Shag piles on - and rewrites history
PLUS: A migraine-inducing The Week That Was and The Weekend That Will Be
New Zealand winters can be very black and white. It’s either an All Black test week or it isn’t.
Some of us that cover sport for our livelihoods like to make the most of the weeks that aren’t by casting our nets wider than the 15-man code.
The sport simply hasn’t allowed us that luxury over the past fortnight.
It’s been a whirlwind, an infinity loop of news. Those working inside New Zealand Rugby’s Molesworth St lair must feel like mice on a wheel.
The fascination with this particular moment in our rugby history is the attacks are not just coming from outside the tent, but inside.
Let’s start with Steve Hansen, a man knighted for coaching Richie McCaw and Dan Carter, who launched a spray against his former employers.
Even with the understanding that he was running a neat bit of interference for his beleaguered mate Ian Foster, some of his arguments were childishly reductive. Like dismissing the review into the Black Ferns culture as “dirty laundry” that should have been hung out on the back lawn not the front (and this is written by somebody who genuinely feels that Glenn Moore was treated poorly).
Or pointing to 2019 as the endpoint for All Black on-field dominance and off-field harmony, conveniently erasing the downward trajectory of 2017 and 2018 from history.
He did have some salient points, particularly around the sharp drop-off in quality of our under-20 men’s programme.
“We started off with the under-20s in 2008, we won the first four and we won in ’15 and ’17. Since then we’ve finished seventh and fourth and England and France have dominated the tournaments. Are we getting that side of our business right? I don’t think so.”
Sir Shag sheets that back to the failure of NZR’s high-performance systems but I’d argue their hands are partly tied and as much blame lies with the board of trustees at a handful of moneyed schools.
The once-mighty power of 1st XV rugby is now concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer “elite” institutions who have created a conveyor belt of highly professionalised yet homogenised talent. After the hakas, New Zealand schoolboy rugby is nothing special now, yet we still convince ourselves that it is.
Hansen also launched a broadside at former chairman Brent Impey’s performance during the Silver Lake saga in the way he alienated the players.
As you can read here in one of The Bounce’s first feature newsletters, this is not only true but still reverberates today. I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the disconnect the players felt with their governing body during those fraught days, outlined again today in Stuff, nor the discomfort many felt within NZR’s walls.
That was seen last night.
NZR does not spring involuntary leaks. If exclusive information finds it way outside the walls it’s because 19 times out of 20 they strategically chose to plant it.
This, from Stuff, did not read or feel like one of those occasions.
(I’m perplexed as to why there’s no byline on the article - if someone has the ‘bravery’ to leak you an email, shouldn’t someone at that vast media organisation have the courage to own the story, even if it’s not the leakee? - but that’s not my main takeaway.)
Either someone within NZR clearly believes their workplace needs a communications reset, or somebody thought it was a good idea to outline for the public the organisation’s thinking without actually going public with the thinking.
Either way, it feels very Borgen.
The leaked internal email, from the expansively titled chief communications and brand officer Charlotte McLauchlan, explains the decision not to respond to Hansen’s comments - and the fact she felt the need to write it at all suggests internal pushback.
“While many of the things Sir Steve has said are unfair and hurtful to many, we do not think entering into a media debate with him is the right thing to do – if we come back to our priorities which is for our teams to Win with Mana, we think this will only serve to create another media cycle and possibly more distraction.”
McLauchlan could not have known how ironic those last 15 words would turn out to be, but this is the world NZR finds themselves in right now - facing the slings and arrows from outside, and plotting from within.
Oh, before I forget - no All Black test this weekend.
THE WEEK THAT WAS
On Wednesday I led on the other huge news of the rugby week: that scientists believe there is a definitive link between repetitive head injuries (RHI) in contact sports and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
The reason this study is so important and why its impacts could be so far reaching lie in the following paragraph from the paper Applying the Bradford Hill Criteria for Causation to Repetitive Head Impacts and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.
