Dazed and confused Warriors left reeling
Storm collapse was long weekend low point, while the magnetic Tyson Fury provided some punch and led to an importantly pointless question (see below)
Nobody expected the Warriors to beat the Storm.
Even in those pre-match puff panels, where ex-internationals give you the keys to victory and all that guff, Shontayne Hape was refreshingly obvious on Three when he said he didn’t think the Warriors could live with a star-studded Melbourne side, or words to that effect.
Yet the first half was so wonderfully Warriors - an intoxicating mix of wow and WTF moments - that by halftime Hape was modifying his dialogue with the team down by just 10-16 and having played much of the football.
What instead happened in the second half is the sort of thing that can set back a club’s progress by a year. Losing a match 70-10 is embarrassing; losing a half 54-0 nearly impossible.
First they got sad watching the awful injuries to Josh Curran and the luckless Dallin Watene-Zelezniak1, then some gave up. You could see them shrink. Apart from running forlornly after kick offs, which Reece Walsh has done inexcusably poorly this season, too many stopped. On Anzac Day, the Warriors raised the white flag.
Perhaps they thought the Storm would just pick up their ball and go home when it became obvious they had no opposition, but they instead chose to run up the scoreboard. It was unedifying, but in a competition that splits equal points by for-and-against differential, nobody could blame them.
You could argue that it’s just one loss and you get the same amount of competition points by getting beaten by a last-second field goal as you do being laughed out of Melbourne, but that would be underplaying it, especially when the coach unloads.
This sort of loss gets players talking and cliques forming. They’ll be asking each other who did and didn’t put a shift in. They’ll be second guessing the coach and his selections and his substitutions (or lack thereof).
This wound could fester, which is a shame because after a slow start, there was plenty to like about the Warriors over the past month, including a feisty loss to the Roosters.
It’s impossible to overstate how important a bounce back against the hapless Raiders is on Saturday.
Lose that and we’re faced with the prospect that there’ll be a lot less bubbles in the beer when the team is welcomed back to Mt Smart in July.
There’s a convention in sports journalism that you should never start with a question you can’t answer but every now and then you need to raise the middle finger to the rules, so here goes: Is Tyson Fury the most charismatic sporting figure of the 21st century?
Yes, the century has plenty of time to run and the word charisma means different things to different people, but there’s a persuasive argument to be made that the Gypsy King, the finest heavyweight of his generation, is just that.
After one of the most ostentatious and over-the-top entries to a fight, Fury, 33, landed one of the great punches in heavyweight history when got inside of Dillian Whyte’s defences in round six with an upper cut of stunning power and efficiency.
In a merciful piece of officiating, the referee stopped the fight even though Londoner Whyte had somehow regained his feet.
Fury could be seen pleading with referee Mark Lyson to call it off, which shows he doesn’t just have a punch, but a heart. He loves boxing but he has little interest in ruining the lives of his opponents - he’s no Mike Tyson - but that’s not what makes him charismatic.
In an era when upstart mixed martial arts productions fill arenas, Fury sold 94,000 tickets at one of the most iconic stadiums in the world. He did it with a threadbare undercard against an opponent that is good but some distance short of great.
Ali v Frazier this was not.
It was sold out because people are fascinated by Fury’s unique character and contrasts.
He’s tall, a bit flabby around the gut and man-boobs, looks terrible in boxing shorts and yet moves with uncommon grace and poise, and has lightning quick hands.
He loves a drink, was partial to nights on the nose-candy in his youth, yet thanks “my Lord and saviour” at every opportunity.
He can say some truly obnoxious things - women belong in the kitchen and homosexuality is a sin type of nonsense - yet is also capable of deep insight and painfully honest introspection.
He oozes charm, inspires devotion and is rarely boring, the fundamental criterion of charisma, but is he more charismatic than others?
I took a straw poll among friends and acquaintances over the weekend and a few other suggestions could be ruled out because they dominated in the wrong century, such as Diego Maradona, Michael Jordan and Shane Warne.
Conor McGregor got a mention but I’m not sure his redeeming qualities are any match for his faults.
There are those who have transcended their sports and have huge followings, like Tiger Woods and Serena Williams, but their methods have been quite businesslike and public pronouncements bland.
Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky are a little too chlorinated.
Lewis Hamilton has dominated his global sport, but charismatic? Nah, not really. The most charismatic motorsport legend of late has been seven-time MotoGP champion Valentino Rossi, but his sport might be a little too niche to qualify.
LeBron James has probably taken his talents to one city too many to inspire mass devotion.
Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are brilliant, but have plastic personalities.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic is the most charismatic modern footballer, but unlike Fury has no claim to be the best.
Tom Brady is a great quarterback with an Elysian life but a whole bunch of documentaries struggle to make him seem anything more than an obsessed and somewhat unsympathetic superstar.
