The dubious art of seeing nothing and saying something
From the Masters to Melbourne - there was a lot to miss this Easter
Guilty as charged… I missed much, much more than I saw this weekend. But hey, when did empirical evidence ever get in the way of thoughts and feelings?
Here’s a skewed take on nine of the best things I mostly missed (with a little help from my friends and favourite sources).
Hey, The Bounce is the Warriors good-luck charm!
Being a sports fan can take your mind to the most illogical places. The most common delirium is the belief that you can have a material effect on the outcome of the game just by watching it, whether up close or from a digital distance.
Stupid, right?
Well, not so fast. The Warriors have played six games this season, four of which The Bounce has either seen all of, or big chunks of, live (including watching on the phone at a concert). They have played two that were missed entirely. Those two? Away to the Roosters, away to the Knights.
Definitive proof that the Warriors need me more than I need them.
On a more sober note, you can’t call yourself a serious contender and be losing to the Knights, even away from home, and you can’t keep giving up headstarts.
“Our starts... there’s a little bit more to them,” explained coach Andrew Webster. “We’re just piggybacking [the opposition] out of trouble every game. We give 3-4 yardage penalties away, and we’ve just got to dig in and turn them away early, and just get some confidence from our defence.
“I feel like it’s not from a lack of trying - it’s the complete opposite. It’s discipline and probably not thinking, because they’re so keen. When you’re piggybacking them out of trouble, it’s often because you’re going early, so we’ve just got to be smarter.”
Rahm wins one for the ‘Good Guys’…
Hmmm, maybe not so fast on this one. A cursory Google search on the newly minted Masters winner throws up message board headlines like: “Jon Rahm quickly becoming the least likeable player on Tour,” and stories about his temper and caddie Adam Hayes’ brusqueness with galleries and photographers are legion.
From Yahoo: For years, Rahm had been the jerk, best known as a generational talent who couldn’t control his temper. He’d throw clubs, scream at himself, throw more clubs. And for that reason he’d gained a less-than-stellar reputation.
That might be in the past, though. Fatherhood and a maiden major win in the 2021 US Open seem to have mellowed the Spaniard. He’ll always hold a special part in PGA Tour history, too, having held off the twin Saudi-backed challenge of Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson, two players who also come with, um, complicated reputations.
ESPN wrapped up a tournament that was interesting, but never rose to great heights.
Paolo Uggetti: It’s hard for LIV to utilise [its players’ results] as evidence to support their quest, let alone have this result turn into more viewers and attention for the shotgun start, 54-hole tournament. If anything, it’s an indictment to the calibre of LIV events, the courses and the fields, that their best players aren’t exactly thriving on their tour or particularly care about winning unless it’s in service of preparing for what really matters: the majors.
Quick shout-out for Ryan Fox (pictured above), who picked up a check for near a cool quarter-mill after finishing in a tie for 26th in his first visit to the Masters.
Rinku Singh did what?
The IPL is just such a hideous time zone for New Zealand, which is a shame because the drama this season, the 16th, has been batshit crazy.
In the early hours of Monday morning, Kolkata Knight Riders’ Rinku Singh needed 28 off the last five balls to force a tie with the Gujarat Titans, Kane Williamson’s new franchise before he bunged his knee. Instead he hit 30 - five consecutive sixes! - off the unfortunate Yash Dayal.
There was more lunacy this morning as the Lucknow Super Giants’ beat the Royal Challengers Bangalore. A couple of recent pieces in the Guardian tried a) to get to the heart of the IPL’s phenomenal success:
If the IPL in its early years was defined by bluster and mis-steps, its most arresting quality these days is a sense of utter certainty: the hard edges of political and financial power muscling a path to your television screen, the complete confidence in the primacy of the product. The IPL is indifferent to your opinion of it. Your presence at the spectacle is not required. But you will be present nonetheless, because Jos Buttler is teeing off at a strike rate of 240, and you will definitely want to watch that.
And b) send a warning about what its primacy means (with a gentle swipe at a Black Cap):
There will of course be other tests played, but these are mainly bitty two-match affairs, players undercooked or absent, ageing specialists dying away. There is no energy, no market force, no publicity, no gravity of any kind drawing cricket’s talent pool towards the red ball product. What we have here is managed decline, test cricket treated like the block of flats the local council allows to decay until finally it has all the excuses it needs to cut its losses and pull the whole thing down…
It is genuinely astonishing that from a standing start the IPL is the second richest TV sport product in the world, second only to the NFL. The IPL lasts two months and has zero cut through outside of India and a few other countries. None of the teams have any value globally. How can the thing Jimmy Neesham plays for eight weeks be more valuable than the thing Lionel Messi plays for eight months?
The Black Caps ended their season over the weekend with the T20 thriller that shouldn’t have been a thriller against Sri Lanka. A strange summer, no doubt, but also a pass mark, but will dig into this a bit later.
