Hayman's fading memory serves as a wake-up call for 'ticking timebomb' generation
PLUS: Guptill's incredible weight-loss programme, and Midweek Book Club.
I’ll scratch out my guard - middle stump, please - and play a few shots regarding the Black Caps latest adventure shortly, but first I want to share some gratitude for the incredible feedback I had regarding yesterday’s feature post. I knew Carl had a powerful, far-reaching story to tell but I didn’t realise just how far reaching it would become, with it taking precious real estate on websites, bulletins and newspapers around the globe.
After finding myself on a few radio slots yesterday, there’s a critical point I want to reiterate: Carl was the one who did all the heavy lifting; I was lucky enough to be the conduit to take his thorny story to the wider public.
I’m not sure everybody understands how hard it is for someone like Hayman to expose himself to public scrutiny. Although he lived his sporting life in the public eye, he is an extremely private individual. Even if you don’t agree with the move to litigate against rugby governing bodies, appreciate that exposing your vulnerabilities, reliving the worst parts of your past and talking about the uncertainty of your future takes real guts.
Richard Boardman, the lawyer preparing the suit, calls the link between rugby and brain disease a “ticking timebomb”. For players of Hayman’s generation and before, it doesn’t feel like hyperbole. The story came as a hammer blow to many who played with or against Hayman, and will doubtlessly lead to more players feeling comfortable and able to better safeguard their own futures in a sport that cannot mitigate every in-game collision.
If I was to summarise some of the feedback I have received I would do it thus: the longer we put off accepting a link between concussive injuries and chronic brain trauma and disease, the worse this will become.
There was one story Hayman brought up that didn’t make the final cut because it didn’t fit easily into the piece, but it reminded me of one of the more bizarre sagas in the nascent days of professional rugby: the supposed farm offer.
You may have a vague recollection of the story and if you do you probably remember it thus: Hayman was offered a farm to return to play rugby in New Zealand but turned it down to reap the riches in Europe.
If you’re like me and that’s how you remember it, you’re wrong. That rumour stung Hayman and caused him to lose faith in the machinery behind rugby here.
“It was said that I’d been offered a farm to stay in New Zealand,” Hayman says. “In fact, Taranaki Rugby had offered to pay a lease on a farm - about $70k per annum - as part of my provincial deal. When I signed overseas NZR came out and said they had offered me a farm. Subsequently, I spent the end of my career answering to everyone why I wouldn’t take a farm and stay.”
The original story was walked back slightly here, and then-CEO Steve Tew in March 2010 had this to say on Radio Sport: “There’s never been a farm in our mix. What we’ve always said to Carl is we want him back, he’s an outstanding world-class player… and this is what we can offer.”
The truth was, Hayman was just tired of being an All Black, not the playing side of it, but everything else that came with it.
“It did leave a bit of a sour taste in my mouth if I’m being honest,” he said.
A quick note of appreciation to all media that referenced The Bounce in their matchers and follow-ups to the Hayman story. It helps a small operation like this get traction. Biggest thanks to The Spinoff, which housed the feature in full, giving an important story the kick it needed to reach a wider audience. The Spinoff is entering an exciting new era under the co-editorship of Alex Casey and Madeleine Chapman and I mention this to a) curry favour and b) because it allows me to highlight one of the great pieces of New Zealand sports journalism that we all need to watch once (in my case, at least five times).
While I have a deep appreciation of other NZ sports journos and their work, there are only a few times I have read, listened to or watched something and gone: “Holy shit, I wish I had done that.” Dana Johannsen’s multimedia feature about death and life on the river is one, and this brilliantly off-the-wall mini-doco on skateboarding legend Lee Ralph is another. The Ralph story is part of the Chapman-directed Scratched: Aotearoa’s lost Sporting Legends series. If you haven’t already, dig in, you’ll both learn something and end up with a smile on your dial.
A WEE PLEA
Stories like that referenced above take time, energy and resources. While I will always make the long reads available for free, if you found value in my work and can afford to join as a paying subscriber, please consider it. Every little bit helps me keeps The Bounce on track. If you can’t, and there are a lot of people out there now struggling for a whole host of different reasons, no problem and no pressure, please stay along for the ride. Your attention is valued.
Thanks, Dylan Cleaver.
THE BLACK CAPS: Guppy’s kilo-shedding exercise
This introduction to the Black Caps’ Group 2 World T20 victory against Scotland might give you little motivation to read on, but I’m going to say it anyway: If it wasn’t for Martin Guptill nearly melting in front of our eyes, this game would likely be destined to be an unremembered part of modern cricket history.
