Full credit: Rugby was the winner
Amazing weekend of sport highlighted by a Canes-Blues clash for the ages, an IndyCar breakthrough and a 0-0 cup final thriller (but no Notes from the Oval... yet)
All the RTS hype was worth it, even if his most critical intervention was not what he would have hoped for.
The Blues and Hurricanes played out a classic; probably the best game of rugby I’ve watched for two years even if it was played in a neutral and therefore soulless venue.
The rugby sparkled, while the scoreboard - which ended 33-32 to the Hurricanes - ticked forwards in a manner often incongruous to the way the action was ebbing and flowing.
The Hurricanes didn’t belong on the same field as the Blues for the first half. The score read 24-14 but if the Blues had led by 15 at the break it wouldn’t have felt like enough.
The Blues were accurate, were winning the physical battles and in the microscopically analysed Tuivasa-Sheck they found a midfielder whose dancing feet invariably made the first defender miss before deploying the classic league offload.
When the Hurricanes most potent gamebreaker, Jordie Barrett, was subbed at the three-quarter mark it could have been a white-flag-up-the-pole moment, but the Hurricanes bench injected energy. When the score read 32-14 at the 70-minute mark it did the Wellington-based side a terrible disservice because they had been playing all the rugby.
Never mind.
To score three tries in 10 minutes was amazing, to score the last one by pushing off Tuivasa-Sheck, so often the indomitable last line for the hapless Warriors, was somewhat ironic. That the drama didn’t quite end there - Ruben Love’s nervy conversion from in front had to be double-checked - was appropriate.
The Blues will get plenty of attention this season, partly because of RTS, partly because of the influence of assistant Joe Schmidt but mainly because it’s where most of the media live.
The Hurricanes, however, have some livewires of their own.
Salesi Rayasi is a weapon on the left wing - his finish for his hat-trick was sensational -and the Savea brothers were huge on the advantage line, but centre Bailyn Sullivan, who before fending off RTS to win the game set up Wes Goosen for a try with a deft kick, was the smartest back on the field.
He’s created a nice headache for the coaches when Billy Proctor comes back.
There has been good press for the Friday night game between the Highlanders and Crusaders, but the inevitability of the final result - 34-19 to the team that always wins - meant there was little tension, though Will Jordan enlivened proceedings with a stunning try.
Twenty-four hours later Super Rugby got the game it wanted. Maybe even needed.
Joeli Vidiri, 48, died last week, the announcement coming just hours after that of the death of Va’aiga Tuigamala.
I moved to Auckland in 1996 to attend AIT. I moved up as a staunch Taranaki fan who didn’t know what to make of the inaugural Super 12, but quickly became captivated by the Blues, particularly their unstoppable wings.
The rose-tints might be on, but I distinctly remember the Blues thrashing Northern Transvaal and Natal at Eden Park in front of packed crowds in daylight(!) to win the inaugural tournament. I remember Jonah and Joeli being near unstoppable and wondering if I’d have my visa to return to Taranaki revoked if my mates knew I was cheering for the Blues.
Scotty Stevenson wrote this about Joeli recently.
To be in the presence of Joeli Vidiri today is to feel shrouded in an otherworldly grace – a grace comprised entirely of contentment and humility. With just a smile, he can make the world feel better. He flashes that smile often, and at everyone. He flashes it six days a week at Mitre 10 Mega in Pukekohe.
Pukekohe in the middle of winter, 1994, when Colin Lawrie Fields were mostly ankle deep mud and a cold rain fell under yellow lights at Tuesday and Thursday training. This was Joeli’s landing place, a world away from the sultry Fijian heat and the rich red Melanesian dirt. It was rugby that brought him here or, more accurately, the rugby club. He was 21 then, weighing in at 100 kilograms and standing just shy of six foot five. Over the next six seasons, hundreds of players would confront those statistics, and lose…
… And as long as the yellow lights illuminate the cold winter rain on Colin Lawrie Fields, you’ll find Big Joe somewhere around the club. There will be a moment when his eye catches an old photo of himself, and for the briefest of moments you’ll see what might have been flash across his face.
And then, it’s gone.
It’s wonderful - but then again, what else would you expect?
