A pleasant diversion

ABs name first squad of the season in rural heartland, PLUS: Raging against the non-screening of the cricket and bits and pieces (free).

A special sort of homecoming from Taradise’s Scott Barrett. Getty Images

Rahotu got its moment in the sun today and not before time — nothing screams test rugby quite like driving past paddocks of jersey heifers huddling up against a roaring sou’wester.

As the goalposts at the Coastal Rugby club swayed outside, New Zealand Rugby chairman David Kirk, more accustomed these days to coastal property on Sydney Harbour, rolled fairly smoothly through the 33 names that will make up Scott Robertson’s first squad of 2025. In keeping with the World Cup calendar, it has a bit of a mid-term feel, with the odd bolter balancing out a surprise omission or two as the second-year coach starts to firm up his playing style and personnel ahead of tests against an understrength France.

The squad (* denotes potential debutant):

Forwards:

Hookers: Codie Taylor (Age: 34, Club: Crusaders, Caps: 96), Samisoni Taukei’aho (27, Chiefs, 30), Brodie McAlister* (28, Chiefs, 0). Props: Ethan de Groot (26, Highlanders, 29), Tamaiti Williams (24, Crusaders, 18), Ollie Norris* (25, Chiefs, 0), Tyrel Lomax (29, Hurricanes, 44), Fletcher Newell (25, Crusaders, 22), Pasilio Tosi (26, Hurricanes, 7). Locks: Scott Barrett, c, (31, Crusaders, 80), Patrick Tuipulotu (32, Blues, 51), Tupou Vaa’i (25, Chiefs, 38), Fabian Holland* (22, Highlanders, 0). Loose forwards: Samipeni Finau (26, Chiefs, 8), Ardie Savea, vc, (31, Moana Pasifika, 94), Du’Plessis Kirifi* (28, Hurricanes, 0), Wallace Sititi (22, Chiefs, 10), Luke Jacobson (28, Chiefs, 24).

Backs:

Halfbacks: Cameron Roigard (24, Hurricanes, 10), Cortez Ratima (24, Chiefs, 11), Noah Hotham (22, Crusaders, 1). First-five eighths: Beauden Barrett (34, Blues, 134), Damian McKenzie (30, Chiefs, 61). Midfielders: Anton Lienert-Brown (30, Chiefs, 84), Jordie Barrett, vc, (28, Hurricanes, 68), Rieko Ioane (28, Blues, 81), Quinn Tupaea (26, Chiefs, 14), Billy Proctor (26, Hurricanes, 2), Timoci Tavatavanawai* (27, Highlanders, 0). Outside backs: Caleb Clarke (26, Blues, 29), Sevu Reece (28, Crusaders, 32), Will Jordan (27, Crusaders, 41), Ruben Love (24, Hurricanes, 1).

Injury cover: Christian Lio-Willie* (26, Crusaders, 0), Emoni Narawa (25, Chiefs, 2)

Here’s a few arbitrary categories I’ve used to parse the squad.

Stat of the Day

The All Blacks do not have a single specialist wing who will join the squad without having first been discharged without conviction.

It was a big day for Blues wing Caleb Clarke who had his day being diverted through court after being clocked on a motorbike blatting through a residential area at 110km/h.

In February the 26-year-old pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and failing to stop for police while riding his hog in Auckland. At one point an Eagle helicopter was deployed to track this easy rider. It is a curious wee case, if only for the fact that if you were to tell me the offence and then ask me to match it up to a current All Black, Clarke might have been my last pick.

He did have the good sense to say how deeply embarrassed he was and that it was the stupidest thing he’d ever done in his life. He is, at least, still one discharge without conviction from matching his fellow wing Sevu Reece’s total.

Players I’m genuinely excited to see in black

Timoci Tavatavanawai might have started the season stronger than he finished it, but that might be due to his Atlas-like propensity for carrying the Highlanders upon his shoulders. With less pressure on him to be all things, the thought of the Fijian-born dynamo in an All Black backline is enough to quicken the pulse.

Timoci Tavatavanawai is welcomed to the club. Getty Images

Another Highlander who managed to shine in a well-beaten team, Netherlands-born Fabian Holland has a great origin story and, according to James Parsons, a touch of the Brodie Retallicks about him.

Du’Plessis Kirifi was seriously contemplating heading offshore. He’s now glad he didn’t.

It was hard not to feel sick to the stomach when Quinn Tupaea had his knee blown up by Wallaby Darcy Swain while he was in a defenceless position at a breakdown. He appears to have come back even better and was one of the few Chiefs to shine in their final flub.

The *genuine* bolter

Step forward Brodie McAlister.

It’s the naming of 28 year old McAlister, fresh off his first season at the Chiefs, which will likely surprise most.

Having been released from his Crusaders contract early so he could pursue more game-time in Hamilton, he made the squad at the expense of Crusader George Bell, who missed much of the season through a foot injury.

The missing

It makes sense given that he’s leaving at the end of the year, but Mark Tele’a’s absence will be felt in a squad short of wings. Emoni Narawa might be feeling a little unloved, although he is at least part of the squad as cover for Lienert-Brown.

