Save it up for the highlights
A quote that resonated, Europe's rugby woes, Liam Lawson and a pointless cricket tour
Sometimes you see a quote and in a few sentences it manages to convey a concept you’ve been wrestling with for some time but have not been able to articulate properly.
This comes from an interview in the Yang Slinger with Rich Cohen, who had recently written a book, When The Game Was War, about the 1987 NBA season, when four basketball dynasties - Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls - met in what many consider the greatest season ever.
He was talking about basketball specifically, but you can apply this across sports.
The prevalence of highlights — online and TV — has destroyed some of the drama of the game. You only understand what might otherwise look like a perfectly average jumper if you have experienced the forty frustrating, gruelling, impossible 42 minutes that led up to it and for which it served as a dam-breaking catharsis. That’s why you dropped to the floor and shed many happy tears. That’s why you ran into the street screaming “Yes! Yes! Yes! Eat it you f***ers!”
This resonated. He’s talking about a made jump shot, but he could be talking about a goal, a try, a wicket, an overtake, a knockout.
It’s modern sporting consumption patterns that have normalised the abnormal, made mundane the spectacular and rendered redundant large swathes of the match.
I’m far from a millennial but I’m guilty, too. There are 380 Premier League matches per season and I’ll view nearly all of them in the three-minute format.
Gradually then all at once it altered the way I viewed football. I might tell myself otherwise, but I’m really only interested in the pointy end of the stick now. I want goals, saves and blown chances. The thought of watching peak-era Barcelona passing the ball among themselves for 90 technically stupendous minutes now bores me.
I’m tiki-taka’ed out.
Most NRL games I watch are around eight minutes long (not the Warriors, of course, though I confess to giving up early in the weekend, much like the team itself), and the same goes for Super Rugby, though I’m inclined to watch most New Zealand derbies in full.
The set-piece grind of rugby and the completed-sets obsession with league are becoming less and less part of my viewing life and I was raised to appreciate them. Kids are raised now by Instagram reels so you can imagine how most of them regard a series of lineout drives, a couple of decent hit-ups or a sustained spell of tight bowling.
It’s time for me to go old-school again and it’s as good a reason as any to look forward to the World Cup and the NRL playoffs. It will be a constant diet of 80-minute encounters - the grind that makes the pay-off all the more glorious.
I’m sure it will be enough to have me dropping to my knees and crying tears of joy, but if the Warriors win this NRL thing, I could well run into the street screaming “Yes! Yes! Yes! Eat it you f***ers!”
New Zealand Rugby, both big R and little r, faced a day of reckoning last week with the trumpeted release of the independent governance review.
It turns out this country is not the only one being forced into a bout of introspection.
Side-by-side pieces in the Guardian over the past few days have revealed the depth of angst faced by England and Wales, a country often compared to New Zealand because of its size and a love of rugby that was once unchallenged.
“Why has it all gone wrong for England since the last men’s Rugby World Cup?” The headline alone sets the tone and some of the observations are instantly recognisable: executive befuddlement when it came to a coaching change; the game’s parlous financial base being eroded by the pandemic; and a faltering age-group system.
On the first point:
The RFU ought to have acted a year earlier if it was not going to back Jones through to France. In the 2021 Six Nations, played out in empty stadiums, England endured disappointing defeats by Scotland, Wales and Ireland. A month later, the RFU published details of its review with excuses ranging from fatigue, player and coach availability, and a bizarre claim that lower body strength needed to improve to negate breakdown indiscipline but there was not a single word apportioning any blame on Jones.
On the second:
The government stepped in with a £135m bailout but still, three clubs have since gone to the wall: Worcester, Wasps and London Irish. The clubs took two significant steps: to end relegation and to reduce the salary cap. Ending relegation has led to a league in which more tries are scored but the impact on England has been clear… in a closed league, defence is largely optional until teams reach the playoffs.
On the third:
In 2018, Dean Ryan, then the RFU’s head of international player development, gutted Twickenham of popular age-grade coaches… then left a year later. Their world Under-20 title in 2016 was a third in four years but the trophy cabinet has since been bare.
At least England have the playing numbers and the RFU, if not necessarily the clubs, the financial resources to claw back lost ground. The situation might not be as rosy for Wales.
