The old 'I was just thinking out loud' line

Razor walks back overseas player issue; a lakeside folly; a retrospective re-ranking; and the Warriors' 'transparency' sham

Mark Tele’a - super-spiderman. Getty Images

And just like that, as the sun begins to rise on his second season in charge, Scott Robertson has discovered that there are hills that you die on, and hills that you briefly enjoy the view from, then roly-poly down the other side.

From the NZ Herald ($):

All Blacks coach Scott Robertson has put the issue of eligibility to bed by backing New Zealand Rugby’s staunch stance of not selecting players from offshore.

Robertson had questioned whether the policy, which prevents the selectors picking overseas-based players, was fit for purpose in view of South Africa’s back-to-back World Cup success — achieved off the back of a policy that allows them to select the best players regardless of where they ply their trade.

“I had a year to look at it and where we stand,” Robertson told Rugby Direct… The first thing is my intentions with my comments were was it fit for purpose still? One of my jobs is to make sure our pathways are strong so we can continue the flow of quality professional rugby players.

“I understand how important it is and I’ve probably now got more insight around the flexibility there is in the current regulations. It is fit for purpose. There is flexibility there.”

This is a classic walk-balk technique that can be summed up in a simple sentence: “I wasn’t really demanding change, I was just floating an idea.”

It’s not the worst crime you can commit as a coach. That would be not knowing when, or a bull-headed refusal, to walk back from a bad idea.

As it is, I’m still to be convinced either way as to whether picking players from overseas is a mature response to an evolving environment that has seen the sport’s economic power drift inexorably north, or the death-knell for the below-test-level professional game here.

Perhaps two things can be true at once.

Maybe Robertson was persuaded of this.

Hopefully we’ll have something new to top the rugby agenda for the rest of the rugby year beyond Richie Mo’unga’s contract status.

That’s a lot of perhaps, maybes and hopefullys.

But hey, the footy has been really good (see below)…

If you haven’t got a Herald sub, there are a number of free-of-charge “follow-ups” to get the full story, like this one.

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Field of Dreams might be the most whimsical, sweetest sports-fantasy crossover movie of all time. Admittedly, it’s not a genre with a huge library, but hey, it’s still a lovely film.

It also spawned one of the most famous lines committed to celluloid…

… “If you build it, they will come.”

But what if they don’t?

You’ve just spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions even, building something that doesn’t get used.

In that scenario, it doesn’t matter if you’re an Iowa crop farmer or a national sporting organisation, you look a bit silly.

From Radio NZ’s Dana Johannsen:

In 2018, Canoe Racing NZ opened the doors to a $2.3 million purpose-built high performance centre on the shore of Lake Karāpiro. Seven years on, it sits empty…

“It’s pretty farcical, but it’s hardly a surprise that this is where things have ended up,” a Sport NZ source says of the abandoned site. “To me, the whole thing seemed a bit misguided from the start.”

This $2.3 million purpose-built facility was supposed to be home to the country’s top canoe sprint athletes. Funded through a mix of central and local government investment along with gaming trust grants, the centre opened in 2018 with the goal of becoming the “focal point” for Canoe Racing NZ's high-performance programme.

The only wrinkle in the plan was that the kayakers, most of whom come from surf lifesaving backgrounds and beach communities, didn’t really fancy a move to inland Waikato.

There’s more to it than that, but in essence Shoeless Lisa Carrington is not emerging out of a cornfield to settle in Cambridge any time soon.