A straight flush

Boks provide timely reality check, Warriors winning hearts and minds, Dame Lisa winning and Great Scott too.

Cam Roigard, silver lining. Getty Images/ David Rogers

About the only good thing you can say about that All Black performance on Saturday morning was that it wasn’t September 8.

What Ian Foster probably wanted to say was “flush the dunny and move on”, but due to recent complications in copyright matters involving Steve Hansen, he had to settle for a boxing analogy.

“We got an uppercut,” he lamented after the 7-35 drubbing at the hands of South Africa, the worst loss in All Blacks history.

Yep, followed by a left hook and, as the All Blacks were falling to the ground, the gloves came off and they took a right shoeing.

You’ve got to hand it to Fozzie, he’s racked up a few firsts in his time at the helm, but in fairness this was a thumping few saw coming.

Even the operator of the Sky TV chyrons got in the mood, choosing not to mince his or her words.

And it was a humiliation. It’s almost a matter of drawing up a manifest to list all the ways the All Blacks were humbled and determining whether they require context or if you just throw your hands in the air and hope to never see anything of the sort again.

The scrum was a distant second-best.

The lineout went from poor to dysfunctional.

The maul defence was at first undisciplined and then ineffective.

The general discipline was woeful.

The handling was unseemly.

The contact work, compared to the Boks, was as staunch as a dandelion in a stiff wind.

The All Blacks bench, Cam Roigard aside (if there was a subtitle for this performance it would be “Roigard aside”), added little except poor handling.

That was just the systemic faults. Individually it was an even longer catalogue of misfortune.

Sam Cane got yellow carded just when he needed to be driving home the discipline message. (Richard Knowler put the onus on him to “stop the rot”.)

Will Jordan was a passenger.

Aaron Smith was frazzled and inaccurate.

Richie Mo’unga reignited fears that he can’t employ his kitbag of skills to steady a listing ship (and missed a simple shot at goal).

Neither Dane Coles nor Samisoni Taukeiaho could have hit the ocean in a rowboat with their lineout throws.

Dalton Papali’i, Tupou Vai’i and Josh Lord entered the fray on a very bad day for the forwards and somehow made it worse.

And not since the Unruly Tourists hit Takapuna four years ago has a single family caused as much carnage on one patch of grass as the Barretts. From Jordie missing tackles and offloading straight to Springboks, to Beauden shanking to touch, to Scott having one of those days where his brain was set on time delay from his body, this was hard to watch. They won’t be painting murals of this match on the walls at Francis Douglas Memorial College.

Tyrel Lomax almost got off lightly by leaving Twickenham early, if you consider a laceration that sliced through muscle and required 30 stitches “lightly”.

Seriously, you could have named any player in black (Roigard aside), and found reason to lampoon, but by now the theme is pretty clear: the All Blacks were blown away by a Springbok team that played with febrile intensity and no shortage of skill. Maybe not skill in the same way we in New Zealand tend to value it, but skill nonetheless.

Does it have meaning beyond a historically dreadful day at the office?

Is there any truth to the idea that it’s not a bad time to be brought down to earth?

The answer to the first question has to be “yes”. Just as we were happy to celebrate the improvements during this year’s Rugby Championship and Bledisloe Cup as evidence the All Blacks performance graph was trending up with the World Cup looming, now we have to concede it has headed sharply in the other direction. 

As to whether it is a good reality check, I’d be more inclined to agree if it wasn’t such an evisceration, an emasculation. This was a reality check on HGH.

(With Brodie Retallick and Shannon Frizell injured, and Scott Barrett potentially facing trouble tomorrow morning, it also makes that decision to load up on wings and go light on locks look even riskier than it did at the time.) 

It was also a blueprint of sorts, not that the key to beating the All Blacks is a secret sauce: slow the game down; move from set piece to set piece; win the collisions at the breakdown so you can defend with line speed. On their day, England and Argentina have done it. Ireland have tormented the All Blacks and South Africa just took the template and added a sprinkle of magic to it.

Fabien Galthie would have taken copious notes.

It’s not over though. Not by a long shot. And Fozzie isn’t panicking, which is something.

“At least what we have got now is a good litmus test of where we’re at. We’ve got guys who have played a fortnight out from a big test and everyone is in the same boat from now on after this weekend.”

I was in the mixed zone in 2007 when England had just been creamed 0-36 by South Africa in pool play. Big lock Simon Shaw essentially told the good readers of the Herald on Sunday that his team was clueless and unhappy. A month later they were playing a World Cup final.

