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PLUS: Rugby joust hogs the headlines in The Week That Was, but not The Weekend That Will Be

Please watch Sunday this weekend.

Mark Crysell has followed the news of Billy Guyton’s post-mortem CTE diagnosis with a “harrowing” look at his descent into illness.

“Basically, what you hear in his own words was his cry for help that was never answered,” Crysell told The Bounce.

The centrepiece of the story is access to a video post Guyton made as he tried and failed to make sense of what had become of his post-playing life.

You’ll hear anger directed at both New Zealand Rugby and the Rugby Players’ Association, with the family and Guyton’s advocate believing both organisations have taken their eyes off this ball and are presiding, in their own ways, over an unsafe workplace.

Billy’s Message, Sunday 7.30pm, TVNZ

THE WEEK THAT WAS

The RPA (right) landed a heavy blow which the NZR (left) did its best to deflect. Getty Images

Which brings us to the big story of the week: the increasingly unedifying press-release jousting between the two aforementioned organisations for power and influence.

As a good friend said to me as I was putting this blurb together, what the likes of Mark Robinson, Dame Patsy Reddy and Rob Nichol will end up learning is that “when you fight over tiny empires, you’re left standing on tiny ruins”.

He also said: “I don’t know how New Zealand Rugby survives this, I really don’t.” And that’s coming from a bloke whose final thought before his eyelids close for the night is whether you can still launch strike moves from a busted lineout drive.

To quickly recap, the NZRPA went public this week with its demand that the current New Zealand Rugby board do the “honourable” thing and resign en masse so they can kickstart the transition to an independent board - the single-most important recommendation of last year’s Governance Review, aka the Pilkington Report.

The release was 16 pages long but really could have been shortened to a couple of zingers to get the point across.

“It has been eight months since the release of the review. The game is widely regarded as impotent/disorganised and incompetent and is essentially in a state of governance chaos. The very issues highlighted in the review and that contributed to its conclusion - that NZR governance is not fit for purpose - are literally manifesting themselves in front of New Zealand's eyes.”

You know something burns with righteous indignation when it contains the words “very” and “literally”. Those subscribers with teenage offspring will recognise those words being wheeled out every time a loud case is being made for something, regardless of whether it is reasonable.

“There is now a leadership vacuum, and, as such, this proposal is designed to fill that vacuum and provide something the entire game can unite behind and support,” the statement continued, knowing full well the “entire game will not unite behind it.

Today, part of the “entire game” hit back.

“Calls for the current NZR Board to stand down are a distraction, and do not accurately reflect the findings of the Governance Review, which was focused on governance reform at a high level, rather than any concerns around the perceived performance of the current Board. The fundamental issue remains the fact that the current governance structure, based on a representative model, is no longer fit-for-purpose in a changing operating context.”

This is getting really ugly.

The one thing NZR is right about is that it is a distraction.

While all this is going on Super Rugby can’t get a look in.

Now I might not be the world’s smartest man but I can tell by the comments and the emails that roll into my inbox, that the majority of people who read this think the competition is cack, but seriously, what chance does it have against this backdrop?

Off the top of my head I can think of a few noteworthy things this season that are not getting a look in:

• The supercharged development of some young Hurricanes talent;

• Shaun Stevenson’s I-really-can’t-believe-I-wasn’t-in-France form;

• The Crusaders search for a new identity;

• The Drua’s home cooking.

Chances are in this space next week, we’ll again be talking about blows landed - off the field.

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There is a prevailing myth that needs to be busted, however.

An independent board does not mean that ‘rugby folk’ are precluded. In fact, if you read the Pilkington Report from front to back as some of us have for our sins, it quickly becomes obvious that it would be madness not to have deeply ingrained institutional knowledge as part of the matrix of skills required for an effective board.

A section of the provincial union machinery seems hellbent of propagating the idea that independence means the game will be run by a bunch of uptown lawyers and, worse, women, who spend their weekends driving EVs to vegan cafes where they drink oatmilk chai lattes and scroll through the bauhaus website looking for a side table for their Point Wells getaway. The sort of people, in other words, who have never smelled the liniment on the opposition tighthead prop’s thighs after a collapsed scrum.

It’s bollocks, of course, but bollocks too many seem prepared to eat in order to protect the old system of patronage and back-room deals - a system the Pilkington Report rightly decried.

Pointedly, to stretch the Point Wells point past breaking point, the board could use a pointer or two from those with a different worldview because rugby’s most pointy issue is not that it is going too progressive, but that it has singularly and spectacularly failed to engage audiences beyond its traditional, and dying, catchment.

The current board and those before them would score a zero in the points column next to this metric. That’s the entire point.

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They’re a couple of weeks old now, but Australian Olympic legend Kieren Perkins’ thoughts on modern sports governance still seem ultra-timely. 

