A week of SHOCK! signings
Three superstars - three big moves, PLUS: The Week That Was and the Weekend That Will Be
Buy into the James Fisher-Harris hype.
His age, pedigree and length of contract make a persuasive argument for it being one of the great “gets”, one that could only be topped if he could convince his teammate Nathan Cleary to join him in New Zealand.
Out of nowhere, Happy Frank was commenting on the signing.
“I don’t think it can really get much bigger,” [Frank Endacott] said. “Whoever recruited him has done their job brilliantly. In my opinion, he’s the best prop in the world. I can’t think of one that’s better.
“To get him for four years, and to replace a very good prop in Fonua-Blake, you couldn’t get a better replacement.”
At the risk of getting bogged down in semantics, the word “recruited” has got the backs of some Australian commentators up, most notably Paul Kent who lords it over NRL360 like a man who has never got anything wrong, ever.
“Why hasn’t the Integrity Unit got involved in this?” Kent asked on Wednesday.
“He had two years to run on his deal with Penrith, he’s not allowed to negotiate under NRL rules and suddenly he goes to Penrith and says he wants to go.”
Straight outta Kohukohu, Fisher-Harris is a brilliant signing. Maybe not as transformative as people like to make out, simply because he is effectively a straight replacement for a brilliant, ball-playing prop in Addin Fonua-Blake, but one that should help the Warriors retain their place now among the NRL’s annual contenders. He’s a player made up entirely of sharp edges that have yet to show any signs of being dulled.
That’s the key part of this deal: they’re getting peak JFH, not a player who is extracting a long-term deal from a desperate club because they know nobody else will give him four years.
“You never would have thought you’d be able to get James Fisher-Harris back to New Zealand at this stage of his career. He’s in prime form. This is what you want for the Warriors, that top homegrown talent coming to the club.
“Warriors have gained a special player.”
Yep, this is all upside, unless you’re a sports reporter who relies on quotes-driven copy.
JFH is not going to do much to get the dictaphones dancing, but that’s alright, there are others to carry that burden.
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The Jordie Barrett half season in Leinster is an interesting, yet not universally adored, concept, as this piece by the London Daily Telegraph’s Gavin Mairs (syndicated on Stuff) suggests.
With an Ireland team already dominated by Leinster players, there is already a recognition that it is not a healthy position to be over-reliant on one club. Barrett’s signing has, in a sense, crystalised that sentiment. Which makes his signing all the more intriguing, and potentially more impactful, than just simply what his dancing feet can bring on the pitch for Leinster for six months next season.
In other words - everybody hates Leinster and this is only going to add to the opprobrium.
Ireland is like New Zealand in that it is the most centrally controlled of the tier-one national unions. For this move to get the necessary sign-offs, you have to assume the IRFU and NZR see benefits beyond Barrett’s bank account.
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In terms of long-term impact, I wonder if the biggest signing of them all might have been the one that didn’t exactly sneak under the radar, but perhaps didn’t land with as loud a thud as the others.
Joey Manu is a generational talent, capable of playing along a rugby league backline and (probably) capable of playing anywhere between 12 and 15 in a union jersey. You put the probably in parentheses because many thought the same thing when Roger Tuivasa-Sheck switched codes for the last World Cup cycle.
There are subtle and unsubtle differences though. Manu is 10 centimetres taller than RTS, so although he is not as big as Sonny Bill Williams, another obvious reference point, he has the size and reach to offer an offloading game as well as footwork.
Like SBW, he is going to learn the code away from the hyper-critical New Zealand public so if and when he turns his sights towards All Blacks eligibility, he might not be fully formed but he’ll be somewhat formed, unlike RTS and Benji Marshall before him.
Ian Foster might not be everybody’s idea of a world-class coach, but he’s seen what has worked with SBW and he’s seen what didn’t work with RTS, so Toyota Verblitz appeals as a decent landing spot.
There was some understated Foster analysis of the move on ESPN (via an interview with SEN):
“At this stage, he’s really a wing/fullback… I’d love to see him at centre down the track, with his build, and the way he loves to get his hands on the ball and run at people. Sometimes, with No 15 in rugby, you really have to get involved in a lot more kicking and first-receiver type plays than what he’s used to,” Foster said.
