RWC starts with both a bang and a long shadow
RWC starts with both a bang and a long shadow
PLUS: Bathurst madness, boring All Blacks, an 'A' league question and a cocky cricketer
That was a weekend that will take some summing up, from the start of the Rugby World Cup, to the Black Caps’ now consistent inconsistency, to Shane van Gisbergen’s unqualified greatness and a bunch of other stuff.
To start, however, I want to point you to a story I wrote for The Spinoff, which appeared yesterday, about last year’s tragic death of Scotland utility forward Siobhan Cattigan. Neil Cattigan, who I spoke to at length about Siobhan’s life and death, is convinced that Scottish Rugby (SRU) is trying to “erase” his daughter’s name from history, a claim that doesn’t seem so paranoid when you consider a few points:
Siobhan’s name did not appear in SRU’s “Road to New Zealand” World Cup promotional material, despite her playing a significant role in their qualification;
Reference to her death was edited by World Rugby in a story for the official programme;
When I contacted SRU’s media person on the ground in New Zealand to ask how or whether they would commemorate Siobhan during the World Cup, they failed to reply.
Even given the fact that the Cattigans are taking World Rugby and SRU to court for failure of duty of care, this is weird behaviour.
Siobhan died suddenly in November last year after her life spiralled following a series of head injuries while playing for Scotland. Her father’s last line in the story was a gut punch that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since interviewing him.
For Cattigan, the World Cup is both a beautiful thing and a horrible reminder of what he has lost.
“Hopefully I won’t wake up tomorrow, but I probably will,” he says.
Have to confess to already being tired of hearing and reading about how this is more than just a rugby tournament, that it’s a significant moment in sports history ya-de-ya-de-ya…
Elite women’s sport is never going to get the coverage and treatment it deserves until we treat it exactly like that - elite sport - and not like a glorified social movement.
This is a rugby tournament, the best women’s rugby tournament in the world and I don’t care if these women milk cows and raise children between training, for the purposes of this tournament, they are athletes not role models.
A friend pointed me in the direction of Haley Rosen, the founder of Just Women’s Sports, and she nails it in a couple of short, simple sentences.
Women’s sport will flourish on hype, not guilt, and through excitement, not obligation.
It can’t feel like a community service, which New Zealand’s sport leaders all-too-often paint it out to be, or a cost centre in which the participants are made to feel they should be grateful they’re “allowed” to play.
As it was, the World Cup arrived in New Zealand with a dull thud, with France’s predictable 40-5 victory over South Africa lacking in sparkle.
That was more than made up for later on the opening day, with Fiji taking the game to England before the tournament favourites overwhelmed them in an ominously efficient second-half display that saw them run away to an 84-19 win.
The Black Ferns and Wallaroos then served up a treat. Whether it was nerves or over-excitement, the hosts looked mostly dreadful for the opening half an hour, finding themselves 0-17 down before regaining their mojo to win 41-17.
I didn’t watch nearly as much yesterday but what I did see of Italy’s win over the USA was a grind and not particularly enjoyable. I gave Canada’s victory over Japan a complete air-shot but have tried to catch up on as much of the dramatic Home Nations clash between Wales and Scotland as possible.
While it was far from a perfect game, it featured a couple of beautifully constructed tries from first-phase and had a finish for the ages, with Wales securing possession at 15-all and time up and putting together phase after phase until winning the sort of marginal offside penalty you wish wouldn’t decide games, but all too often does.
Some observations, based mainly on the Black Ferns match but that I believe are mostly universal (except possibly England, who look technically a class apart, with Wayne Smith calling them the game’s standard bearers).
The lack of a consistent long kicking game has three positive knock-on (not that sort of knock on) effects: it lengthens the field, creating more space; it keeps the ball in play longer; it means less shots at goal.
Players still look to isolate defenders and try to beat them one on one, rather than look to take the ball into contact with the sole intention of recycling possession. Look how many tries the Black Ferns and the Wallaroos scored through the attacking player simply winning their contest with the defender.
I’m sure coaches hate this, but the occasional lack of defensive sophistication makes for a good spectacle even if some of the tries, like the Wallaroos opener - verge on ludicrously soft.
It’s a long way between games. Again, there are sound financial (and welfare) reasons for the schedule being as it is, but it’s hard to get on the hype train with six days between matches.
One of the things that never ceases to amaze about the Bathurst 1000 is how every year team principals and pundits explain how the race is never won in the opening laps but can be lost, and every year a few drivers, like the unfortunate Zane Goddard, make heroically bad decisions in the opening laps.
