Immersion therapy
Having skirted around the edge of the national sport for the first half of Super Rugby Pacific, it's time to get stuck into some storylines.
The Super Rugby season started two months ago. To say that it has battled to impinge upon my consciousness is an understatement. It’s not like my mind has been a rugby-free zone, far from it, but most of the stories that have wormed their way in there are at best Super Rugby adjacent.
This is not new. If there is an autumnal hardy annual to keep coming back to, it is the slow-burn start to the rugby year.
Without further qualification, here is a 1st XV of footy storylines that have caught my attention.
To start semi-topically, has there ever been a less convincing explanation for such an anaemic Easter round than that offered up by Super Rugby chairman Kevin Malloy. As a reminder, during the longest weekend of the season, there were three games scheduled, not one of them a New Zealand derby, with matters concluding on Saturday night with the Force versus the Reds, a game unlikely to set pulses racing on this side of the Tasman. While the NRL, AFL and A-League went full noise, Super Rugby put on a thin gruel, but hey, not their fault… “Six of our grounds weren’t available over the Easter weekend and we had two of our teams requesting not to play on religious grounds,” Molloy told Mike Hosking. Honestly, I had to check the date on the top of this story twice to make sure I wasn’t being pranked. Nothing speaks to a competition’s credibility more than unavailability of grounds, for example.
One of the major reasons Super Rugby didn’t get the traction it might have is that it started against the backdrop of Scott Robertson having been sacked as All Black coach after two underwhelming years in charge. The storylines went straight from “why?” to “who’s next?” and that didn’t leave a lot of room for “what’s going to happen when the Force meet the Blues in round two?”
In some respects, the first few rounds of SRP were a referendum on Jamie Joseph’s All Black credentials, as it was pinpointed early that he and the Japan-domiciled Dave Rennie were the two leading (only) contenders for the head coaching role. It started off well for the understrength Highlanders, with a gutsy home win against the Crusaders, followed by a three-point loss to the Chiefs. After the Crusaders win it seemed the job was his to lose, but by the time they lost heavily to the Reds in round three, it was inevitable that doubts would creep in. This is, after all, a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately world.
Rennie was duly announced as All Black coach on March 4. “Coaching the All Blacks is an incredible honour. I’m extremely proud to have been entrusted with this role and understand the expectations that come with it,” he told the nation before slipping into interviews that Brodie Retallick was going pretty well up in Japan. “I get to see him train and play every week. He’s stronger than he’s ever been, he’s fitter than he’s ever been… we want to win the World Cup, and you need your best players available.” It was shades of Robertson and Richie Mo’unga, though maybe with a little less air of desperation.
One of the curiosities of the opening month was the appalling start of the defending champion Crusaders, who followed up the loss to their injury-ravaged southern neighbours with a truly awful 24-50 home defeat to the Brumbies. They got their season back on track with a surprising result against the Chiefs, before convincingly falling to the Blues at Eden Park. What followed was some classic training ground biff between prop Kershawl Sykes-Martin and lock Will Tucker. Stuff was there to capture it, which resulted in one of the all-time “eff-you” amendment/ retractions at the top and bottom of their story:
While the country waited with bated breath for the announcement of Rennie’s coaching team, a member of the last group, Jason Holland, was securing his medium-term future. There’s potential for impartiality here, but it’s not drawing too long a bow to say that pulling himself out of the All Blacks environment has only boosted his stock. Frustrated with a lack of meaningful input into Robertson’s vision, Holland opted not to renew his contract. Instead he took a role in Clark Laidlaw’s staff at the Hurricanes and they have quickly established themselves as the most watchable team in the comp. With Vern Cotter leaving for Queensland, Holland was snapped up by the Blues on a three-year deal.
Staying with coaching announcements (you can start to see how actual games are struggling to bust into the story catalogue), Scotty Stevenson set the ball rolling with his scoop that Moana Pasifika head coach Tana Umaga would be joining Rennie’s staff. “Umaga and Rennie have a long-standing connection through their time in Wellington and, given Rennie has publicly stated his desire to dig deep into the legacy of the All Blacks, hiring a former captain of Umaga’s standing and mana certainly ticks that box,” the story stated.
Umaga’s role was confirmed, as was the appointment of Neil Barnes and Mike Blair, and the retention of Jason Ryan — a man with suddenly a lot to prove as his stint as a forward specialist stretches into its third regime. Barnes stole the show with his introductory press call. The Taranaki dairy farmer had a string of one-liners that ranged from snakes and ladders to hard arses to having a sore back from all the coin he’s carrying, but the line that would have most pleased the good puritan rugby stock of middle New Zealand would have been this one: “You can’t build a house without a strong foundation under it. All the stuff you guys see in the house, all the windows and the glossy stuff is a waste of time when a strong wind comes along if you haven’t got the thing pinned down to the foundations. The game is just the same. There’s simple basics that you need to adhere to which will make you strong.”