“We’ve got to take it a step at a time, but he’s a great athlete and you see what he does for the Roosters. We’re looking forward to trying to tap into that and utilise him where he fits, certainly outside backs at the stage.”
At 27, Manu has time on his side, a point noted by Radio New Zealand:
The rumoured plan for Manu is to have him playing Super Rugby, potentially at the Chiefs side he almost ended up joining three years ago. That won’t be until 2026, as his contract with the Roosters has him in the NRL till the end of this season, then his time at Verblitz will presumably run all the way up to the test season. So, it is likely he'll end up in the NPC in 2025, which… makes sense given it’s the next logical step from playing in Japan.
Manu joins a pretty epic list of sporting talent who have called the forestry township of Tokoroa home.
The oval-ball stars who have played either international league or union (and in Henry Paul’s case both): Keven Mealamu, Quade Cooper, Walter Little, Nicky Little, Henry Paul, Robbie Paul, Manu, Isaac Boss, Paul Koteka, Isaac John, Richard Kahui, Sean Maitland, Adrian Cashmore, Dallas Seymour and Royce Willis.
Throw the likes of Maria Tutaia, Pero Cameron and John Davies in there and you’ve got an almost inexplicably rich sporting hothouse.
THE WEEK THAT WAS
Sir Colin Giltrap will be mourned by the motorsport community, his philanthropy propelling the careers of many of the country’s fastest drivers, but it was the little golf anecdote that tickled me in the Herald’s obituary.
Being a patron isn’t always smooth sailing, he told the Herald in 2012.
“Probably the worst initiative was paying huge money to get Tiger Woods out here for the New Zealand Open at Paraparaumu but it rained all the time and he didn’t perform at all,” Giltrap [said].
You can make a hundred brilliant investments, but its the ones that don’t work that stick in your mind
Some outsourced feedback from the feedback I received as to whether a period of Scottie Scheffler dominance would be good for golf.
I wrote: If golf is better off as a sport with a dominant figure a la Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan and Maurice Flitcroft, and does Scottie Scheffler have the charisma to pull it off?
It was probably a mistake to use the word “charisma”, because a) it often gets confused with personality and b) it means different things to different people. Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan were great examples of athletes whose personalities could be wooden and unknowable, yet they carried a certain charisma by presence alone.
In that respect, perhaps charisma is earned, not endowed.
I mention this because the television ratings for the Masters absolutely tanked this year. Cratered. Despite Tiger being in the field and creating a nice narrative around the cut record, and despite the world’s pre-eminent golfer playing brilliantly on his way to a second green jacket, the television audience was down a staggering 20 percent year on year.
A couple of the major points in the linked golf.com article:
Golf simply isn’t an overly compelling TV product right now. Too few performing stars, too many controversies and headaches, too little clarity on the shape of the future of the sport — it’s all a bad cocktail for the viewership group representing a fifth of golf’s TV audience. In short, the LIV drama was a bright blue flame for intrigue, but it may have faded into fan fatigue.
Scottie Scheffler simply isn’t a compelling TV golfer right now. He is unrelenting in his dominance and uninteresting in his interviews — a combination that could work for pro golf audiences if he lands three or five or 10 more big wins, but that isn’t working now. I’d bet a lot of golf fans changed the channel once they saw him take a commanding lead on the 12th green.
Perhaps the most compelling golfer in the world wasn’t playing a major last weekend, but this weekend (see below).
Nix nixed.
“Dylan, how are the Phoenix not even getting a mention? They’ve guaranteed a top 2 finish and did so by scoring a 96th minute winner against the team in third.”
I have mentioned this a couple of times about a couple of sports, but it is probably worth repeating: I don’t have the capacity to watch all the sport offered over a weekend and don’t feel comfortable commenting on those which I rarely watch or follow. I use outsourced links and stories for those sports.
The A-League falls into that category. I don’t avoid watching it, but I don’t seek it out either.
