The one that got away meets the one that didn't
PLUS: Under the Fort II from a TV screen nowhere near Galle; Sho-time opens an exclusive club; and a couple of weekend reads.
The first Bledisloe Cup test of the new World Cup cycle is being pimped as a battle of coaching minds: the laissez-faire surf-bro dude versus the X’s and O’s steel-trap mind.
It’s the One That Got Away meets the One That Didn’t.
New Zealand Rugby didn’t want it that way, trying to join the callused hands of Scott Robertson and Joe Schmidt into a pre-RWC23 marriage of convenience. Rumour has it the flat whites hadn’t even arrived at the table before both realised it couldn’t work.
They were two unique talents who would likely have made a pig’s ear of working together, like Sly Stallone and Dolly Parton in Rhinestone1.
So here they are, facing off in a surprisingly high-stakes Bledisloe battle, despite neither side in contention for the Rugby Championship after unconvincing, borderline miserable, campaigns.
The coaching clash is clearly the headline, but of as much interest to me is the small print — most pointedly, what the hell is going on in the No 15 jersey?
I am far from panicking about the state of the All Blacks under Robertson. Yes, the England series was underwhelming, the Fiji holiday in San Diego rather pointless and the Argentina loss an absolute shocker, but we should perhaps take some comfort in the losses to the Boks. It’s never nice to lose winnable games, but the fact they were winnable for such long stretches seems important at this early stage of the era.
Their fumbling at fullback, however, doesn’t tell a story of a coaching group that is operating with a lot of confidence, however.
The widely anticipated Will Jordan shift from wing to fullback, where he has operated so brilliantly for Robertson at Super Rugby level, lasted all of one subdued week.
There is nothing wrong with trying things. If you’re going to pick a year to do it, the one following a World Cup is ideal, but at least try it like you mean it. To give Jordan one test at the back against a team that typically makes life hell for fullbacks, then pivot immediately despite next playing a team that is likely to give him more space, looks a bit fickle.
Having said that, I believe they have the best test fullback in the country (which is subtly different from being the best fullback in the country) back in the No 15 jersey but it is as if the Razor Gang has arrived at Beauden Barrett, again, by default.
Just to throw another wrinkle onto the whiteboard, one of the country’s greatest fullbacks, Mils Muliaina, said on The Breakdown that he believed Damian Mckenzie should play in the 15 and Barrett should be at first-five.
At the rate Robertson is going, don’t rule it out for next week.
Australia v NZ, Sydney, tomorrow 5.45pm, SS 1
***
The Bounce found itself at a fundraiser for Waihi Beach School last weekend, where the stars of the show had an alphabet soup of letters next to their name. There was Willie Apiata VC, Grant Fox MBE, and knights of the realm Wayne Smith and Graham Henry.
The three great rugby minds took the stage for a fireside chat compèred by Scotty Stevenson. While not explicitly stated, I tend to apply Chatham House Rules to these types of events. Alcohol is involved, the paying tables want nuggets and guards are down.
As it turned out, nobody said anything that they’d likely regret — well, not about rugby at least — but I still wouldn’t feel comfortable attaching individual names to statements. Here are a few of the more interesting points noted:
The days of 85 percent-plus All Black win rates over extended periods are over and they’re not coming back. The international game is just too competitive now.
Forget the structural issues of Super Rugby, partially ‘addressed’ (see below) with the move to a six-team playoff format next year, the biggest problem is the playing standards, which have plummeted.
It’s not so much the composition of the All Black bench that is the issue, but learning when and how to employ them, which Rassie Erasmus has turned into an art form.
With patience, the All Blacks are probably going to be alright. The grassroots of the game? That’s a different matter.
***
Is the six-team Super Rugby playoff concept ushered in next year by Sanzaar really any better than what they had? I can’t see the value in a six-team Super Rugby playoff system when you’re running an 11-team comp and employing a lucky loser concept.
You play three knockout games in the first round of the playoffs but, quelle surprise, one of them won’t end up being a knockout. In effect, it’s just giving the No1-qualified team a ‘bye’ as they can’t be knocked out.
Why not just take the inverted commas off the bye and make it an actual free pass.
