Coles an early contender for quote of the year

'Shag, WTF?'; World Cup wrap; Black Caps join Singapore in underestimating UAE

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This has all the elements of a storm in a teacup and yet… and yet…

There’s something a bit tacky in Steve Hansen’s decision to spend a week with the Wallabies this close to a World Cup.

As far as responses go, you can’t beat Dane Coles, “Shag, what are you up to?”

It is well worth watching the entire clip if you haven’t already.

To state the obvious, Hansen is his own man. He’s not breaking any rules and it sounds like his involvement with the Wallabies will be fairly benign. He’s not even wearing their tracksuit and if there’s one man who can effortlessly pull off the athletic-attire chic it’s Shag.

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And yet…

On page one of the preface of Steve Hansen The Legacy: the making of a New Zealand coaching great, Gregor Paul lays out of the coach’s reason for not writing an autobiography (emphasis is mine): “If he was going to take the  big money he was being offered, he believed the book would need authenticity and credibility - two things he didn’t feel he could offer without compromising his need to retain the trust of the many players whose careers he’d so definitively shaped.

Players like Coles, as one example.

His input with Eddie Jones’ Wallabies is likely to be minimal, and yet…

This is a departing coach who basically told reporters not to ring him seeking comment on the All Blacks because it was a sacred church that could not be defiled by the sacrilegious thoughts of pagans, non-believers and those outside the camp - but feel free to ring if you’re Rugby Australia.

(Yes, the word “basically” is doing a lot of work in that sentence, but that’s what I took from it.)

This is a guy with a vast reservoir of rugby IP. It makes sense that it should be tapped into to boost the sport worldwide. 

And yet…

This is the same person who, along with his predecessor Graham Henry, greased the wheels for his assistant to be made head coach despite a patchy CV in that role at Super Rugby level, and now he’s lending a hand to one of Ian Foster’s biggest rivals all because… EDDIE’S A COBBER! ($)

He says he’s helping an old mate. He and Jones have known each other for more than 25 years and have built a deep mutual professional respect, but also a strong personal friendship…

As a devout old-school traditionalist, Hansen makes the valid point that he said yes because rugby has long been built [by] values that are bigger than sport.

Let’s be clear, worse things have happened at sea and there is no suggestion Hansen will be running chalkboard sessions where he’s X’ing and O’ing the All Blacks’ favourite battle strategies.

There is also the delicate aroma of hypocrisy wafting over proceedings, with players free to take their IP to overseas clubs for large fees when their playing time is up with the All Blacks, but on balance I’m with Coles on this one.

Shag, really, what are you doing? 

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It has been fascinating reading the wash-up from the Fifa World Cup that ended around Sunday midnight.

Spain and England provided an appropriate ending. It was frenetic, occasionally haphazard, dramatic and occasionally beautiful.

The best team won, unquestionably. A fairer reflection would have been 3-1 to Spain, or something like that, but 1-0 will do them just fine. Spain’s passing and technique on the ball was vastly superior. In retrospect, the knockouts draw was quite lopsided, with Spain, the Netherlands, Japan and Sweden all on one side of the quarter-final draw (and the US were knocked out on the same side of the draw in the round of 16). You could make a solid argument that they were the best five of the best six teams in the tournament, remembering Japan beat the eventual winners 4-0 in pool play. 

Spain’s victory is complicated. It will be a cause of great celebration and introspection. Several of their best players were not involved after a dispute stemming from what they described as a toxic environment in the national team. The Spanish federation have been accused of standing by their man, coach Jorge Vilda, at the expense of the welfare needs of their players.

Some of the scenes of him being snubbed by celebrating players - not so much after the final, but in earlier rounds certainly - emphasised the point many have been making that they were winning in spite of, not because of, the coach.

There have been many stories written about the saga, but this one covers from ESPN covers most of the key points, which includes:

• 15 of his players wrote to the Spanish federation (RFEF) last October to raise concerns about Vilda’s management style and other issues behind the scenes

• When his team eliminated the Netherlands in the quarterfinal, only one substitute embraced Vilda at the end. He was ignored by every other player on the pitch.

• Vilda, whose father, Ángel, is the head of the federation’s women’s department, was given the unequivocal backing of RFEF president Luis Rubiales.

The Spanish FA of course turned the victory into a graceless vindication of their decision to back the coach ahead of the players, with this tin-eared post.

