Blues did right by not seeing red over Caleb
PLUS: A packed Week That Was & Weekend That Will Be.
There was rare uniformity in the rugby masses this past week.
Caleb Clarke made an error of timing, was issued a red card, was suspended for three weeks and the Blues were… happy enough.
This pithy assessment carries more weight than you might think. The Blues’ measured, unemotional response to losing a quality international wing for close to a month goes a long way to convincing parents of impressionable, budding future All Blacks and Black Ferns that the sport is serious about keeping their athletes safe. Far more than any administrator fronting a camera or dictaphone and saying how important player welfare is.
Blues assistant coach Daniel Halangahu told reporters: “You could see there was no intent and we all know Caleb is a warm, loving young man, and never intended for anything to happen. But unfortunately it did.
“The framework is pretty clear and they’ve applied it. We’re getting consistency now. There has been a shift over the last few years and that’s because of the injuries sustained. We’re really clear on what’s OK and not OK. Caleb got it wrong, he accepts he got it wrong, and it’s just the degree of how he got it wrong is where we’re at.”
Whether the response was scripted or some quality freestylin’ doesn’t matter. It’s an important, mature response to what is too often an emotive subject driven by that most facile of defences: “He didn’t mean for it to happen.”1
Clarke seems like a genuinely lovely young man. He was involved in a freakishly unlucky incident.
There was no way he meant to hurt Tomasi Alosio when he went for the charge-down… but he did. The intent in this case, as it is in most cases, is nowhere near as important as the outcome.
Hopefully this marks a turning point in rugby’s relationship with head injuries.
Too often in the past team managements have moaned, cavilled and tried to hide behind technicalities. Take a leaf out of the Blues book and accept that if players cause head impacts and injuries, they will be suspended.
One potential jarring element: The Bounce understands Clarke was denied the opportunity to do the coaching intervention programme, which has been embedded into the sanctions process and would have taken a week off his suspension.
In all likelihood this was denied because Clarke’s collision with Alosio was so freakish and the coaching intervention is designed mainly for tackling and breakdown-entry technique.
THE WEEK THAT WAS
Ross Taylor retired on Monday. On Tuesday, a subscriber picked this up from the framers.
The poster scorecard was a present from her brother; the photos part of a present from her parents. All I can say readers, is get yourself a family who loves you like Tanya Wintringham’s does.
Also, that BYC pod that didn’t get uploaded in time for Wednesdays newsletter. Here it is.2 Netherlands opener Max O’Dowd is one interesting dude.
Every now and then the world just needs a bit of Steven Adams in their lives and with the playoffs fast approaching this is one of those times.
Adams is having a statistically meh season on one of the hottest teams in the NBA, the Memphis Grizzlies. In fact, this is a team that is projected to be hot for a long, long time to come (if you can’t be bothered linking, ESPN’s metrics suggest they’re in the best position to be the best team team in the league for the next three years), in part because of the extraordinary wealth of owner Robert Pera, who is just 44.
As for those statistics, they don’t matter one bit if you listen to this JJ Redick vlog with Grizzlies shooting star Desmond Bane from a month or so ago.
“He’s such a great teammate,” Redick, who played with Adams last year, says. “His job is so thankless. He doesn’t get enough credit and praise for how good he is at what he does.”
Said Bane: “You look at the [box] score and he might have four points, eight rebounds and, you know, one block but what he does for us is limitless. He’s our connector, he keeps the offence going. Playing with a great screener like that is a shooter’s dream.”
As a poorly timed footnote, Memphis lost in a meaningless game against Denver Nuggets today (they are already guaranteed second place in the Western Conference). Adams scored two points and snatched eight rebounds. He did not record a block.
Two more coaches have joined Brian Flores’ lawsuit against the NFL, alleging discrimination in the hiring and firing practices. Flores, the former Miami Dolphins coach, alleges the league is segregated and is run “like a plantation”. Ray Horton talked of the humiliation he felt knowing his interview for the Tennessee Titans was a sham after he learned Mike Mularkey, who is white, had already been promised the role. Steve Wilks says he was given no chance to succeed after being sacked by the Arizona Cardinals after one season.
In what is seen to be a peremptory strike in the expectation more minority coaches will join the lawsuit, the NFL recently announced that all teams will be required to have either a woman or minority coaches part of the offensive coaching staff in 2022.
It has been estimated that close to two migrant workers have died per day in Qatar since that oil-rich country was, in 2010, improbably announced as the host of this year’s World Cup.