Guptill shed 4.4kg during his innings-rescuing 93 off 56 balls. He would almost certainly have purred to his third T20I century, but sapped off the strength that saw him both stroke and bludgeon seven sixes, including a 102m moonshot, he holed out in the deep.
The 35 year old is one of those cricketers that regularly confounds me. He’s such an extraordinarily talented ball striker that as a spectator it’s hard not to take personal offence when he doesn’t flay the cover off every ball he faces. I’m intrigued to see how people remember him in 20 years’ time. It should be as one of New Zealand’s greatest white-ball batsmen (and arguably greatest fielder), but I have a funny feeling it will be more complicated than that due to his inability to translate his talent into test-match performance and the awfully unlucky circumstances of the 2019 World Cup final.
Anyway, last night was a timely reminder of how well he hits a cricket ball.
Quick notebook dump:
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it’s surprising that a team as analytically minded as the Black Caps does not do more to exploit left-right matchups in their batting lineup, given the strike rates of these partnerships in the past two IPLs has proved to be superior to right-right. It’s not the most convincing of data sets, sure, but even with the naked-eye test it seems obvious that bowlers and fielding captains find it easier to clog up right-hand partnerships than those that are mixed.
To that end, while both openers have had their moments in the tournament, I’m still a proponent of Devon Conway at the top of the order (he’s wasted at No 4) and the adaptable Daryl Mitchell (right) and James Neesham (left) used as a floating middle-order whackers depending on who the not out batsman is.
Glenn Phillips played one of his best, worst innings. For the most part he scratched and clawed his way to 33 from 37. He might have hit one off the middle in the entire innings and he formed an annoying habit of slapping long hops straight to the backward square boundary rider turning what should have been fours into ones. However, his 105-run partnership with Guptill won the game for New Zealand after their two most reliable bulwarks against a collapse - Kane Williamson and Conway - were dismissed for 0 and 1 respectively.
Scotland’s Mark Watt is one of the new breed of highly effective junk-ball bowlers. This video essay by Jarrod Kimber captures his essence, which is basically that of a left-arm spinner who doesn’t spin it, but if you haven’t got time to watch it just note that New Zealand were the latest in a long line of teams that haven’t been able to hit a seemingly hittable bowler. In the context of the Guptill onslaught, his figures of 1-13 off four overs were exceptional.
Actually, there probably is a comparison close to home. Mitchell Santner has more obvious class than Watt and although he went wicketless two games in a row, his 0-23 in Scotland’s chase was almost as important as his 0-15 in India’s innings in the previous match.
His spells were important because when he came on, Scotland had roared into the hunt by taking 20 off an Adam Milne over, an explicable follow up to his brilliant first over, a maiden.
Tim Southee was quietly excellent with the ball (1-24), but his catch in the deep to remove the dangerous George Munsey (22) might have been the turning point after he and Matthew Cross had put on 45 in five overs. Yes, he dropped Rishabh Pant at a vital stage of the World Test Championship final, but I still regard Southee as the finest fielding fast bowler in the game.
New Zealand now play Namibia, starting tomorrow night, in Sharjah before making the short hop to Abu Dhabi to face Afghanistan on Sunday. The simple equation is if they win both they’re in the semifinals. If they lose one, it will likely come down to who has the best net run rate out of them (0.816 to date), India (0.073) and Afghanistan (1.481).
This episode of The BYC, the 50th of this iteration, was recorded prior to the Black Caps win, but there’s enough nonsense in there to keep you entertained, including some Plunket Shield chatter.
One for the stat-heads
I made reference above of the Black Caps seemingly eschewing the numbers in their chase for World T20 glory. With that in mind, I enjoyed this BBC Sport piece looking back at the sports data pioneer who identified the big fix in the infamous 1919 Chicago “Black Sox” World Series.
MIDWEEK BOOK CLUB
What is it? League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for the Truth
Who wrote it? Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru
Publisher: Crown Archetype (2013)
Genre: Investigative journalism
Reviewer: Dylan Cleaver
Whenever I see some of the reaction to a story like that of Carl Hayman, I’m reminded of this searing piece of work that revealed how the NFL spent years trying to cover up mounting evidence of the link between American football and brain damage.
What is remarkable about LoD is how clear-eyed the reporting is, but it still carries enough emotional heft to deliver several gut punches along the way.
To be frank, it’s difficult to look at the athletic industrial complex in the same way ever again.
Without wanting to delve into detail, the over-riding takeaway from this book is a problem not easily solved within the sports and medical science communities: always look at who’s paying for the research and work backwards from there.