Meanwhile, Spain captain and goalscoring hero Olga Carmona experienced what you can only imagine to be an unfathomable swing of the emotional pendulum when she learned of her father’s death moments after lifting the trophy. 

The Spanish FA certainly did a lot better with this release: “We send our most sincere embrace to Olga and her family in a moment of deep sorrow. We love you, Olga, you are Spanish soccer history.”

There was also the discordant note of the Spanish Football President Luis Rubiales planting a way-too-familiar mouth kiss on Jennifer Hermosa as she collected her winners’ medal. It wasn’t quite the same as Emi Martinez a year earlier using the same stage to use his Golden Glove trophy as an auto-erotic prop, but at least the Argentine keeper didn’t involve anybody else in his stage show.

Queen Letizia and Princess Sofia were there to witness Spain’s triumph while Prince William, who is the figurehead president of the English FA, has been savaged for not attending.

Me, I just wanted to know where Salt Bae was?

This was a very good World Cup. Whether it was the best ever depends on what metric or prism you want to view it through. The crowds were great, though way back last century 90,000 people watched the final between the US and China and the revolution did not follow.

It was no doubt transformational for women’s football Down Under in a big-picture context. It was visible and it was embraced by the public on both sides of the Tasman. More importantly, perhaps, it was also accessible and relatable in a way the men’s World Cup isn’t. Just look at the crowds - there were so many more children in them than you would see at the men’s World Cup or a rugby test.

How does the big-picture success of this tournament assist in painting a whole lot of pretty little pictures? We don’t know yet, but we know it doesn’t just happen. It wasn’t that long ago we were in raptures about the Rugby World Cup hosted here but can you look at that tournament now and point to any lasting effect beyond the boosted profile of one or two Black Ferns?

Cricket got a big boost in playing numbers after the Black Caps’ nation-stopping run to the 2015 World Cup final, but in the eight years since they’ve given all those numbers back and then some and NZC has far greater resources to devote to community sport than New Zealand Football has.

The tournament heralded “a colossal change in the way football – and particularly women’s football – is seen in Aotearoa New Zealand”, Andrew Pragnell, the CEO of New Zealand Football, said in a statement.

To which it’s incumbent on everyone in the football community to ask him: “OK Pragster, so what comes next?”

Big events are the easy part, it’s the stuff in the middle that’s hard.

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Here’s another team with justifiable gripes.

There was one line from the Wallaroos list of complaints that stood out: Rugby Australia hasn’t committed to making their sole coach Jay Tregonning a fulltime employee, while Eddie Jones has six fulltime assistants with him at the World Cup.

Also, the Wallabies social media account showing the players’ partners being flown to the World Cup in business class to watch, while the Wallaroos flew economy to Canada to play is, at the very least, awful optics.

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So the UAE have played 14 T20Is in the past year. They have lost to Kuwait and Hong Kong in that time.

They did, however, beat New Zealand. Yes, the Black Caps have joined Singapore, Namibia and Afghanistan in being hijacked by the mighty Eagles in the past 12 months. Auspicious company indeed.

It doesn’t really matter that this is a New Zealand team in name only and it matters little that T20s are the great levellers - it’s still a terrible result and a terrible exhibition of cricket.

I was tempted to say meaningless cricket, but that 2nd T20I, in which the hosts bolted to a seven-wicket win, would have meant a great deal to the UAE players, and the 37 in the crowd who were not ICC or stadium employees.

Series positives: soft debuts for Aditya Ashok and Dean Foxcroft; nice knocks from Mark Chapman, Tim Seifert and Will Young; Tim Southee’s bowling; Kyle Jamieson staying upright.

Negatives: Everything else.

For our sins, we’ll be chatting about this in tomorrow’s BYC, and looking ahead to the England twin white-ball series that starts at the end of the month.

REMINDER

An abridged repeat of an earlier message:

It’s 17 days until the start of the Rugby World Cup and 44  days until the start of the Cricket World Cup. The two tournaments overlap for 24 days. It’s going to be… something. 

The Bounce is coming up on its second anniversary. To date, I have worked on the basis of one paywalled newsletter per week, while the rest have been accessible to non-paying subscribers. For the duration of the world cups, I’m flipping that ratio around.

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Dylan Cleaver