Monday mash-up: It never rains, it pours
Mo' money troubles, more TMO nonsense, Will O'Rourke get a run, Swift wins the Super Bowl and a marathon tragedy.
Those of you who opened Friday’s email would have spotted a litany of domestic issues for New Zealand Rugby to address in the coming months, which include trying to avoid tipping back into a fractious relationship with the Players’ Association. It is clear the NZRPA regards the provincial unions’ attempt to try to re-draw some of the recommendations of last year’s Governance Review as a foolish stalling tactic.
A further story in the Herald on Friday ($) points to just how parlous the situation at some unions.
New Zealand’s 14 premier rugby provinces have been served notice by the Ministry of Social Development that they collectively must repay almost $3m of Covid Wage Subsidy payments.
The ministry, which has told the unions they must respond to the request by early next month, is adamant that $2.9m of a total of $9.7m of wage subsidies, were effectively claimed twice – by New Zealand Rugby and the provinces.
It’s a complex situation, mostly because NZR’s player contracting model is byzantine, many will say necessarily so to enable them to compete with the voracious appetites of foreign clubs.
The most generous way of looking at the situation was that the unions were advised to maximise their subsidy eligibility, which in itself might leave a few people feeling a little uncomfortable.
Unless the ministry has a change of heart, or the unions challenge the ruling in court, they’re on the hook for $2.86m collectively.
What is more interesting is the breakdown between unions and how that might affect their effective solvency.
For example, it is understood Manawatu and Southland’s have the lowest liability, coming in at around $80,00, but the former last year reported a $338,000 loss on a gross income drop of $600,000, so a hit like this will be no small beer.
The three major metropolitan unions - Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury - are liable for close to $300,000 as are Tasman. Bay of Plenty, Hawke’s Bay and Taranaki are all well north of $200,000, while Otago and North Harbour are believed to be hovering around that cap.
The dynamic between the PUs and NZR is interesting in itself, with chief executive of the national body Mark Robinson on record as saying he did not think the NPC is fit for purpose. Individual unions falling into deep financial strife would play heavily into this narrative.
That Silver Lake rainy-day fund might be called upon far earlier than expected because unless the PUs, presumably with the help of head office, can get this decision turned around, it’s pouring.
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I know this has been said before, but it feels like the whole TMO dissatisfaction thing might be reaching a level of critical mass when entirely reasonable journalists like Robert Kitson - arguably the UK’s least shoutiest chief rugby writer - is using lines like these below:
Rugby union has got itself into a pickle over precisely what type of spectacle it wants to be. It was never designed to be a sport defined by slide-rule pedantry. Too often, unfortunately, that is now becoming its default setting as further underlined at the weekend by the wince-inducing, unsatisfactory finish to the game at Murrayfield.
To listen to the referee, Nic Berry, eventually being talked out of making a visibly accurate decision in the name of flawed protocol was both dispiriting and concerning… The tangled logic was exactly what rugby did not need as it battles to entice new audiences.
Once the referee’s call used to be sacred; now there are too many cooks poring over an excessive amount of slo-mo evidence.
The time has come to take a step back and consider the extent to which technology is tying the sport in over-complicated knots.
These were all in response to Scotland being denied a late try that would have seen them beat France. It really didn’t seem that difficult a decision to make once the film had been rolled, and yet rugby’s refereeing protocols made it so.
That was an ordinary game, won 20-16 by France, as was England’s 16-14 squeaker against a Wales team that is barely recognisable to anybody who does not closely follow the United Rugby Championship.
There was the Mason Grady yellow card for a “deliberate knock on” at a crucial late juncture with Wales still ahead. There was almost no chance for the Welsh replacement to check his reflex movement towards the ball after Henry Slade, at the very last moment, opted to let it slide across his chest. No matter: rugby has become so zero tolerant and so rigidly dictatorial that the referee, James Doleman, once the slo‑mo replays had found fingertip contact, had to reach for his pocket.
Kitson finishes his piece with a general lament, but one you have to hope the authorities read as it still stews in the aftermath of a World Cup final nobody outside of South Africa has any desire to see again or have repeated.
Add it all together and what do you have? Players walking a perpetual tightrope, referees in a near-impossible position, games decided by fractions virtually indecipherable to anyone at home on the sofa let alone 100 metres away in a crowded stadium. It just breeds doubt and frustration and, increasingly, accusations of inconsistency… Can modern rugby see the wood for the trees?
Why does the game feel increasingly like a vehicle for two teams of litigious plaintiffs to argue about indefinitely?
It is slowly driving a lot of people mad.
You can include me in that “lot of people” number.
The current test series against the nominal Proteas might be no great shakes, but there remains intrigue to see what bowling configuration Gary Stead and Tim Southee put onto Seddon Park tomorrow morning.
Southee today confirmed Will Young will provide a straight swap with Daryl Mitchell. Presumably he will slot into No 5 after Rachin Ravindra made a few runs at four in the first test.