In 2007, France lost twice in pool play and lost the final by one point. South Africa lost to Japan(!) in 2015 and were a drop goal from beating New Zealand in the semifinals. The Boks lost to New Zealand in the opener in 2019 and rumour has it they won the tournament.

Rugby can be incredibly fickle like that. The right conditions, the right ref, the right bounce of the ball and things can change in an instant.

Take it as read though: if the All Blacks turn in a performance like that in the knockouts, it won’t matter which way the ball bounces.

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Speaking of refs, I’m in agreement with those, including, perhaps controversially, New Zealand Rugby referees boss Chris Pollock, who think the sport is crippling itself with TMO overkill. The Boks deserved every point of that victory and more, but the pace of play was just awful, with the first half alone taking more than an hour to play.

In a post picked up by 1news.co.nz, Pollock wrote:

“We need our game to have some continuity and not be so stop-start… we need to evolve or we will die as a game. The game needs to be played/refereed on the field for 99% of the time – currently the TMO/Bunker person is the most influential person in the game.”

This sort of lament might be scoffed at up north but it needs to be addressed with urgency down here. The NRL would be watching that spectacle and laughing (more on that downpage).

The UK papers, however, seemed to love it.

Wrote the estimable Robert Kitson in the intro to his Guardian match report:

At last some full-throttle rugby to raise the pulse in south-west London. It may have been a frustrating August for English supporters but here was the thunderous real deal, disguised as a so-called friendly.

Yes, there was thunder, all via one team, but a little lightning would have been nice to go with it.

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There was no Sunday Special this weekend as I lost an arm wrestle with the man-flu, so no Rating the Ratings. I did check them out however for my own amusement. There were some shockers - Planet Rugby somehow found a way to give Mark Telea an 8, Jordan a 7 and Mo’unga 6 - but instead of handing out the usual brickbats, a bouquet.

Aaron Goile has single handedly grabbed around the faltering Stuff ratings and turned them into a force. He is the Jason Ryan of the ratings game, but instead of the Saturday morning shocker endured by Ryan’s troops, Goile turned in a near faultless performance. No half marks, no ridiculous scores, little unnecessary waffle.

It would have been a 9/10 given had he added just a couple more stats into the ratings, like he did with Jordie Barrett, Telea, Ethan de Groot and Roigard. He was possibly one mark too high on De Groot and Mo’unga, but we’re getting really picky now.

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The All Blacks are not the only team who will be spending an uncomfortable few days wondering whether they have timed their World Cup run poorly.

England and Australia, aka the House That Eddie Built and the House That Eddie is Tearing Down, have endured shambolic World Cup buildups.

Fiji didn’t even have to be at their game-breaking best to beat England 30-22 at Twickenham, though this was magnificent to see.

It’s a fantastic result for the global game, but has left England searching for answers that are getting increasingly difficult to find according to Gerard Meagher.

The upshot is that not since the Normandy landings has a group of Englishmen crossed the Channel with such dread. England’s World Cup campaign is descending into farce. They are playing like a side with the weight of the world on their shoulders and unless drastic action is taken in the next fortnight, they are staring down the barrel of a second-ever pool stage exit, eight years after their first. 

 As for the Wallabies, they lost 17-41 to France today but don’t worry, it’s only a flesh wound.

Jones sat down for a chat with the Sydney Morning Herald’s former Wallaby columnist Peter FitzSimons before the latest setback and was, of course, eminently quotable.

FitzSimons questioned Jones on his relentless positivity in the face of bad results ($). He wanted to know what sort of shape the Wallabies are really in heading into the World Cup.

“Really good, mate. No one thinks we can win,” said Jones. “And if you look at the cycle of the favourite teams like Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and France, they’re all at the end of their cycle of growth. 

“So we’re not a well-established team, and we will have growth, a whole wave of growth. And yeah, if you look at it, there’s six weeks to the quarter-finals and in six weeks the whole world can change. 

“We’ve seen that. So there’s no reason why this team can’t change, and we’ve got enough talent to do it.”

Those who opened their emails on Friday know that at least England and Australia have one thing going for them.

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Meanwhile, on Friday the Warriors won their seventh match on the trot in front of 25,000 at a rollicking Mt Smart.