At the time of that crash - and there’d already been a big one on lap one - there was about 970km to go.
As it was, Shane van Gisbergen, fresh off a podium performance in WRC2 at the Rally of New Zealand, dominated the race, turning in a near flawless performance with co-driver Garth Tander.
The 33-year-old Kiwi is compiling the most dominant season in Supercars history and one of the greatest 12 months by any driver. He is a freak, though there is speculation he might not be as great on the turps as he is on the track.
There were scary scenes at the farcical Japanese Grand Prix, with Pierre Gasly left fuming after a recovery tractor was on the track at the same time as the cars. It was eerily similar circumstances to the incident that led to the crash that killed Jules Bianchi.
Max Verstappen won to secure his second world championship. There will be more to come for the Dutchman.
The Phoenix began their A-League season yesterday with a 1-1 draw at home against Adelaide United where it appeared the corner flag provided most of the drama. The Breakers got their first win of the ANBL season, beating Tasmania 71-65 in a long-awaited homecoming.
There was a lot of stuff going on, but there was barely a whisper about either of these home openers in the lead-up. I used to wonder if the novelty of playing in Australian leagues would wear thin, not so much in the NRL, which is clearly the best club league competition in the world, but in leagues that clearly aren’t the best in the world. And yes, multiple uses of the word league and leagues make that a confusing sentence, but my brain is officially scrambled.
My internal jury is still deliberating as to whether the Phoenix and Breakers are, long term, a positive or negative for local football and basketball.
Any external thoughts welcome.
The All Blacks were named for their Northern tour and if the return of the oft-injured Anton Lienart-Brown is the most newsworthy feature you know the days of the classic bolter are long gone and lamented.
There will be more intrigue in the naming of the All Blacks XV later today.
I’m going to dig a bit deeper into the Black Caps in Wednesday’s newsletter, following their second round-robin clash with Pakistan tomorrow.
It’d be wise to avoid drawing too many conclusions from the first-up loss to Pakistan, given the tourists had just come off an intense seven-match series with England, while the hosts hadn’t played T20 cricket since their 2-1 series victory against the West Indies in August.
Watching some of the cricket being played by Australia and England in particular (which included a curious piece of unpunished Matthew Wade grubbiness), I remain concerned about New Zealand’s ability to set competitive totals the way their line-up is configured with Devon Conway and Kane Williamson taking two of the top three slots. Both are fine players and tailored their innings perfectly to suit a modest chase last night, but collectively they’ve faced well over half the balls available to New Zealand in this Tri Nations so far (145) and have scored just 167.
In the first game against Pakistan, when they were charged with setting a competitive target, they totalled 67 from 65 balls, which puts enormous pressure on the middle order being able to come in and hit sixes from ball one.
Compare their approach to England, whose top three last night was Alex Hales, Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes, all capable of carving attacks apart in the power play.
Unless they’re holding something back, on the batting side of the equation New Zealand is playing an outmoded form of T20.
Another couple of quick points.
Why can we not keep quick bowlers fit and, after the frightening incident where a Glenn Phillips six hit a 12-year-old spectator just above her eye, are we nearing the time for safety nets, a la baseball?
Phillips also introduced a new bowling “length” into the lexicon, whether you want it or not.
It’s good to have Pro sport here, however I am worried about the academy style football coming into youth age grade, even from juniors. You now have some clubs asking 7 year olds to train twice a week and play in graded competition. This specialisation of sports from such a young age is going to crush many sports long term.
Having said all this I’ve been really impressed by our local NBL and how it’s engaged fans and young people. Lots of school engagement and at least in Wellington some packed stadiums. Great to see. I wonder how they can translate the Breakers through though.
I agree that it's probably a net positive overall, given the pathway created and the ability to support a local professional team. Three Wellington lads combining for the goal yesterday! Not only can players play for the Nix but it has been a stepping stone to other pro environments overseas including Australia. More and more NZ players playing pro is a positive for the AWs, and provides tangible examples and inspiration for young players.
However, football has become even more expensive to play and the academy's here have to be amongst the few in the world where the majority pay to be in one. That isn't solely the Nix fault. The "game" overall hasn't reacted well or strategically to the elements of the Nix below the first team. There are too many issues to name.
The number of Nix players that make up youth international sides can't be good for the game overall. We are at the bottom of the world football pyramid and should focus on coherent, collective player development to leverage the huge junior participation numbers.