“Perhaps most consequential would be the positive health impact for children. As it stands today, tens of millions of children as young as 5 years old are exposed to RHI in sports because they are playing by rules that were originally designed for adults. Armed with confidence in the causal connection between RHI and CTE, parents and youth coaches may reject exposing their children to a preventable degenerative brain disease simply because the current rules (tackling, heading) make RHI inevitable, especially when non-RHI versions of those contact sports exist, as well as alternative sports without RHI. Considering that both CTE onset and severity have been associated with a dose-response, strict reforms that lower the dose could effectively prevent new cases of the disease.”
I’ve never heard a compelling reason against limiting the exposure of contact sports to pre-teens, beyond the standard “we can’t wrap our kids in cotton wool” argument. I would not advocate for cotton wool treatment either - but neither do I think putting kids too young to make informed choices in organised situations guaranteeing RHIs, no matter how low impact, is sensible.
The Commonwealth Games have started in the home of Black Sabbath and the reason I mention this is because a) their legacy as the godfathers of heavy metal is criminally undersold, and b) because guitarist Tony Iommi lost the tips of two fingers in an industrial accident at a sheet metal factory.
Relevance, your honour?
Well, I can’t say it any better than my mate Pat Mac did in a text, so here:
Goodbye fighting for the working man, hello to your neoliberal future.
Sebastian Vettel has announced his retirement. It seems a long time since he was the most ruthless driver in the paddock, but he did things the right way, as the glowing testimony from his competition suggests, like this from Lewis Hamilton:
“Leaving this sport better than you found it is always the goal. I have no doubt that whatever comes next for you will be exciting, meaningful, and rewarding. Love you, man.”
Manly lost, but Sharks prop Toby Rudolf is winning, all over the show.
“Sexuality is very fluid. I’ve been out and kissed many gay men, kissed many straight women and kissed many gay women. I’m not a one-stop shop. Love is love, and I love to share it with everyone. You could say I’m open to both genders but only attracted to one of them.”
THE WEEKEND THAT WILL BE
I can recall making a loose promise about having a Commonwealth Games coverage plan. Well, as of yet I’ve fail.commed that task. I will be watching Hayden Wilde in the men’s triathlon and as much track cycling as possible in the opening days.
Tournament play like netball and hockey I tend to leave until later rounds because I just can’t get wound up by the Black Sticks playing Kenya and Scotland, or the Silver Ferns facing Northern Ireland, but by all means you go and fill your boots Sue. the Sevens is a little more compact and therefore slightly more pressing, but I won’t watch everything.
This is by no means exhaustive - it can’t be - but just an indication of what I’ll try to catch over the next 24 hours. Honestly, I’ve got a migraine just trying to figure it all out. All Sky TV.
Triathlon (M), tonight 10pm, Pop-up 2
Sevens (W) v Canada, tonight 9.06pm, Pop-up 1
Cycling, teams pursuit and sprint finals, tomorrow from 3.40am, Pop-up 5
Sevens (M) v Samoa, tomorrow 7am, Pop-up 1
Swimming (W), potentially Erika Fairweather and Sophie Pascoe (and others) in finals, tomorrow from 6am, Pop-up 5
Don’t @ me, but I reckon the Warriors have a real chance at home to the Storm tonight.
Warriors v Storm, Auckland, tonight 8pm, Sky Sport 3
Finn Allen made a breakthrough of sorts when he tormented the Scots in Edinburgh for his first T20I century. Unfortunately it seemed like it was the host broadcaster’s first time filming cricket so the enjoyment of that knock was muted. Hopefully they remember that live action is preferable to replays in the following matches.
Scotland v NZ 2nd T20I, Edinburgh, tomorrow 1.30am
Scotland v NZ only ODI, Edinburgh, Sunday 10pm, both Spark Sport
Black Sabbath? Nah. Deep Purple - https://youtu.be/rZXhZ6Wejqc
Way to early in your tenure to start tipping the Warriors. Every true fan knows you never tip the Warriors. Ever.