Bolters, SMS ghosting and $5 handles - this ABs naming had everything
PLUS: A close-to-home book extract, the Ashes on fire and more...
After pumping up the live announcement of the All Blacks in Friday’s newsletter, I never ended up watching it live as it clashed with the feature piece on Carl Hayman on TVNZ’s Sunday programme.
It was a shame. There is a lot to like about reviving old-world traditions and given the reeking bowels - sorry for that imagery - of Athletic Park are no longer available, Te Awamutu Rugby Club felt like an appropriate venue for a live-TV announcement.
Having watched the replay, parsed the names and read the write-ups, The Bounce has drawn its own conclusions on a few things.
Biggest bolter
By common consent it had to be Dallas McLeod, the Crusaders utility back. It is a point Stuff are keen to highlight, though the headline - “Dallas McLeod, the biggest All Blacks bolter since, well, ever?” - could be torn from the pages and used as a shining example of recency bias. It wasn’t even that long ago that Karl Tu’inukuafe was the biggest All Black bolter ever and he probably wasn’t either. In 1980, after all, they picked a guy who was still at school!
Biggest rip-off
There are two Chiefs that have every right to feel ripped off. Shaun Stevenson has been named as injury cover for Mark Telea, but it’s hard to see what more he could have done to earn a full call-up.
“He’ll find that out when he comes in,” Foster told Sky. “We’ve got pretty specific job requirements on both sides of the ball. On the attack side, he’s proven to be outstanding… We’ve seen a massive improvement in the defensive structural stuff - the tackle and the contact work - but we still want to see a bit more in that space.”
To which, if I was Stevenson, I would say: “Have you seen Telea’s defence lately?”
It’s not Stevenson that wins this prize, however. His teammate Brad Weber was to my eyes the most glaring omission. One of the beautiful things about rugby is the subjectivity involved. There is enough nuance and differing positional requirements that it is possible for two people to look at the same player and one to say, “He’s brilliant!” and the other to say, “He’s rubbish!” This is especially true at halfback, which has been home to some of the most divisive players in All Blacks history. It’s still possible, I’m guessing, to walk into a pub in Eastern Southland and start a fight by mocking Justin Marshall’s pass.
Even armed with that knowledge, I don’t know how you can watch Super Rugby this year and not come to the conclusion that Weber is not in the top two halfbacks in the country, let alone three. A relatively well-connected source indicated that Weber’s kicking game is thought to be his Achilles heel, which is more than plausible, although I happen to be of the school that would be quite happy for a halfback to barely kick at all.
Said Sam Cane: “It is the selectors’ choice, but I think everyone can see there’s not a lot between those halfbacks.”
Strangest throwaway line
When asked about the hard conversations required with notable omissions like Weber, Hoskins Sotutu and Akira Ioane, coach Ian Foster told The Breakdown: “They’re tough [conversations]. There’s still a couple I’ve left texts and messages with that I haven’t heard back from, which hurts a bit.”
This was a strangely unguarded moment. Given what Foster went through last year, he must know to an acute level what it feels like when you’re about to have your dream shattered. If I was Weber, for example, the only thing I would be inclined to put in a text reply would be career limiting at best and a minor criminal offence at worst.
It was a curious line to air and I would have loved to know what Foster thought the appropriate response should have been, but the show immediately moved on to other matters.
Position of strength
Lock, with a caveat. When they are all fit, you have three top-tier, world-class second-rowers in Sam Whitelock, Brodie Retallick and Scott Barrett. Tupou Vaa’i’s athleticism is off the charts and Josh Lord is young, talented and hopefully not required too often at this point.
Position of weakness
The pessimist in me identified a couple of areas to shortlist but in the end I cannot remember a time I have felt this unconvinced about the back three. Take out the brilliant Will Jordan at fullback, whose health has been fragile of late, and you are left with 19 tests between the four wings, with the unconvincing Caleb Clarke owning 15 of them. Telea and Leicester Fainga’anuku have two each and Emoni Narawa is uncapped. Someone has to have a 2015 Nehe Milner-Skudder breakout. If not, expect to see a lot of Jordan on the wing and Beauden Barrett at fullback, which feels like an unsatisfactory compromise.
Level of excitement for Rugby Championship
World Cup year test rugby can be a strange soup, but the All Blacks struggles under Foster have added a piquancy to the truncated Rugby Championship. The opening test, away to Argentina, feels like the perfect barometer.
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Of course the All Blacks team naming completely overshadowed the two semifinals, which is probably a good thing for those keen on the Blues. It’s rare to see a forward pack so nakedly capitulate as the visitors to Orangetheory Stadium did on Friday night. The embarrassment was neatly summed up by Paul Lewis ($).
The Blues’ game plan was a bit like watching clowns run across a minefield; a flock of sheep deciding to play bullrush against a pride of lions.
It’s hard to come to any other conclusion other than we got the best two teams in the final, something that felt inevitable, as long as the playoff draw kept them apart, from a long way out.
Chiefs v Crusaders, Hamilton, Saturday 7.05pm
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Speaking of Hayman, both Stuff and the New Zealand Herald ran extracts from Head On: Rugby, dementia, and the hidden cost of success, his memoir that is due to be released in the coming days. I worked with Carl on the book and I know he poured everything of himself into the project and has come up with something that I feel is far more consequential than a standard rugby biography (and, yes, I would say that, wouldn’t I).
Stuff ran an extract around his problematic relationship with alcohol.
I have to own this simple, four-word sentence. I am an alcoholic. There, I’ve said it. When I read back on this, or my kids read it, or my friends that see only my best side, that sentence is going to hit like a thud, but it’s true.
