A Cleary present danger
A puntastic final for the ages headlines a weird and wonderful weekend of sport
That was a Grand Final worthy of the name.
Penrith won their third in succession, you might have heard by now.
They did it after coming back from 24-8 in the final 20 minutes against a Brisbane team that threatened to run them off their feet in the third quarter.
They did it on the shoulders of their giant of a halfback, Nathan Cleary, the son of ice-cool coach Ivan.
It is timely, then, to send you back in the direction of this piece Trevor McKewen wrote for The Bounce the week before Penrith won the first in this three-peat. It was McKewen, in his Warriors’ CEO guise, who signed Cleary Sr to join the club as a player. If you’re a new subscriber, I’d recommend reading the full feature, but if you’re time poor, here’s a couple of pertinent passages.
If you’re a Warriors fan, there will be an inescapable feeling of regret as you watch Cleary senior pull the levers from the Suncorp Stadium coaching box while Cleary junior pushes his teammates around the park like a chess Grand Master.
The Clearys are the ones that got away.
Hugh McGahan and I signed Ivan to the Warriors as a player in late 1999 at the urging of coach Mark Graham who had run out of patience with Matthew Ridge and released the Kiwis fullback from the final year of his contract…
His first season provided plenty of reasons for thinking it was the dumbest decision of his life. With co-owners Graham Lowe and Malcolm Boyle butting heads with the Tainui owners, a closed chequebook when it came to signing other talent and Stacey Jones sidelined with a broken arm, it was a brutal season of under-performance.
It was also, however, an insight into Ivan’s mind. Behind that often expressionless façade was a league brain the size of a small planet. There was also an X-factor – an ability to understand and mentor young players, particularly Polynesian players…
It’s no coincidence that Penrith play with a certain joie de vivre. The Panthers are the most popular club in Sydney among kids; brimful of playful personalities not stymied by the NRL’s regimented fun police.
It appears the fun police were not going to stand in the way of Ivan last night either, who appeared on breakfast TV in Australia today three sheets to the wind and in some good Mad Monday form.
“I actually said to [Nathan] yesterday, if I’d married someone else he would have been a pretty s*** player,” Cleary said. I’ve got to thank his mum for everything he’s got, you know. Certainly not from me. Yeah, so proud of him. You know what, he owes me though. I’ve driven him to that many things. I’ve made lunches for him and all this stuff. And he’s now actually making my life easy.”
Of course, you can’t have a cracking game these days without wondering where it slots into a list of Greatest Ever Finals.
Was it the greatest of them all? People tend to have short memories and/or rose-tinted memories.
For all I know, Easts’ 11-8 win over the Glebe Dirty Reds in 1911 was the apogee of pre-war rugby league. I’m just going to assume it wasn’t as good as last night unless anybody who was there that day at the Royal Agricultural Showgrounds can write in and tell me I’m wrong.
The 1989 final between Balmain and Canberra, won 19-14 by the Raiders in extra time is often cited as the gold standard. For tension and storylines it might be, but even accounting for the fact league was a different game back then, there was a lot of ropey old stuff going on, from an absolute shocker of a playing surface, to Wayne Pearce dropping the ball three times in 15 minutes, to key players being subbed inexplicably early1.
It was the final of fluky tries.
Balmain’s two tries came from a Brent Todd pass straight to James Grant and an Andy Currier kick that bounced sideways to evade Gary Belcher. John Ferguson’s try to send the match to extra time was the result of pinball from a wobbly bomb (they only had the chance after Benny Elias thudded a scud missile of a field goal attempt from right in front into the crossbar) and Steve Jackson’s match-sealing try came directly from a Balmain fumble.
It was about as dramatic as you could ask for, with some astounding last-ditch defence. It was also a welcome antidote to an ’80s period that had been defined by formulaic, largely risk-free grinds involving Parramatta and Canterbury, who each won four titles in the decade. For the sheer quality of football, however, last night’s epic surely trumps it2.
While I have a Tawera Nikau and Stephen Kearney-sized soft spot for Melbourne’s 20-18 victory over St George in 1999, the only final I can think of that comes close to matching this grand final for quality and drama was North Queensland’s 17-16 victory over the luckless Broncos.