“Without golden generation Wales are worlds away from World Cup success,” writes Michael Aylwin.
If England’s fall from grace since the heights they reached in 2019 is perplexing, Wales seem to have plunged at least as far in the same period. Their grand slam that year and agonising 19-16 defeat to the Springboks in a World Cup semi-final, courtesy of a Handré Pollard penalty five minutes from time, might as well have happened to a different team in a different universe… There have been player strikes since, a scouring of the regions’ finances, that fifth-place finish (and quite lucky to manage even that), some weirdly timed retirements and a send-off defeat by the Springboks in August that was by rather more than three points. They have sunk to 10th in the world rankings.
The World Cup previews are rolling in and mostly follow a similar pattern: one side of the draw is savage, the other silly.
Wrote Robert Kitson: “A European champion… really would make a statement. It is complicated, however, by a draw that even Machiavelli would have rejected as overly cruel and heartless. As a consequence of World Rugby’s counterproductive desire to confirm the pools almost three years in advance, only two of France, South Africa, Ireland and New Zealand can advance beyond the last eight. While it makes for some eye-catching pool games, and a thunderous set of quarter-finals, the disparity between the draw’s respective halves is little short of ludicrous.”
I found myself quoted in the New York Times (metered $). The interview was done before the crushing defeat to South Africa, a loss of such brutal proportions it makes some of the optimism seem misguided.
***
It was gutting to read this story in Wales Online, headed: “Ex-Wales rugby star Alix Popham taken to hospital after failing to recognise his wife amid suspected concussion.”
Popham, 43, was competing in Wales Ironman when it was suspected he was concussed by a stray kick during the swim leg. Ironically, he was competing to raise money for concussion awareness and support. Popham was 40 when he was diagnosed with early onset dementia and probable CTE.
I interviewed Alix for The Bounce way back when and was immediately captivated by his burning desire to make the most of his life and to help others suffering the same plight.
He and Carl Hayman quickly became like lost brothers to a different mother. In a desperately cruel twist, Carl was meant to be in Wales competing for this event but came off his bike during a training ride, knocked himself out, broke his collarbone and suffered hypothermia before waking up in a Whangarei hospital.
***
NB: References to suicide appear in this next item.
Last week saw the release of another troubling CTE study out of Boston (h/t Darin). Emphasis is mine.
Among contact sport athletes younger than 30, researchers found that 4 in 10 had the brain disorder chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.
The study was published in JAMA Neurology and examined the donated brains of 152 athletes ranging in age from 13 to 29 years old. The study was conducted by researchers at Boston University, who noted that 3-4 years of time on the field appeared to be the difference between whether a player was likely to have signs of CTE or not. The youngest age of athletes diagnosed with CTE was 17 years old.
People in the study played sports including football, ice hockey, soccer, rugby and wrestling.
Among the athletes, suicide was the most common cause of death, and unintentional overdose was the second most common.
“It seems to be well accepted now that you can play at a very high level of elite American football or ice hockey and get CTE,” said the director at the university’s CTE Center, Ann McKee, MD, in a statement. “But we’re seeing the beginnings of this disease in young people who were primarily playing amateur sports.”
Symptoms such as depression, impulsivity, and explosivity were common among donors, and the researchers wrote that the finding emphasises “that not all contact sport athletes with symptoms have CTE.”
It was interesting to listen to the language around Liam Lawson’s latest venture into the world of F1. The 21 year old finished 11th for Alpha Tauri at Monza, one place out of the points, in another race won by the unstoppable force that is Max Verstappen and Red Bull.
It seemed like a result to celebrate, especially given that his team put him on a less effective two-stop strategy, but Lawson’s language hinted at disappointment. In a statement that came from the team, the Kiwi was quoted as saying:
“A couple of things went wrong today. We need to look into the start, as I could have done a better job, and that’s where we lost the chance. The pace wasn’t too bad then, but the race slightly got away from us.
“I’m still learning the procedures and definitely starting to feel more comfortable in the car, but I’m just a little bit disappointed with my race, as I think we may have had the pace for points today.”
A later post on social media had more than a whiff of past tense about it, yet Red Bull boss Christian Horner indicated that Daniel Ricciardo, who is recovering from wrist surgery, would not be ready for Singapore in two weeks’ time.