I was always a fan of the ye-olden-days NSWRL five-team playoff format that saw the playoffs consist of six games spread over four weekends.
First on the table would get a bye through to week two’s major semifinal and the winner of that major semifinal would progress directly into the Grand Final.
It’s easier just to look at how it worked in 1985.
It was not perfect — you often got a grand final that mirrors the major semifinal — but it’s better-times-infinity than what Sanzaar will use next year.
As for this weekend’s NRL playoffs, I like North Queensland and Easts, but not enough to take it to the bank.
Cronulla-Sutherland v North Queensland, Sydney, tonight 9.50pm, SS4
Eastern Suburbs v Manly-Warringah, Sydney, tomorrow 9.50pm, SS4
***
As a mild curiosity, the AFL has reached the top four and their claims to be a truly national competition are bolstered by the fact there are teams from Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Geelong remaining, while Melbourne’s nine clubs have been shut out.
UNDER THE FORT II
Three big things from day two of the first test in Galle.
Sri Lanka 305 (Kamindu Mendis 114, Kusal Mendis 50; Will O’Rourke 5-55); NZ 255-4 (Tom Latham 70, Kane Williamson 55).
That was an understatedly excellent day for New Zealand.
It seems a long time ago, but the hosts ended day one on 302 for 7. If you told Tim Southee he could have a scenario where New Zealand finished a shortened day two 50 runs behind with six wickets in hand, he’d have taken it without hesitation. O’Rourke, who is enjoying a silly-good start to his test career, and Patel did the perfect mop-up job among the downpours in the morning and then…
New Zealand batted with a plan.
Not only that, it appears to be a sound plan that requires neither Bazball pyrotechnics, nor the sort of ultra-defensive siege mentality too often seen when trying to counter spin in the subcontinent. It was just good, sensible, positive batting. Those comfortable sweeping — Latham and Daryl Mitchell (41*) — swept; those comfortable using their feet, Williamson, got to the pitch; and those comfortable playing off the pitch and deep in their crease, like Rachin Ravindra (39), did that.
It wasn’t the method that was as important as the intent. All played with an eye to scoring first, defending second and that meant none of the Sri Lanka spinners could get comfortable.
Yes, it’s too early to label it a triumph of execution because all four wickets did fall to spin and there is always the chance the next could precipitate a collapse as those less skilful enter, but the early signs are excellent.
The one blowfly in the sunscreen: nobody truly cashed in on the host’s discomfort. Even more annoying, all but Latham lost their wickets by going off script. Devon Conway got caught in no-man’s land with the sort of insipid, uncommitted push forward that has pockmarked his recent red-ball efforts. After a breezy start, Williamson got stuck in quicksand and played the sort of high-risk, low-reward nudge to the leg side that has got him in trouble against the likes of Nathan Lyon in the past. After playing so beautifully off the back foot, Ravindra lurched drunkenly forward, lost his bearings and his off stump.
Latham’s top-edged dismissal might have looked soft and those of my generation and older might curse the timing in the over before tea, but I don’t have much of a problem when the sweep had been so productive for him and had thrown Prabath Jayasuriya so badly out of kilter.
Today is a big day
For as well as they’ve played, particularly coming into the test cold, New Zealand are not much more than 50-50 and have to bat last on a pitch that is starting to puff up with more regularity.
I’m no turf expert, but my kids assure me that moisturiser is the key to delaying the effects of ageing and I suspect that downpour early on day two had a similar effect on the pitch, helping to smooth out a few wrinkles that will only get worse as the test goes longer.
In other words, a first innings lead of substance would be more than handy.
Sri Lanka v NZ, day 3, today 4.30pm, SS 1
One other thing…
It’s another one in the loss column for the White Ferns, the 15th from 17 internationals this calendar year, and while that might be hard to digest, the Sophie Devine-less side showed some fight in the five-wicket loss (eight balls to spare) against an Australian team that on paper, and grass, is vastly superior.
While it took an unconvincing night behind the stumps by Alyssa Healy to push the Ferns to a mildly competitive 143-7 off their 20, it in turn took a special Phoebe Litchfield knock (64* off 43 balls) to drag the hosts across the line in first.