Not to put too fine a point on it, behind those gleaming new sky rises and shiny new stadia is a grim picture painted in blood.
Max Rushden outlines to an internal dilemma I can empathise with: what do you and don’t you “cover” in sport?
Rushden, who hosts the excellent Football Weekly podcast, writes: “So this time around should we break off our discussion of Harry Kane’s late penalty to beat Iran to find out if the working conditions of migrants really have changed? After Ghana get retribution against Uruguay do we talk about what life is like for the LGBTQ+ community in Qatar?”
The more you learn about the top end of sport and particularly where the money comes from, the more uncomfortable it can get. My distaste (even contempt) for sporting bodies like Fifa and the IOC is writ large, but I still revel in world cups and the Olympics. Does that make me a hypocrite or just conflicted?
That conflict isn’t just confined to the big stuff. In some ways that’s easier to manage because you can’t hurt the feelings of an organisation.
How quickly do we move on from the terrible acts of individuals? Is there a statute of limitations where we draw a line under the sins committed by the likes of Sevu Reece? Is it even fair to single him out here given how many elite sportsmen - it’s nearly always men - end up in the headlines for the wrong reasons?
These are the sorts of things I used to wrestle with when I worked in mainstream media and even now I wonder what appetite there is for the “news” behind the sports.
With that in mind, please feel free to drop me a note if you think The Bounce is too issue-driven, or not enough. Obviously it’s impossible to keep everybody happy when you’re a one-man band but I’m always interested in what content engages you and what turns you off.
THE WEEKEND THAT WILL BE
Tiger! Tiger! Tiger! (And a little bit of McIlroy, Rahm, Koepka, Spieth, Morikawa, Johnson, Thomas and selected others.)
The Masters, Augusta, tomorrow and Sunday 7am, Monday 6am, Sky Sport 6
It’s not so much a battle for hearts and minds as it is eyeballs when the Warriors kick off against North Queensland tonight in a similar time slot to Moana Pasifika’s clash with the Highlanders in Dunedin. It’s no contest in this house - the Warriors have done enough to keep me invested. They’re not the most thrilling watch, but a real identity started to emerge in their efficient win against the Broncos and that is that they’re going to hit you hard up front and won’t be an easy out.
Warriors v North Queensland, Redcliffe, tonight 8pm, Sky Sport 4
Missed the afternoon footy last weekend but am going to earnestly try not to this time around. I’ll be on Jordie-at-12 watch as the slightly disappointing Hurricanes host the team based in Christchurch.
Hurricanes v Crusaders, Wellington, tomorrow 4.35pm, Sky Sport 1
It is being hyped as the match that decides the Premier League and while that might be the case if Manchester City prevails, with Liverpool still set to face Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur and a Merseyside Derby among others in their remaining games of a 38-game season, it might be a little premature. Still, it shapes as an absolutely cracking fixture. One that, if you’re a football fan, is worth setting the alarm for.
Manchester City v Liverpool, Etihad Stadium, Monday 3.30am, Spark Sport
A motorsport lover’s wet dream this weekend in Melbourne, with Formula One and Supercars on the same bill and in a decent time zone. The richest drivers will be in the F1, but the best individual driver will be in a tin-top. Fact3. Oh, and there’s IndyCars as well.
Supercars, Melbourne, Race 6, 7, 8 and 9; today 4.15pm, tomorrow noon & 4.15pm, Sunday 1.35pm, Sky Sport 5
IndyCar Long Beach GP, California, Sunday 9am, Sky Sport 5
Australian GP, Melbourne, qualifying and race; tomorrow & Sunday 5pm, Spark Sport
A BUG BITES!
Without going into details, mostly because I’m technologically incapable of providing them, a glitch meant that many of you did not receive my Tuesday newsletter. Apologies for that. Paying subscribers can access my archive here, and you can also find my Ross Taylor farewell piece alongside other good stuff on The Spinoff.
Such is the nature of modern, televised, professional sport, the small psychopathic sub-group of athletes who intentionally try to injure fellow pros through foul play is nearly gone. Not entirely, as you can see with cannonball tackles in the NRL, helmet-to-helmet hits in the NFL and studs-up challenges in football, but mostly.
It does contain an error. The captaincy controversy involved the handover from Taylor to Brendon McCullum, not Kane Williamson.
Dylan - enjoy how you expand on all
Issues and not just sport. It’s great reading.
NZR’s willingness to hire men who assault women is pretty embarrassing.
Squidge Rugby does a pretty good job of highlighting this.