Sporting bodies whose raison d’être is the almighty dollar (roubles?) sign, will be asked some serious questions about how to handle Russia moving forward.
First in line will be football’s governing body Fifa.
Barney Ronay of The Guardian argues they’re already too late and that Putin’s sportswashing machine has already served its purpose.
That state of complicity starts, of course, at football’s utterly shameless Swiss headquarters. Gianni Infantino has already made his own oleaginous public statement, deploring violence generally. “We woke up and we were shocked by what we saw,” Infantino crocodiled, maintaining an expression of textureless neutrality.
History will judge Infantino in the full glare of all his actions, his sycophancy, his cosying up to bloodstained despots. Rewind three and a half years and Infantino was at the Kremlin declaring that the world was now “in love” with Russia, and clasping Putin to his breast like a brother…
Infantino may have shown himself to be a grotesque, morally invertebrate fool. But that lesson extends to almost all of us on some level… We know, beyond any shadow of doubt, where this stage-management can lead. We know Vlad will not be returning Gianni’s calls, his anxious voicemails. That game has run its course. We have already been played.
The World Cup qualifiers lok to be the first flashpoint and it will come as no surprise to Ronay that Fifa have soft-soaped their response, despite the teams slated to meet Russia - Poland, Sweden and the Czech Republic - all saying they will refuse to play them.
Fifa will instead take Russia’s flag away.
As we’ve seen from the IOC and the Olympic Games, that’s the ultimate Clayton’s punishment.
Even after a promising first season where he won Rookie of the Year, it was okay to question whether Kiwi Scott McLaughlin had made the right move trading the tin-tops for open-wheel racing.
McLaughlin was dominant in the Supercars, adored by pundits and Ford fans alike but he was willing to trade that in for a midfield slot in IndyCars.
Question no more: McLaughlin is the real deal, winning the opening race of the season, the Grand Prix of St Petersburg, holding off challenges from last year’s winner Alex Palou (2nd) and legendary fellow New Zealander Scott Dixon (8th).
McLaughlin has given motorsport fans another reason to love Monday mornings.
You often hear the phrase “classic 0-0 draw” and think, “What the hell can be classic about watching a couple of hours of football and nobody scores?”
As evidence, let me present to you this morning’s League Cup final between Chelsea and Liverpool, which ended 0-0 after extra time, before the Scousers won 11-10 after a high-quality, nerve-shredding penalty shootout.
This was the most inexplicable 0-0 match you’ll see. The ball ended in the net four times - three in Liverpool’s goal - and all were rightly, though in one case controversially, ruled out for offside.
When the ball wasn’t going in the net it was largely down to stupendous goalkeeping, with the below save from Edouard Mendy to deny compatriot Sadio Mane having to be seen to be believed.
At the other end, second-string Liverpool stopper Caoiminh Kelleher pulled off two point blank stops, the second to deny Romelu Lukakau in nearly the last kick of normal time.
(Oh yeah, and Mason Mount hit the post and Mohamed Salah had a dink cleared off the line.)
Kelleher, filling in for Alisson Becker, a man many believe is the best in the world, scored the decisive penalty…
… and then watched as his opposite, Kepa Arrizabalaga, who was substituted on late specifically for the penalty shootout, blazed his over the bar.
Hope you’re keeping up.
Yes, it was 0-0, but that scoreline is as close as you can come to a totally truthful lie.
The worst thing about the final was the aftermath, and one small element in particular.
If you’ve followed sport for any length of time in this country you’ll be familiar with the name Matt Brown. He’s a breathless commentator of tennis and an almost-as-breathless seeker, compiler and and reader of radio news.
He’s the sort of bloke who can exhaust you just by standing in the same postcode. Every newsroom needs a Matt Brown.
He’s also the biggest Liverpool fanboy I know so as soon as Arrizabalaga missed his penalty I waited for an unhinged celebratory tweet. This is all I got.
Lift your game Matt.
More head injury lunacy in the Six Nations.
Wales’ Tomas Francis was allowed back on the field after passing an HIA. He’s taken a bad blow to the head, is having balance issues and is obviously groggy.
If the HIA means Francis can return to the field then the protocols are not working. Simple as that.
TONIGHT
This got a little big on me, so a shortish Notes from (north of) the Oval will appear after play today for paying subscribers only.