Importantly, the Ferns looked like they were batting to a workable plan, even if I saw enough paddle sweeps to last me a season. The low point of that tactic was Brooke Halliday trying to sweep a shin high full-bunger that if not premeditated could have been hit to Townsville. Instead she missed the paddle and was out, a little unluckily, leg before.
Game two is on Sunday night, again in Mackay.
Cricket is a statistician’s dream sport, much like Major League Baseball, which today opened a new club with one member.
Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani today became the first person to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in a season. He did it on a day where he hit three home runs and stole two bases, taking him to 51 each.
The implausibility of it is best summed up by the fact that in its 150-year history, there are only six players in the 40-40 club.
WEEKEND READ/S
Local sports as a paywalled service lasted until December 2022, when Spark decided to quit sports streaming. It struck a deal with TVNZ to take over its deals, starting July 1, 2023. This came as a shock to our sporting system, and created an unplanned experiment: what happened when free-to-air got a big bang of sports rights, after decades away? A little over a year on, we’re starting to have an answer — and a sense of where the brave new world of sports streaming might be headed, for better and for worse.
It is a thoughtful, considered piece and leans into one of the biggest sports media decisions in New Zealand history when NZR’s deal with Sky expires next year. As Greive points out and others have noted, the last deal was signed pre-Covid and when Spark Sport had designs on being a big player in the rights market.
A lot has changed in the intervening years and rugby has watched with some jealousy as cricket has racked up huge numbers and engagement all, ironically, by backing the horse (Spark) that fell over.
It’s hard to imagine a scenario where Sky is as accommodating to NZR and its subsidiary NZRC in the next negotiation, particularly as they have encroached into content production themselves.
Grieve had NZR Commercial’s chief executive Craig Fenton on his podcast The Fold and while I haven’t had a chance to listen to that yet, I’m intrigued to hear his thoughts around the underwhelming performance of in-house streaming service NZR+.
[Fenton said NZRC] hasn’t got the numbers it wanted signing up to NZR+, so has pivoted to growing its YouTube audience instead. It has increased by around 60 per cent year-on-year.
Which might be true, but it’s kind of dissembling. Migrating content to YouTube is all well and good but it’s building on somebody else’s land that they can monetise far more effectively than you. That in itself runs counter to the whole point of starting your own service.
The biggest issue with NZR+ was always the lack of live games, which might be why its biggest idea is also one of its most morally questionable — trying to convince principals to move schoolboy rugby onto the platform.
If all else fails, cash in on the kids!
Meanwhile…
NZ Breakers v Brisbane, Perth, tomorrow 8pm, TVNZ+
Some wealthy people are not of the mind to stick around for their eulogy to discover how great they were.
Robert Kraft, as rich as Croesus and the owner of the New England Patriots, wants enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, and he wants it now.
The argument in this deeply reported, entertaining but still somehow shallow piece is that Kraft can’t say that himself, so he commissioned a book, a docuseries and has a PR flunky bombarding Hall voters to make his case.
What’s keeping him out: a decade of cheating accusations, a visit to the Orchids of Asia (Google it), and the aforementioned PR flunky who rubs everyone up the wrong way (but not in an Orchids of Asia-type way).
BOOK SHARE
I got a few more requests for The Dirtiest Race in History than I anticipated, but I will work out where it’s going first and get back to those interested.
DC I take the criticism of the new 6 team knockout format personally as it was what I had predicted and indeed promoted as a solution to the 8 team rubbish.
The advantage over the 8 team nonsense is obvious: all the good teams generally get in even with a losing record so a most of the pool games are meaningless. And then the team that finished 8th could beat the team that finished 1st in the QF. Now at least the top teams have incentive and receive some protection, albeit with some jeapordy.
The advantage over the old NRL 5 team is all teams play every week and it is over in 3 weeks rather than 4.
This may well be the last ravings of a madman.
I think in broad strokes, Mils is right. Mackenzie is a better version of the old Beauden Barrett off the bench.
As first receiver, Damien isn't there, BB can fill the gap, but we miss a real first five (Richie or any other specialist).
Mackenzies impact off the bench in this era is unrivalled, he slices through tired teams like a red hot knife through butter.
I need to see someone else other than DMac running the cutter. It's not his best position and the ABs are suffering because of it. DMaK would have won bost the SA matches off the bench.