Super Rugby went and Super Rugby’ed itself
You would have thought Easter, that time of year when we accept the inevitable and park that dream of spending the next four months in The Algarve until 2024, would be a great time to put together a full slate of cracking Super Rugby match-ups. Especially with the sprogs and sproglets on school holidays. Engage the next generation of fans and all that.
What did we get instead? One fairly low-key derby and no games in Auckland, which at last count housed 2.2 Super teams and a third of the country’s population. The Blues did at least banish bad recent memories by thrashing the Rebels in an atmosphere-free zone in Melbourne.
The table-topping Hurricanes, too, are doing their coach’s bid for an All Blacks’ assistant role no harm ($).
From the NZH exclusive: Hurricanes head coach Jason Holland is in line to fill the final piece of Scott Robertson’s All Blacks coaching team for next year. Two weeks ago Holland threw everyone off the scent when indicating he had not heard from Robertson in the last couple of months... that situation has since changed, with Robertson telling Holland he wants him involved when he assumes charge of the All Blacks following the World Cup.
Peerless? Couldn’t care less (sorry)
A mixed martial arts fighter, who’s pretty good according to a Sydney-based mate of mine, won something that he lost last year. “He is peerless,” texted the said friend. I don’t want to get involved in semantics, but doesn’t the fact he required a rematch to beat somebody who had previously beaten him literally suggest he is with ‘peer’?
I also get that this particular MMA production is especially popular, that it is full of ‘big’ personalities and plays extremely well with the MAGA crowd (their Supreme Leader was apparently in the crowd for the latest event). It has unlocked fight fans in a way the fuddy-duddy, convoluted world of boxing’s alphabet soup organisations can’t.
I know all this and yet I will never give a single one of my precious discretionary dollars to watch it. Why? I don’t like it. Pretty simple really.
The Football Ferns scored a goal - true story
Sh*t the bed, they found the back of the net for the first time in six matches. OK, so Hannah Wilkinson’s goal was the Football Ferns only shot on target and they still didn’t manage to win the match, but at this stage of their underwhelming World Cup build-up they’ll take a 1-1 draw over Iceland. They have a chance to build on that overnight against Nigeria, with just 100 days to go before the World Cup.
“It’s really good for us, our confidence to know the game against Iceland was a very solid performance from our side and with a positive outcome,” said coach Jitka Klimková.
The Best-of-the-Mes conundrum
My netball spy tells me that Bailey Mes has been outstanding this season and was brilliant in the Magic’s win on the weekend over the Stars. This, she mentioned, is what Mes tends to do in World Cup year, but does Noeline Taurua have the confidence to play her in big games? This tweeter does.
Arsenal: a point gained or two lost?
Arsenal fans are starting to get very twitchy and see little consolation at all in being part of the weekend’s most exciting match, a 2-2 draw at Anfield against fallen giant Liverpool. Six points ahead of Manchester City with eight games remaining - Citeh have nine - this season is shaping as a classic two-horse race, a race that could be decided on the morning of April 27, when the two teams meet at the Etihad. Fans of both teams and neutrals alike, book that one in.
From Football365’s 16 Conclusions: Come the cold light of day this will look more like two points dropped than one gained for Arsenal. They were 2-0 up and absolutely controlling the game; the wild nature of what followed should not detract entirely from the fact good teams tend to win from 2-0 up. For what it’s worth, the bookies agree. They are cold, emotionless and soulless creatures. They care not for barnstormers and thrillers and dizzying, baffling entertainment, no matter how many Directors of Mischief they might employ. They specialise in a flint-eyed appraisal of what they’ve seen, and they’ve decided that Manchester City are now once again favourites for the Premier League title.
Said goodbye to an old friend
Most disappointing sporting moment of the weekend was saying goodbye to this beauty after finally conceding that its baked-in ‘fragrance’ had become impervious to Persil. “Just buy another one,” said the beloved, dismissively.
The gall of it. This overpriced shirt was purchased at Fenway, arguably sport’s holiest cathedral, during a win against Mike Trout’s Los Angeles Angels during the golden World Series summer of 2018. It can’t just be “replaced” by a more reasonably priced knock-off from Onehunga Dress Smart. My classic big-‘B’ cap, also bought for a premium at the official club store, went missing at a 50th birthday party at Lake Hawea recently, so it hasn’t been a good year for Red Sox merch - though I still have the Jackie Bradley Jr bobblehead.
THIS WEEK/ NEXT WEEK
Just a reminder that this is the last week of limited content. Next week The Bounce will return to its usual three-per-week schedule, with occasional Bonus Bounces. Thanks again for your patience.
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There is probably some content to be mined in fan voices about prized possessions (heirlooms!) - thinking about some of my own treasured (trashed through wear) sporting wearables, I can feel your pain there DC!
See, now you're turning into a proper Warriors fan. Starting to link small, routine events, such as missing the game live, into how the Warriors actually play is excellent progress.