Maybe it’s reading too much into it, but given the rampant egos up and down the grid highlighted by Drive to Survive, perhaps there is a deliberate ploy not to talk Lawson up should it dent the pride of others.
If we could agree on one thing, however: Liam Lawson could not look any more like a race car driver had he been hired straight out of central casting.
An interesting question posed in the comments section last week by Dean W:
“Can you make any sense of why NZ are touring Bangladesh without most of their full strength XI, in subcontinent conditions that might somewhat mirror World Cup pitches, just over a week before the tournament starts? The glucose levels and general energy of these guys seem to fizz during the North American T20 swing and cash-in window, but need replenishing in the lead-in to a huge international tournament?”
It’s entirely valid cynicism and points to the scheduling crisis engulfing cricket.
The squad Dean is referring to is outwardly bizarre and bears little resemblance to the one that will compete in India for the World Cup starting next month: Lockie Ferguson (c), Finn Allen, Chad Bowes, Will Young, Tom Blundell, Dean Foxcroft, Henry Nicholls, Rachin Ravindra, Cole McConchie, Dane Cleaver, Kyle Jamieson, Adam Milne, Ish Sodhi, Blair Tickner, Trent Boult.
This is a low-value tour shoehorned into a packed calendar and as much as you can point to a map and say it will mirror World Cup conditions, that’s probably not the case. The ICC will be overseeing pitch preparations for the World Cup and for the most part you’ll see flat decks and lightning fast outfields. New Zealand might also have learned their lesson from 2021, when they toured Bangladesh ahead of the World T20 in UAE. Bangladesh prepared a series of shocking pitches - NZ were all out for 60 in 16.5 overs batting first in the 1st T20I - and are probably expecting similarly tacky and home-friendly conditions this month.
While I agree with the sentiment that these types of series are a farcical reflection of where bilateral international cricket has got to, I’m not going to condemn New Zealand for treating it with indifference.
It is clear that Gary Stead and Bryan Stronach see far more value, in terms of World Cup preparation, in the four-match ODI series against England that follows the current four-match T20I entrée.
Even taking into account the fickle nature of T20 cricket, the Black Caps were dreadful in games one and two before redeeming themselves at Edgbaston this morning. It was the third blowout in three matches; the polar extreme to the drama provided in the Ashes.
Finn Allen starred with a 53-ball 83, highlighting both the excitement and frustration that is ever present with his talent.
Allen is neither especially young (24) nor inexperienced - this was his 49th game of international white-ball cricket - yet these bursts of matchwinning brilliance remain too infrequent. That was just his fifth score of 50-plus against tier-one opposition in either of the short formats.
That’s not totally fair as he’s played a lot of cricket against tier-two teams, but the point stays: more runs, more often please.
Dylan.....Finn Allen.....apologies in advance this is a hobby horse of mine. I really think he is going to go the way of Colin Munro, only quicker because his foundations are weaker. I’ve opened my mind to the concept that he is a modern day player etc but the more I look the more flaws I see. The 83 was indeed a match winning knock, but they are too few and far apart. This series exposed a very rudimentary method and several ugly swipes and misses. It doesn’t take much to take him off his stride - a bit of pace off, a bit of swing, the barest of spin. He plays very early and doesn’t watch the ball closely. It’s a see ball, swing hard power game. He doesn’t have the slightest appreciation of touch and timing. His first class and list A averages in our very modest NZ competition are 19 and 29. Essentially he displaced Guptill and no doubt Guppy was going down the other side, but I wonder now if it was done in undue haste because I can’t see any future in it. Certainly his best will never even approach Guppy’s best.
Thanks Dylan, interesting to read about the tribulations of other national rugby teams. Is any national team/Union doing well? Or is rugby in decline generally?
I’ve never been one for sports highlights - they’ve never made sense to me because I don’t know what went on beforehand, the editing choices are esoteric (if I’ve seen the game, the highlight picks often seem different to the ones I would have gone with) and because my favourite watch is red ball cricket, it doesn’t really fit the medium - a bowler tormenting a batter for several deliveries, setting them up and then getting the wicket can’t really be covered in a 20 min highlight package. I get why they exist tho, not everybody wants to watch 25 overs in a session where the run rate is 2.7 an over no wickets are lost, no chances are missed and the commentary is desultory at best.