Savea's slip up slightly more than silly but a long way short of scandalous
Super Rugby gets its talking point, the Warriors show some structure and some stunners at the national athletics champs.
Making a throat-slitting gesture directly towards an opponent on the rugby field might not be a massive thing, but it is a thing.
Later this evening we’ll find out if this “thing” is worthy of time on the sidelines.
What is not worthy of much time at all, is regurgitating some of the nonsense since Savea made his ill-advised gesture. Inevitably, rugby’s most boring “culture war” has resurfaced, despite the throat-slitting (or lung-opening, depending on the interpretation you choose to take) gesture having been quietly phased out of the haka.
Rugby is a game that demands its combatants, and I choose that word deliberately, take an ultra-aggressive approach, especially if you’re a forward. It is not a game of evasion; it is a game of collision. Every collision between two 100kg-plus men hurts. Throw in a bit of handbags off the ball, some sledging and a decision you might not agree with and tempers fray. When tempers fray, dumb things happen. Granted, they probably shouldn’t happen to the man many believe should be All Black captain at the World Cup, but sometimes testosterone overrides commonsense in even the best.
I would be reluctant to give Savea too much credit for apologising straight away (team management would have made it very clear to him it wasn’t a great look and that he needed to get ahead of the story), but I would give him props for actually sounding like he meant it.
Savea’s was no Mike Gatting apology (to switch sports for a second).
“I can understand the fans are furious over the gesture I made,” Savea said on the field following the match. “It was a heat of the moment thing. It’s footy, but I understand kids are watching us but we’re in the heat of the moment and usually that’s out of character for me. I put my hand up [and] I apologise for that.”
To be fair, I don’t think many kids are watching, which is a different problem for a different day, but again, good to cover off the inevitable “role model” argument.
Gestures aren’t totally meaningless, no matter how many people want to believe the incident is a media construct and that Savea has no case to answer. While it is inane to suggest that the 70-test All Blacks intended Rebels halfback Ryan Louwrens any violence beyond what legally takes place in the course of a match, gestures and signals have become part of the causal street violence that blights our society. Just to make sure there is no mistaking my meaning here: I am in no way connecting Savea’s brainfade to any violence that has or will happen in New Zealand, but it feels important to mention that in different contexts and environments, gestures like the one he gave are not always empty threats so they should not be tolerated anywhere.
The different standards for different sports are mildly interesting however.
The silliest gesture that comes to my mind when thinking of high-profile New Zealand athletes, came from UFC champion Israel Adesanya who beat Paulo Costa then humiliated him by pretending to, well, penetrate him from behind.
I’m pretty sure Savea will not go on to talk about his stupid error with quite the same amount of pride Adesanya apparently still takes in his antics.
Savea’s act, as you can probably imagine, has gone down poorly in large parts of the Northern Hemisphere and Australia, but he does have some support.
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There is another way of looking at this storm in a teacup: it has given Super Rugby a much-needed early season talking point.
The first two rounds of the competition have been completely drowned out by the Ian Foster-NZR impasse and the drama of the Basin Reserve.
The rugby hasn’t been amazing, with serious concerns about the ongoing competitiveness of too many teams, including the Highlanders, Moana Pasifika, Fijian Drua and the Western Force.
The Hurricanes 39-33 win over the Rebels was by some distance the best match of the weekend and Savea’s petulance played a part in the drama.
For the second week in succession the Highlanders were abysmal, to the point where some of the edgier fans from across the Tasman are asking the question as to whether New Zealand has the talent to be able to fund five teams.
Touché.
There was a 10-minute spell deep in the second half of the Warriors season-opening win against Newcastle when they just could not get their hands on the ball.
It could have been a tipping point, as it has so often for the Warriors of the recent past, but this time they held firm.
All jokes aside, beating the team heavily tipped to take out the wooden spoon by a fairly skinny eight points is nothing to get overly excited about, but that spell of tackle after tackle after tackle gives me hope that this can be something slightly more than another false dawn.
On the plus side, there was a game plan in there and the forwards were running some nice, compact lines. Despite all the angst at losing Reece Walsh, could Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad (pictured above after scoring) provide an upgrade at fullback?
There was some decent structure to add some bells and whistles to in the coming weeks, but the meeting this week against Easts, humbled in their opener by newbies the Redcliffe Dolphins, should provide a better indication of how far they’ve come in the space of an off season.
Stuff’s wrap of the game is comprehensive and worth a read, but “Webbyball”… that’s a hard no.
Some intriguing and outstanding results from the national athletics champs.
Zoe Hobbs blitzed the field and the clock to win the 100m in 10.89s, which would have smashed the record had the tailwind not been too strong. Still, I love the reactions in her Insta post. Look how stoked her competitors are.
There was only going to be one winner in the women’s 100m and going by the history book there was only going to be one winner in the men’s shot put, with Tom Walsh favourite for his 14th straight title.
Jacko Gill put an end to that sequence, however, and did it with a measure of comfort, his 21.8m outdistancing Walsh’s best of 21.25m. A lot has been expected of Gill since he became a viral sensation with his workout videos as a teenager, and at 28 he looks to be entering his peak years, which can only be good for as New Zealand looks to continue its recent tradition of throwing success at Olympics.
In another good sign for Paris, Eliza McCartney returned to the top step after clearing 4.61m in the pole vault, pipping Olivia McTaggart on countback.
The start of the Formula One season was really boring (just give the title to Max Verstappen already and push forward the next season of Drive to Survive), but the start of the IndyCar season wasn’t. Scott McLaughlin, however, who was leading and looking odds on to win with three-quarters of the race gone, would have liked it to be a little more dull.
McLaughlin and Romain Grosjean played a high-speed game of chicken and neither blinked.
There’s a little more to look at later in the week, including the ANBL finals, where nobody wants to win a game in front of their home crowd, and the start of the ANZ Premiership.
The WPL started and featured a good performance from Amelia Kerr, while the Black Caps announced their squad for the first test against Sri Lanka starting this week in Christchurch. Disappointingly but totally unsurprisingly, the squad was about as short-termist as it could possibly have been. Gavin Larsen was not about to rock any boats before sailing away to Warwickshire.
There was also this, which I don’t think we’ll dwell on too long.
Michael Jordan was once asked why he didn’t engage more actively in political matters and famously said, “Republicans buy sneakers, too.” Well, United fans, though by nature notoriously short-armed and deep-pocketed, buy subscriptions too.
One would have to wonder how much this upcoming Sri Lankan test series might impact the future of a number of Blackcaps players and management.
This isn't a strong Sri Lankan side by any stretch and their current 3rd placing in the WTC seems flattering. Let's be fair if the Blackcaps had series in this cycle that also went Pakistan (H), Australia (H), Bangladesh (A), India (A), West Indies (H), we may very well be backed to also win 5, lose 4 and draw 1 (although our last WTC cycle was fairly generous too).
I wonder if anything less than a series win will finally set alarm bells off at NZC about this Blackcaps side. With Larsen leaving, surely it would be a prime time to look at the coaching setup, and for that new coaching setup to seriously consider the direction of this team.
NZC made bold changes in the past with Hesson and then McCullum, is it time for a reset of a similar nature?
Matt Burke obviously forgot Phill Kearns gesture when he was grilling the hurricanes coach over Ardie. https://youtu.be/EiIZ_BZNiUA