I’ve been part of 12‑step programmes, counselling and rehabilitation. I’ve been to meetings in France and in New Plymouth. It’s an ongoing process. When I drink, I don’t regulate my intake and in turn I can’t regulate my emotional response. If you combine it with my neurodegenerative disease, it’s a toxic cocktail, if you’ll excuse the pun.
I might not be the sort of alcoholic who wakes up in the morning and craves it. I can and have gone for long periods without any desire to drink, but the disease nevertheless presents as a day-by-day battle to stay out of its grip. It once would have given me great embarrassment to acknowledge any alcohol problems, but now I’ve come not only to accept it but also to understand that talking about it helps.
I do get pissed off, and I’ll push back when people imply that my dementia and probable CTE is the result of alcohol, because I know a whole lot of players in similar positions to me who were at worst moderate drinkers during their careers.
Still, I know it’s a cog in my wheel.
The Herald ($) took from the chapter that detailed the key strategic mistake made at the ill-fated 2007 World Cup.
With pool play done and dusted, we prepared to radically change our game plan, a move designed to catch our opposition by surprise. All it really achieved was to muddy our own waters.
We were going to play a French team in a mauling game that is the bread and butter of their Top 14 club competition.
A fully functioning, mature leadership group, the sort that emerged in the years to follow, would have put the kibosh on it, but if I remember correctly, only Aaron Mauger expressed any real concern, and I’m not sure he did that with the coaches present.
Look out for The Bounce in midweek, where I’ll be running a competition to give away a copy of the book to two lucky subscribers.
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On a related matter, there has been some serious pushback on a typically underwhelming consensus statement for the Concussion in Sport Group, which I’ll also address in the midweek newsletter.
As advertised, the Ashes have got off to a rollicking start.
You can’t help but feel that England started the test burrowed deep inside Australia’s collective psyche. Pat Cummins started this test by bowling with three men on the boundary. The first ball still went for four.
Since that first ball there have been a number of talking points, including that created by a charming young fast bowler:
Weather permitting, these final two days should be box-office. Strap in. We’re three days into a potential 25.
A bloke called Wyndham held off poor old Rory McIlroy, whose past 10 years of major tilts have become more and more star-crossed. My overriding impression of this US Open championship, however, was that something just wasn’t quite right.
This Golf.com piece explains why.
As Denny McCarthy and former US Open champion Gary Woodland were finishing up their rounds… no more than two dozen spectators populated the viewing pen. To their left rose a grandstand, also available only to “clubhouse lawn guests”. As Woodland sized up his birdie try, it would be a generous estimate to say that the stand — midway through the third round of a major championship — was 10 percent occupied…
The result of what has been a smaller and undoubtedly more “corporate” crowd than has attended past Opens has not been lost on some of the players, including the defending champion. In an interview with Barstool Sports and Sports Illustrated on Saturday, Matt Fitzpatrick called the atmosphere at Los Angeles Country Club “very poor”.
Add to the fact players were lining up to criticise the course as unsuitable for a US Open and you can’t imagine the USGA will be in a rush to return. Viktor Hovland was the bluntest, stating that he didn’t think there were any great holes on the course.
“You know what, I’m not a big fan of this golf course, to be honest,” he said. “I think there’s some good holes. I don’t think there’s any great holes. I think there’s a few bad holes.”
Brooks Koepka said he thought it was a nice course for a social round with your mates, which is the epitome of damning with faint praise.
What was grating was the endless references to Lionel Ritchie’s mansion. Once was interesting, seven mentions a day was indicative of a tournament in need of more talking points.
Still, even after all the negative commentary on the venue, it was still a fascinating finale, with Clark just holding on for his first major.
Just a month to go until my favourite of the four majors - the Open Championship.
This was horrendous news and my only surprise is that deaths in major cycling races remain relatively rare. Swiss cyclist Gino Mader died during the Tour de Suisse, traditionally a key lead-in to the Tour de France. Mader, 26, crashed into a ravine during a descent leading to a stage finish.
After the accident, Belgium’s world champion Remco Evenepoel said on Twitter: “I hope that the final of today’s stage is food for thought for both cycling organisers as well as ourselves as riders. While a summit finish would have been perfectly possible, it wasn’t a good decision to let us finish down this dangerous descent.”
While Evenepoel is clearly right, watching cyclists descend steep mountain passes is one of the most thrilling sights in sport. As a viewer you watch in the uncomfortable knowledge that it is the danger that makes it so compelling.
THIS WEEK
Apologies for the tardy arrival of today’s missive. There is a bit going on this week, but keep an eye out on your inboxes for a newsletter either Wednesday evening or Thursday morning ($), and another Friday
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I read the Carl Hayman extract in Stuff and thought it was searingly honest and well told. Working with him on the book must have been quite the experience. Congratulations to both of you.
As for the Ashes, I watched most of day one, all of day two and nothing of last night’s. Bairstow is in the team for his batting but I can’t keep track of how many runs he’s given up through dropped catches and missed stumpings. Foakes must be feeling a range of emotions I’d imagine. Robinson has managed to do the unthinkable - I now want Australia to win (Broad was already sending me in that direction). His send-off of Khawaja (Khawaja for heaven’s sake!!) was so stupid but to double down in the press afterwards is petulant and childish. So much for the mantra of we’re in this to enjoy ourselves and not worry about the result.
I'm very much looking forward to the concussion stuff midweek. Since reading "League of Denial" back in 2013 and its stories of different organisations bidding for carcasses of NFL players, I've found the whole issue fascinating.