That’s possibly because team sports, particularly the oval-ball codes, tend to iron some of the charm out of its individuals, and while someone like Richie McCaw had obvious leadership qualities and extraordinary heart, it would be a stretch to call him charismatic, even in the manner that rugby trailblazers Jonah, Campo or Pinetree were before him.
In other ways, female sports stars are often discouraged from showing too much personality for fear of being labelled difficult or overly emotional, but footballer Megan Rapinoe was charismatic enough to annoy the former president in the White House, and gymnast Simone Biles had the world hanging on her every move for two Olympic cycles, both good and stressful.
In the end, I could think of just one sporting figure that might have a stronger claim to this make-believe crown.
It’s a split decision, but if it went to my card, Usain Bolt would edge out Fury 10-9.
Bolt’s retirement was a savage blow to the ‘track’ part of track and field, just as Fury’s will be to boxing.
So I kind of did answer my question.
But am I wrong?
Despite the obvious cynicism, I quite enjoyed elements of the cross-border Super Rugby Pacific.
The Waratahs had some moments of joy against the Chiefs before capitulating; the Rebels were annoying enough against the Crusaders; Fijian Drua did not get blown out by the Blues; and the Brumbies even beat the low-powered Highlanders.
The big disappointments, however, were Brad Thorn’s Reds, who completely ran out of ideas against the Hurricanes.
Taken in totality, it was enough to keep me on the hook for at least a week more before I start to yearn for the derbies again.
Stuff’s Robert van Royen’s power rankings are pretty straightforward but he reserves his best lines for the lead-in, where he rightly savages SRP’s organisers for a laughable format where two-thirds of the teams advance to the playoffs.
He writes: The fact the 1-8 Highlanders, the lone Kiwi team to lose to an Australian side at the weekend, are just four points outside the all-important top eight says it all.
I’m not sure it says it all - there’s be plenty of good contests in the playoffs - but it says a lot.
Holy moly, if anybody tells you we’re a bit rough on our underperforming sports stars in New Zealand, refer to both Manchester United’s Paul Pogba, or the Brooklyn Nets’ (via Philadelphia 76ers) Ben Simmonds.
Can you imagine (and I’m just plucking a high-profile name out here for the sake of it, not because they’re in any way comparable to the subject of this diatribe), a John Kirwan or a Justin Marshall ever going to town on Beauden Barrett in the way Stephen A. Smith attacks Simmonds on ESPN here.
Maybe Mark ‘Watto’ Watson in his late-night Radio Sport days got pretty personal, particularly with cricketers, but I’m not sure his tirades were in the same postcode as this.
The ethical morass that is the reconciliation project in South African cricket got a boost (perhaps?) with former golden boy turned director of cricket Graeme Smith cleared of racism charges.
This story tells you how he got there and why he was cleared.
I did sneak a peak or two at the Phoenix’s 1-0 win against Western Sydney after dropping my son and his friends at the game. I thought the 15,000 crowd was a bit disappointing, but the boy reported back that the atmosphere was “pretty good”, before muttering something unintelligible about a streaker. Fine then.
The penalty “attempt” by Western Sydney Wanderer Steven Ugarkovic was a bit of a laugh, too, but it did make me wonder: why didn’t Sky Sport immediately splice the penalty footage off and tweet it out via its social media channels with some smart-arsey hook like, “Is this the worst penalty in history?”
You want to engage the ‘yoof’ market, sometimes you have to give them what they want. What they want is bite-sized pieces of your content - preferably the embarrassing gaffes - that they can share with their mates.
Speaking of tweets, this and the hundreds like it summed up the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, which was dire and an early entrant for most sleep-inducing event of 2022.
THIS WEEK
Another short week of The Bounce, with the next newsletter targeted for Friday. Normal service resumes next week. Thanks for your understanding.
That was a horrific incident and the replay was an extremely hard watch, seeing him knocked out before he hit the ground, which meant no instinctive motor control to prevent further damage when his head hit the turf.
Not just the yoof who could do with socials/highlights reels. I could, specifically for boxing. who knows really if Fury is charismatic, given you pay through the nose and they don't offer highlights packages a day or two after like most sport. makes boxing pretty niche for me these days, and i say that as someone who was genuinely quite a fan of it.
another 2000s star not yet mentioned: Lance Armstrong. Loved to a cultish degree both by a certain type of cycling fan and a group to whom he was a health hero, loathed probably equally by those who didn't "believe in miracles". Charisma though? For sure. Virtually singlehandedly (well i guess with his enablers like Phil and Paul and Michele) took road cycling global.
Fury is a conundrum, he sure is an entertainer and maybe charismatic but as I'm biased against any of the fighting "sports"/entertainment he wouldn't be my pick. Fed and Nadal are probably more charismatic in my books and don't seem to court as much controversy.