I’m not going to get hyper-analytical about it because it’s a bit of a broken record - didn’t play very well but got the job done - but instead focus on the battle for hearts and minds that the Warriors appear to be winning.

They’ve recently been the subject of multiple long reads in overseas publications, including this in the Guardian. 

The rise of the Warriors comes at a time when New Zealand appears to be souring on men’s rugby union – the game that has for so long dominated as the ‘national sport’... Yet attendance at domestic matches is in decline as the country re-energises its love of rugby league and its local team, with the first four home games the Warriors’ played in 2023 attracting an average attendance surpassed only by their inaugural season.

While in 2023 Warriors often play to 24,000 fans, Auckland’s premier rugby union franchise, the Blues could only muster 12,941 to their quarter-final win over the Waratahs. 

More curiously, the Daily Mail focused on a fan who was banned for life for drinking beer out of a shoe, but has been welcomed back and now eats mayonnaise.

The colourful footy fan previously banned by the New Zealand Warriors after doing a shoey has returned - and his new post-try celebration is stomach churning.

Calley Gibbons was spotted on Friday night devouring a mouthful of jar mayonnaise in the grandstand seconds after fullback Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad crossed the stripe against the Dragons midway through the first half in Auckland.

This is the most interesting read, from Australia’s sports business website Ministry of Sport, headlined: “Warriors’ Winning Strategy: The Commercial Playbook Behind Their NRL Uprising.”

It’s a bit gushy and Cam George gets an open mic, but some of the numbers are still pretty compelling.

Highlighting the Warriors’ commercial performance, these key metrics illustrate the strides the club has made in 2023:

• Over 220,000 fans have attended a Warriors home game in 2023;

• Over 152,000 attended first seven games at Go Media Stadium Mt Smart, average of 21,729 – The Warriors highest average since 1995;

• A further 32,000 across Warriors out-of-Auckland games in Napier and Wellington, plus 38,000 for Magic Round game versus Panthers;

• 2023 has seen the Warriors’ highest game-day revenues for merchandise in club history [around $140,000 per game];

• Sellout across corporate hospitality areas for final three home games; over 360 businesses will experience Warriors’ hospitality at Mt Smart with 45 businesses on the waitlist for 2024 packages;

• Grown to over one million social followers, including 34,000 growth in July alone – fastest growing social audience across NRL for July;

• Over 28 million impressions across social media channels in July.

Back to the footy, this is a beautiful sight.

So, for a different reason, is this.

Getty Images

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I watched most of the Dutch GP live as sleep wasn’t coming easily.

The rain made it one of the more interesting races of the season, though it ended like every other one, with a Red Bull in the front, for the ninth time in a row driven by Max Verstappen.

New Zealander Liam Lawson, the 10th Kiwi to start a Formula One race, went from 19th on the grid to 13th, finishing ahead of teammate Yuki Tsunoda, after just one practice and a qualifying session. That sounds pretty good, though former F1 driver Jolyon Palmer wasn’t moved by Lawson’s moves.

“He [Lawson] did fine, he kept it on the road, he didn’t look out of place on the grid, but he also didn’t really shine.”

Continuing to damn him with faint praise, Palmer said it was no contest who would take the seat when Daniel Ricciardo returned from his broken wrist in time for the Singapore GP. Lawson, however, will get the Italian GP at historic Monza to push his case for a seat on the grid in 2024.

If Lawson needed inspiration, he should have tuned in this morning to watch Scott Dixon put on another IndyCar masterclass, turning the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 - now that’s how to name an event - at St Louis into a bit of a procession.

It was his second win in as many races in the series, but at 74 points behind Alex Palou with just two races left, he’s going to need a miracle to win his seventh title. Scott McLuaghlin’s consistent season continued, finishing fifth, which mirrors his position in the championship.

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Lisa Carrington also provided some late-night highlights, winning three world championships in Duisburg, Germany. Her victories in the K1 500m and 200m were the epitome of dominance, though she took most satisfaction from being in the front of the K4 1000m boat.

“I just keep coming back to our K4 that was wicked,” she told the Canoe Federation website.

Carrington now has 15 world championships to go with her  five Olympic golds (and six medals overall). The GOAT in the Boat, as the NZ Herald’s Cam McMillan famously coined her, keeps getting GOATier.

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The Tall Blacks stayed with the USA for longer than most expected in their 72-99 loss at the world champs. Tonight’s game is pivotal.

NZ v Jordan, Manila, tonight 8.45pm, TVNZ+

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