There were a trio of Crusaders whose names I expected to cut through the Coastal clubrooms, yet Robertson found no room for Ethan Blackadder, George Bower and David Havili — 1news.co.nz’s Patrick McKendry was particularly surprised by the omission of triple-threat Havili.

Havili appears particularly hard done by. He proved himself as one of the most consistent midfielders in the country this season, plus he has the versatility that Robertson apparently values. The Crusaders did not look the same without him on the field.

It’s already a Chiefs-heavy squad, but this writer wishes they’d found room for Leroy Carter, if only to prove that pathways to the top can be crooked.

Players I remain unconvinced will be realistic RWC ‘27 options

There’s a couple of rolls of sticky plaster over there with Luke Jacobson and Lienert-Brown’s names on them, while surely a wing who is more than a kick-chaser will emerge to replace Sevu Reece.

Trainer wheels required

Three halfbacks, 22 caps between them. The talents of Cam Roigard, Cortez Ratima and Noah Hotham are tantalising, but we’re a world away from test centurion Aaron Smith being backed up by TJ Perenara and his 80-plus caps.

Record player

There will be all sorts of conjecture over who is Robertson’s No10a and who is No10b, but I’m just as interested to watch Beauden Barrett climb up a couple of sacred lists.

Such as…

While he’s not going to catch those above him this year, we’ll get a sense of whether it’s likely to happen. This, on the other hand, is a live shot…

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Some other pieces and bits

It’s been a rugby-heavy couple of days at The Bounce, which means the eye has come off the ball with a few other happenings, though not necessarily by choice.

I’m doing my level best not to throw a toddler-in-aisle-three-type tantrum over the fact that Sky is not screening the England v India test series. Absolutely ropeable. The first test at Headingley has been a cracker, too.

From the Guardian: “Harry Brook smiles and riles India’s attack with swagger and fortune.”

Brook’s brain seems to be wired a little differently. On the third ball Bumrah bowled him on Sunday, he decided to take two quick steps forwards and wallop it through the covers for four. It was an extraordinary shot, in an innings studded with them. Brook picked up one of Prasidh Krishna’s short balls from outside off and heaved it into the stands beyond midwicket; he walked down the pitch to launch Mohammed Siraj over the silly mid-off he’d just set to try and deter exactly that shot, and even played Rishabh Pant’s roly‑poly scoop over the wicketkeeper to score a four off Ravindra Jadeja. It was like watching a kid copying the trick he’d just seen on TV, except he got away with it.

Look Baz, no hands. Getty Images

These aren’t strokes your typical batter could imagine, let alone execute. But then Brook is the most richly gifted shotmaker England have had since Kevin Pietersen was in the team. Time was, and not so long ago, when you would have been told off for trying them. But Brendon McCullum is the only England coach Brook has ever known – he has grown up being encouraged to play this way.

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There was an NBA Game Seven today…

Getty Images

From The Ringer: “The Unprecedented Coronation of the Oklahoma City Thunder.”

In the end, as the fever dream of one of the most compelling NBA Finals in recent memory dissipated with one course-altering tumble, all that was left was an unfamiliar sense of inevitability. The Oklahoma City Thunder are 2025 NBA champions, winning their first-ever Larry O’Brien trophy in a 103-91 Game 7 rock fight against the Indiana Pacers, an almost mystical force that, with each passing game appeared to be a team of destiny. But the hall of mirrors that those Pacers trapped the Thunder in finally shattered with 4:55 remaining in the first quarter, when Tyrese Haliburton collapsed to the floor and succumbed to a devastating fate: a ruptured Achilles tendon in the same leg as a calf strain he suffered earlier in the series. It felt eerily similar to the moment in the 2019 Finals when Kevin Durant suffered the same injury. Durant — Oklahoma City’s original golden child — of course, was traded just hours before these Thunder accomplished what he never could for the city. The line between star-crossed deja vu and poetic justice is evidently Reaper-slim.

Quite the colour intro that.

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The Warriors were dreadful in the second half against defending champion Penrith and although it’s probably not true because this team isn’t wired this way under Andrew Webster but it did look like they expected just turning up to Mt Smart on time would be enough to beat a weakened Panthers.

Webster’s contention that they beat themselves is fair.

“We didn’t play well... we beat ourselves tonight and they were very good, the Panthers, but yeah, we just didn’t get our game on, at all. Winning in front of our fans is what matters most. That’s what hurts. I’m focused on the result and how we go about responding.”

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Stuff’s Joseph Pearson analyses Peter Burling’s highly anticipated yet still a bombshell move to Luna Rossa.

What better individual to have than Burling, a skipper of three consecutive wins who has steered the first generations of the AC75 foiling monohulls, engineered by Team NZ.

Naples will stage racing for the third class of these high-tech boats that nobody has handled better than Burling. Some would argue his sailing IQ is unmatched.

After victory in Barcelona, with Burling’s future uncertain, his Cup journey did not seem over.

I love it. The America’s Cup needs some news like this. Palace intrigue is the best sort of intrigue and Team NZ to wave goodbye to sailing royalty is as good as it gets.