Neil Barnes went full Barnsey. Getty Images The coaching announcements were all covered off by a strong contingent of mainstream media. What is more interesting in the long-term is what is happening across the Tasman, where a lot of the serious rugby reportage seems to be migrating to Substack. In stark contrast to this particular post, nobody takes Super Rugby more seriously than 8/9 Rugby, check it out. It’s especially useful if, like The Bounce, your view of Super Rugby Pacific starts and stops on these Shaky Islands. Over here, Jamie Wall Rugby is up and running.
A little spot of whimsy. I often catch myself pining for the return of the South African sides (not so much the Sunwolves, sorry Japan), but then I have to ask myself whether I ever made the effort to watch them? You probably have to go back to 2015 for the last time I watched a South African derby in full, and that was for this set piece ($), which I never repeated. I think I pine for the idea of New Zealand sides testing themselves in South Africa, rather than the idea of watching that challenge.
Fear for Moana Pasifika. A team created from the margins and left on the margins — quite literally, if you consider where their base sits in Albany — Moana have lost their coach, last year’s star recruit is in Japan and, frankly, they seem like a team that has more of a social purpose than a playing one. After a surprising first up win against the Drua, their margins of defeat have been 42, 16, 33, 36, 29 and 20. When Umaga came out with a withering attack on the attitudes of Blues’ management — “I don’t know if they realise there’s two professional rugby teams in this city but we do know they don’t want us here” — it was tempting to note it was the most fight they have shown since the first round of the season.
Shannon Frizell is back, which is good news, but will it see an amendment to the Constitution?
Shane Christie’s high grade CTE diagnosis reverberated around the world.
With a largely light and bright theme, this story is an awkward fit here, but so it should be. Nowinski strongly calls out New Zealand Rugby’s “bullshit” and “lazy” response to Christie’s death. I have subsequently had a conversation with a teammate of Shane’s who is experiencing ongoing symptoms of head injuries experienced during his career. He went through the NZR/ ACC-approved post-concussion treatment pathway and some of the advice and level of care he received was extremely concerning. I can’t share the conversation with you yet, but based on that one call alone, I’d say there is a frightening level of denial that still permeates the upper echelons of our rugby institutions.
Potential grand final preview alert! The Hurricanes host the Blues in Wellington tomorrow. We could see a very similar picture on June 20 — now there is the sort of hardcore SRP analysis you’ve been crying out for.
Who am I trying to kid by pretending there were 15 rugby storylines by April. But after a partially enforced Easter break, I’m intending to hit the second half of SRP running.
Highlanders v Brumbies, Dunedin, tonight 7.05pm; Moana Pasifika v Chiefs, Rotorua, tomorrow 2.05pm; Drua v Force, Lautoka, tomorrow 4.35pm; Hurricanes v Blues, Wellington, tomorrow 7.05pm; Reds v Crusaders, Brisbane, tomorrow 9.35pm (all SS1).
It bears noting that the Whitney Hansen era of the Black Ferns begins this weekend in Sacramento, when they take on the USA in the opening match of the Pacific Four Series. I did scan the Sacramento Bee, a multiple Pulitzer prize-winning paper for any angles, but rugby has not won much cut-through in the Californian capital.
I might be going into full rugbyhead mode this weekend, but I’ll make room for a couple of annual favourites.
Golf on the telly isn’t high on my list of thrills, but I’ve suddenly found myself walking around the house with my hands in the Vardon grip, hitting shadow irons into greenside bunkers. Occasionally the Masters tips into a world of cloying self-reverence but Augusta always scrubs up well for the screen and after years watching the same manicured lawns traversed, there’s an easy familiarity with its bumps and hollows. It might not be my favourite major, but it tends to be the most watchable.
US Masters, rounds 2-4, tomorrow-Monday (see SS listings for times)
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Just a few weeks into cycling’s classics season and there is a form of sacrilege on the lips of many: could Tadej Pogacar eclipse Eddy Merckx and become remembered as the Greatest of All Time? For some, including a brash Texan who used to ride a bit, the debate is over – “We have to stop this debate. For me, this is over. This guy is that good. He’s the greatest of all time, by far,” Lance Armstrong announced.
Pogacar has already won the season’s opening two Monuments (the five most prestigious one-day classics, including Milan-San Remo, which was the race he was supposedly unable to win as it heavily favours the sprinters. Last weekend’s dominating victory in the Tour of Flanders means he now has 12 Monuments, second all time behind Merckx’s 19, and has won the past four. The only one missing from his palmares is Paris-Roubaix, more quaintly known as the Hell of the North.
Narrow sections of cobbles, strong crosswinds, heroic breakaway attempts and rabid fans are just some of the obstacles Pogacar will face across 260km and five-and-a-half hours of hard labour. Most expect it to come down to a battle between him and three-time defending champion Mathieu van der Poel.
Paris-Roubaix, Sunday 8.45pm, SS2
Also worth noting all those machinations behind the coaching set up and press interviews was done without Mark Robinson after his resignation. It all looked fairly impressive while David Kirk has been at the helm.
Loving seeing cycling getting a mention DC. Keep the Mahi going.