At a recent SportNXT conference in Melbourne, Australian Sports Commission chief executive Perkins was scathing of governance models that rely on national sporting organisations, noting: “The federated model for sport guarantees obstruction and oblivion.”

Sounds serious.

Perkins was saying that national sporting organisations’ sole focus should be growing the sport, but politics and self-interest and chasing the wrong things, like funding by winning medals that are available once every four years, get in the way.

It would have been interesting to see Sport New Zealand CEO Ralene Castle’s body language as she shared the stage with Perkins. Grinning through gritted teeth, perhaps?

The comments would have been manna for those, like talent managers and players’ associations, who would love to see “professional sport” split entirely from “sport” to become, essentially, an image-rights business funded through the bottomless pockets of oil barons, billionaires and oligarchs.

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Love a good media chest-puff.

The two state-sponsored behemoths were this afternoon in a deathmatch to claim credit for Noeline Taurua’s predictable reappointment as Silver Ferns coach.

From Radio New Zealand:  

Dame Noeline Taurua has been named as the Silver Ferns head coach for a second time.

The announcement was made just after 2pm.

But it was largely foreshadowed by RNZ's netball reporter Bridget Tunnicliffe who revealed on Thursday that Taurua had once again got the job.

While TVNZ waste no time on getting to the most important part of the story:

As reported by 1News last night, Dame Noeline was announced this afternoon by Netball New Zealand, who confirmed she has agreed to a two-year appointment after the role was opened up following a string of disappointing results for the Silver Ferns in recent times.

THE WEEKEND THAT WILL BE

A few of the things I will probably get in front of…

Super Rugby might be pushed to the margins by the nonsense at board level, but they do themselves no favours either. There is a case to be made that this could be the worst Super Rugby weekend since Covid. Into the void steps the NRL, whose ‘weekend’ got off to a spectacular start last night with a barnburner between Melbourne and Brisbane. 

A lot of the focus of the Warriors week has been the number one jersey, with questions being asked as to whether hot-stepping Roger Tuivasa-Sheck should remain in the custodian role.

I’m more than happy with Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad as fullback. Perhaps even more importantly, so is Andrew Webster.

Webster said he wanted to put his best possible 17 on the park, which meant making room for both players.

“Charnze is so comfortable in his own skin, Roger is comfortable in his own skin and that’s our whole identity. We want everyone to be happy and know their role and know that we have complete faith in them.”

Webster said neither player had anything to prove.

“They’re just trying to be themselves. Charnze isn’t going to play like Roger. He’s going to do different things and last week when Roger played fullback he didn’t play like Charnze.”

My new-ish Wahs mate Peter is looking even further ahead, asking whether it should be CNK, RTS or Joey Manu at the back for the Kiwis? Great ‘problem’ to have.

South Sydney v NZ Warriors, Sydney, tomorrow 5pm, SS 4

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Big weekend for rev-heads. Shane van Gisbergen could use a big dollop of luck, something he has been short of in the past fortnight, as the Xfinity series moves to a short track in Martinsville in a race sponsored by toilet paper designed especially for men.

Meanwhile, the intrigue in F1 is almost Shakespearean in scope. Will Christian Horner survive at Red Bull? If he goes, will Daniel Ricciardo go? If Ricciardo goes, will Liam Lawson enter stage right? What about Carlos Sainz next year? Is Seb Vettel really lookin for a drive? Do men really need their own lavatory products?

Dude Wipes 250, Martinsville, Sunday 11.30am, 3 Now

Japan GP, Suzuka, Sunday 5pm, SS 2

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I was tossing up between this and Chiefs-Moana Pasifika. This won.

Central Coast v Wellington, Gosford, tomorrow 7.30pm, SS Select

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The Premier League is bubbling along nicely to a conclusion. The flashpoint matches at the top end of the table from here until the end on May 20 are: Arsenal v Aston Villa; Tottenham v Manchester City; Arsenal v Chelsea; Everton v Liverpool; Tottenham v Arsenal; Liverpool v Tottenham; Manchester United v Arsenal; Aston Villa v Liverpool: and this below…

Manchester United v Liverpool, Old Trafford, Monday 2.30am, Sky EPL

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The Hong Kong Sevens are also on. The NBA regular season is concluding just as the NZ NBL is heating up. There’s also extraordinary interest on the hardwood for Caitlin Clark and the Final Four of March Madness. Ryan Fox is in Texas, and even though I don’t really know how the latest LPGA tournament works, I believe Lydia Ko is in Vegas. Meanwhile, Rachin Ravindra is taking his talent to Hyderabad with his Chennai Super Kings. Another stagnant summer for the White Ferns ends in Hamilton on Sunday with a dead-rubber ODI against England.

On a final note, the problems in women’s cricket here are myriad and don’t all directly relate to the White Ferns limp performances, but if you want to get to the nub of some of the issues, click here for Monday’s newsletter and scroll down to the comments thread involving Dave and Oscar. They’re at, or have been at, the coalface. They care about the game.