind-the-scenes goings on of professional rugby; and also makes up their troubles and triumphs off the field, in their tabloid-worthy private lives. This is the book that takes all the tropes you've read in every other rugby biography and twists and turns them for shameless comedic benefit. Machete & The Ghost totally made up, but by people who know and love the game of rugby enough to make all the bullshit sound entirely plausible.

JAMES GRIFFIN: a Whakatane-born, Hawkes Bay-raised palagi writer who has invented and written heaps of television drama and comedy including Outrageous Fortune, Westside, The Almighty Johnsons and 800 Words. When he's not writing TV he writes plays like Serial Killers; he helped his mate Oscar write the two Sione's Wedding films; for years he wrote a weekly column for the Weekend Herald paper; and he's also managed to write three books for Upstart Press, two about rugby and one about beer. He has no medals from the Queen, as yet.