There seems to be some momentum to the idea that Will O’Rourke will make his debut, so does that mean they wrap Kyle Jamieson in cotton wool before Australia, or do they play four seamers? If they play four quicks, do they retain Mitchell Santner as a specialist spinner and give Glenn Phillips a rest?
No matter which way they configure it, the BYC will be with you a few hours after each day’s play to wrap up the action.
Just like the Black Caps can only beat the team in front of them, Erika Fairweather can only beat the swimmers in the same pool as her.
Fairweather won New Zealand’s first gold medal at the long course swimming world championships, taking out the 400m freestyle in Doha in a personal best time of 3m 59.44s. Another New Zealander, Eve Thomas, was seventh.
Fairweather did so without familiar faces alongside her on the pool deck, including Olympic favourites Ariarne Titmus, Katie Ledecky and Summer McIntosh, who were first, second and fourth in Tokyo three years ago.
Li Bingjie, who finished with bronze in Tokyo, was there and Fairweather convincingly beat her.
It is unusual for there to be a world championships in Olympic year, so many of the top guns have given the event a miss, but fairweather’s breaking of the four-minute barrier suggests she would have been highly competitive in a stacked field, although Titmus’ 3m 55.38s would seem to put her in a class of her own.
Said the 20-year-old Dunedinite: “How crazy is that? I’m so stoked with that time. I’m so happy with where I am right now and I’m so excited for what’s to come.”
Swimming New Zealand and High Performance Sport NZ could use an Olympic medal. It has been starved of success since Danyon Loader despite having millions spent in central funding and bricks and mortar at the Millennium Centre. It is by many measures the most underachieving sport in the country.
Fairweather could change that perception in under four Parisian minutes.
The Warriors unveiled a new jersey today, celebrating a quarter-century partnership between One NZ (formerly Vodafone) and the Warriors. It was a nice reminder of just what a hilarious font Dominion Breweries used for its DB Bitter brand.
The heritage jersey will not feature the sponsor across the front, as this line from the press release explains (emphasis mine):
“This deliberate decision underscores our dedication to honouring the team’s roots and celebrating its evolution.”
Well, thank goodness it wasn’t an accidental decision then.
That’s Super Bowl LVIII in the books, with Taylor Swift catching a pass from Blake Lively in overtime to secure another title for the Kansas City Chiefs, their third victory in the past five years, and fourth overall.
It was a curious old game, pretty awful for large periods, with San Francisco by far the better team in the first half. The extended halftime break did not immediately Usher in a change of fortune for the Chiefs, but in the end they made enough big plays at the right time, while the 49ers struggled to turn their field position into points against a Chiefs defence that has stolen some of the spotlight from Patrick Mahomes and the offence.
Even at its most meh, the Super Bowl seems to throw up a disproportionate amount of white-knuckle finishes and this was no different, with the 49ers holding leads in the final minute of both regulation time and overtime.
The number of years without a title now sits at 29, a shocking amount of time for a franchise that racked up five Lombardi Trophies in a 13-year span from 1981 to ’94, led by some of the greatest players and coaches the sport has known. San Francisco is the fifth team in league history to lose three straight Super Bowls, a streak that follows it winning in its first five appearances in the big game.
And now the Niners must contend with the present failure and the unknown of the future. The championship window for the roster’s veterans might be shrinking ahead of a looming 2025 payday for Purdy…
In 2025, Purdy will be eligible for an extension that likely will multiply his 2024 cap charge of $1.12 million up to 50 times over. That could mean the Niners have to make difficult decisions on some of their high-priced veterans. It's why, entering the 2023 season, logic suggests this could be a two-year window to win the Super Bowl, at least with the current core of veterans.
Which is close to a perfect illustration as to why winning the big professional leagues is as much an exercise in financial management as it is in teamwork and coaching. Not quite right, is it?
The Bounce was not sold on the halftime show, which started out with a bit of cruise-ship entertainment vibe, but will admit that the roller skates thing was diverting. The Ringer, however, loved everything about Usher’s performance.
Usher has been the consummate five-tool showman since 1994, the perfect Vegas pop star long before Vegas’s Pop Star Residency Era, the platonic ideal of a Super Bowl halftime show long before the Super Bowl was anywhere near open-minded enough to realise it.
From the BBC:
The men’s marathon world record holder, Kenya’s Kelvin Kiptum, 24, has died in a road accident in his home country.
He was killed alongside his coach, Rwanda’s Gervais Hakizimana, in a car on a road in western Kenya on Sunday.
Kiptum’s clash with fellow Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge promised to be one of the can’t miss events of the Paris Olympics.
Never has the word Byzantine been used more aptly.
Intuitively, I realised early on that American sports like the NFL were all about the money. However, it was still a weird moment to see the Vince Lombardi trophy handed to, not the MVP (Mahomes) or one of the multitude of captains (Mahomes, Kelsey, etc) or the coach (Reid), but ...
Some guy named Clark Hunt (team owner).