Further reading: In the Sydney Morning Herald, Malcolm Knox says it might be the best match he’s ever seen, let alone final. Writing on deadline at the final whistle, he doesn’t make an overly persuasive case, but he did have this great paragraph on Brisbane’s brilliant standoff:
Back in March, when Brisbane won that scrappy first-round fixture, Ezra Mam was an unrealised Bronco hope. Plenty of flash, questionable defence, they said. Back when Brisbane won their wooden spoon, Mam was playing rugby union for Ambrose Treacy College in Brisbane and dancing in his spare time. But he’d been snapped up by the Broncos when his voice had barely broken. Another unrealised dream for union, then.
There was also a nice line in the same paper, this time by Adam Pengilly: “And in the end, Mam couldn’t beat the machine.”
***
It was a grim weekend for the followers of Brisbane’s highest-profile professional football codes, after the Lions went down 86-90 in unlucky circumstances to Collingwood in what is also being described as one of the all-time great AFL finals.
With a minute left and in possession near the top of the attacking 50m circle, Brisbane was awarded a free kick for tripping. It would have allowed them to stop, set and have a long kick for goal, or pick out a target much closer. Instead, the player did not hear the advantage call, handballed it and the Lions quickly lost possession they would never regain.
CODE Sports’ Robert Craddock summed up the sense of lost opportunity for Brisbane:
This match was always going to be era defining for the Lions.
They have won more matches than any club in the competition over the last five years but during this time there have been four different premiers – and Brisbane are not one of them.
Inch by inch they are getting there but there is no guarantee they ever will… In the cruel sporting world there are no promises.
Busted!
Hawke’s Bay won the Shield, then busted the Shield.
As subscriber Max wrote, the broken Ranfurly Shield was a perfect metaphor for NPC rugby, but that was before further investigations - that is to say, some dumb-arse taking a photo and sharing it - revealed it was being used as a tray for snorting lines of some powdered substance (probably, um, cornflour?).
NZR’s Steve Lancaster was not impressed:
“We are… aware of images circulating on social media and, as a result, NZR has launched an investigation to understand what has occurred.
“The shield has undergone a tremendous amount of restoration work over the past 12 months to ensure it remains a focal point and source of pride for the rugby community.
“NZR will now take possession of the shield, begin the process of repair and reassess the protocols in place to look after it.”
The Ranfurly Shield has seen a lot in its time, and while it cannot speak, right now it probably wishes it could just go back to the good old days where it was used as the third wheel in many a ménage à trois.
***
All this happened while the Wallabies did just enough against Portugal to mean they can’t get out of Dodge a week early. Their bonus-point 34-14 victory means they now need Fiji to slip up against the same opponents, not totally out of the question after the World Cup darlings scraped past Georgia 17-12 in a miserable display.
The Bounce covered off the All Blacks monstering of Italy in a weekend special, and not a whole lot has happened since then. The favourites all won, ranging from routinely (Scotland 84 Romania 0; Argentina 59 Chile 5) to clumsily (South Africa 49 Tonga 18).
The Daryl Mitchell origin story is well told now - the son of an All Black coach who learns his game on the fast and bouncy wickets of Perth, before a slow domestic grind creates a late-blooming Black Cap - and it is told again here.
It is a story told again here in Cricinfo, but there was one quote that jumped out at me as being especially instructive.
“I look back now and think that in many ways, it was a blessing that I didn’t have a crack too early,” he says. “That allowed me to learn my game at the domestic level back home for a period of time, to have some good years but also some bad years, and to work out not only how I wanted to play cricket but the type of person I want to be off the field. Having kids and a family probably put my life in balance a bit better as well. It’s been a lot of hard yards to get here, which makes you grateful for when you do get opportunities.”
In many respects Mitchell is a very modern batter: he plays with a high backlift, likes to hit boundaries early and puts pressure on spinners by reverse sweeping. But he has old-world, somewhat indefinable qualities, too.
The above quote partially defines it: every time he walks to the crease for New Zealand, no matter what the format, what position in the order or what state of the match, he appears grateful for the opportunity to help win games of cricket for his country.
Cricket can be a merciless grind. Batters often insulate themselves from the pang of failure by reminding themselves the next opportunity is just around the corner. Mitchell bats with his eye on today, not tomorrow.
***
Another series loss for the White Ferns, who won a rain-affected, consolation third ODI against South Africa in Durban overnight. They chased down 210 to win with six wickets and 10 balls (43.2 overs) in hand.
