WELLINGTON (Reuters Life!) - Following in the tentacles of Paul the Octopus, New Zealand rugby fans are hoping a newborn calf will steer the nation to world cup glory when the tournament kicks off on home soil in less than two months.
Richie McCow - actually a bull - is named after Richie McCaw, captain of the national team, known as the All Blacks. He is an all black calf with a silver streak on his forehead, resembling the national team's uniform, the New Zealand Herald newspaper reported on Friday.
Like Paul the Octopus, Richie McCow will be presented with two containers of food prior to the team's matches, one with the New Zealand flag on it and one representing the opposition, and invited to make his pick.
But the stakes for Richie McCow are high, with his owner, Northland farmer Kyle Underwood, telling the Herald the slaughterhouse beckons should he pick the national team to lose.
Paul the Octopus shot to global stardom in the 2010 football world cup, when he accurately predicted the outcome of Germany's campaign and the final between Spain and The Netherlands.
Rugby is New Zealand's national sport, but despite being consistently the top-ranked team in the world the country has failed to win the world cup since the inaugural four-yearly tournament in 1987, with each loss causing national grief.
New Zealand is famous for having ten times as many sheep as people, but it is cows which currently drive the economy, with the dairy sector generating about a quarter of the country's exports.
(Reporting by Adrian Bathgate, editing by Miral Fahmy)
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