A few times this season, after what appeared to be meritorious wins, I have looked for some unique or compelling Phoenix or A-League content to share but usually draw a blank. If you spy some great content (please, no match reports or previews) that I have overlooked that you think The Bounce subscribers will benefit from reading, by all means send me the link/s and I’ll share.
Ta.
Team Emirates Barcelona New Zealand launched their Americas Cup defence boat… but really it was just another stop on the endless Grant Dalton score-settling tour.
“The attack dog, if you were a member of the government in those days, was MBIE,” Dalton told the crowd gathered for the launch at the team’s Auckland [base]. “Still smarting from the fact that despite their dishonest efforts, they’d not been able to wrestle control of the AC36 organisation (from the team) – and it absolutely drove them nuts.”
Drove who nuts, exactly?
THE WEEKEND THAT WILL BE
To break free of the NRL midtable morass, you need to string results together. An improved Dragons away is not going to be easy, but it is the type of game the Warriors need to win to burnish their top-four credentials.
St George v NZ Warriors, Wollongong, tonight 8pm, SS 4
No derbies, but the Hurricanes in Suva should be a hoot, while second meets third in Auckland.
Fijian Drua v Hurricanes, Suva, tonight 7.05pm, SS 1
Blues v Brumbies, Auckland, tomorrow 7.05pm, SS 1
Can Lydia Ko stop Nelly Korda? More pertinently, can anybody stop Nelly Korda as she attempts to win the year’s first women’s major and her fifth tournament in a row?
Were she to succeed in the Chevron Championship here in Texas she would emulate the great Nancy Lopez in 1978.
Korda is the first American to win four consecutive tournaments on the LPGA since Lopez won five straight 46 years ago. This astonishing streak made the then rookie front page material for Sports Illustrated.
Chevron Championship, Houston, tomorrow-Monday 6am, SS 9
It is international cricket, and it is possible to watch it, but at this point I’m 60-40 on giving it a miss. Those who chose to give this morning’s game a miss will be happy, given that it teemed down and there were only two balls bowled, enough time for Tim Robinson to realise internationals are harder than the Super Smash.
Pakistan v NZ, 2nd T20I, Rawalpindi, Sunday 2.30am, YouTube
Supercars comes to Taupo in one of the most tenuous points in its long history, with a lack of star drivers and a fractured calendar chief among the worries. Taupo will be fizzing though.
From the Herald:
Concerns have been raised by several prominent voices in the sport about the current state of the competition - although Kiwi fans seem unperturbed as “unprecedented” demand for the Taupō round has seen some extra tickets issued.
Taupo Super 400, Taupo, races 7 & 8, Saturday-Sunday 3.05pm, SS 3
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It’s kind of eerie, but it feels like we in New Zealand are watching F1 in the hope that the popular Daniel Ricciardo bums out so Liam Lawson can be given a seat. The show moves to China this weekend.
Chinese GP, Shanghai, Sunday 7pm, SS2
There is a heap of other stuff to appeal to all tastes. The NBA and NHL playoffs begin and yes, the Phoenix face the Newcastle Jets as they attempt to finish the regular season top of the table. The Premier League moves inexorably towards another Sky Blue finish and unless I’m completely missing something (and I will be missing things having spent the past few days in the Bay of Islands without a TV), the last of the four Spring Monuments, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, is on Sunday night and is again not televised.
A comment on each of the shock signings:
1. I thought it was a day at the beginning of April. I was discussing during the Manly game who on earth do we replace AFB with and then a few days later that bombshell drops. One of only two props in league being an upgrade (Haas being the other). Wahs recruiting of double-barrelled surnames and/or surnames including Harris coming to the fore again.
2. Leinster are like the Crusaders of Europe. If they want a good player they make it happen.
3. Win-win scenario for Joey Manu. Ease in to rugby guided by the last two AB coaches in a softer comp and get handsomely paid for it. If it doesn’t work out go back to the Chooks. Make a good fist of it follow the SBW pathway to the ABs, and not get thrown to the wolves like Benji and RTS did.
PS The Phoenix do deserve more love from the public, top 2 achievement after multiple years away from home and losing top players/coaches.