Melie Kerr was the game’s dominant figure, notching her fourth ODI century, a classy unbeaten 100 off 117 balls.
It is easy to forget that Kerr is still a few days shy of her 23rd birthday. It is also easy to forget that it wasn’t until her 18th ODI that she passed 100 runs… in total3.
With Suzie Bates, who played her 300th international, turning 36 last month and Sophie Devine 34, the next 10 years is starting to look like a case of “where Kerr goes, the White Ferns go”.
Fight!
The Ryder Cup provided its usual share of hype, hoopla and manufactured anger. If Brooks Koepka wasn’t busy calling Jon Rahm a child, then Rory McIlroy was trying to fight caddies in carparks.
In the end it played out as every Ryder Cup on foreign soil has for the US over the past 30-plus years: with a deflating loss despite carrying, by virtue of world rankings, a much stronger team into the event. This win for Europe - 16.5 to 11.5 - was especially sweet given the hiding they received at Whistling Straits two years ago, a hiding that many experts expected to be a precursor to a decade of American dominance.
But they don’t like crossing the Atlantic and, according to one report, they don’t like playing for ‘free’4.
From the Athletic:
Then the day somehow got worse. Just as the Masters doesn’t really start until the back nine Sunday, a losing US Ryder Cup team doesn’t really take shape until speculation runs rampant over its team room being in disarray. At 11 am local time Saturday, Sky Sports reporter Jamie Weir reported via “several sources” that “the US team room is fractured, a split led predominantly by Patrick Cantlay,” adding that Cantlay is not wearing a hat while playing as a means of protest over the Ryder Cup not paying players…
It’s fair to say Cantlay has forged a mixed reputation on tour. In a recent AMA, golf writer Alan Shipnuck, wrote this when asked who the tour’s next ‘villain’ could be after LIV Golf signed so many of the so-called bad boys:
“Recently a Tour player who has had to deal with Cantlay on some governance issues described him to me as a ‘terrific penis.’ I was slightly baffled until another person in the conversation said, ‘That means he’s a big d***.’ I haven’t laughed that hard in ages. Cantlay can certainly be smug and smarmy, which is a good starting point for villainy. So is a Goldman Sachs hat. But Cantlay is so corporate and controlled I don’t think he’ll ever lean into the role like an Ian Poulter or a Patrick Reed, which is a shame because, as you point out, there are presently way too many nice, normal, boring dudes on the PGA Tour.”
***
Sticking with golf, this Stuff story just screamed “peak New Zealand sports governance” from its pores.
A leading sports executive [Dean Murphy] who resigned from Golf NZ was endorsed to head a new global golf entity by the same board that fielded multiple complaints over his conduct.
I’ve checked out the profiles of the Golf NZ board. There are lawyers, accountants, CEOs, an ONZM… and yet they sign off on this (the emphasis is mine):
Golf NZ insiders were concerned about what they considered to be “reckless expenditure” on travel, including multiple trips to Europe as part of negotiations for the DotGolf deal. After one trip to St Andrews in Scotland – the home of The R&A – in February this year, Murphy allegedly arranged a last-minute stopover in New York on the way home for himself and [Golf NZ’s general manager of legal and partnerships].
However, Murphy and the Golf NZ board have defended the expenditure, contending that the stopover was scheduled in the itinerary to allow the pair to remotely attend “critical business meetings”.
This is unintentionally and side-splittingly funny. Murphy has really broken the mould here by becoming possibly the first person to literally go out of his way to attend a Zoom meeting.
I chose the wrong career.
Fun fact: The last player to touch the ball in that game was Les Bleus’ well-travelled defence coach Shaun Edwards.
You can make a case that last night’s first half had too many errors (and a fluke try) to be truly brilliant, but that was made up for in the second half.
To paint the full picture, there were 10 DNBs in those games and when she did bat it was between Nos 7-10, but still…
If free means all expenses paid, luxury gifts and a US$200,000 cheque to charity, half of which goes to a cause you choose.
Heard Darryl Mitchell asked once if Dad John ever offered his opinion on his sons cricket technique and strategy...."Yes" replied Darryl "and when he does I say to him - tell me again Dad why was it you selected Christian Cullen at centre................?"
That 89 final was a cracker. Nathan Cleary was schooled in Auckland. Oh what might have been eh! 😂