There Will Be Blood (just not right now)
NZR breaks silence after quietly dominating The Week That Was. PLUS: A pygmy-styled Weekend That Will Be.
Well, we were all after blood according to the All Blacks comms team, so what ritual sacrifice was New Zealand Rugby about to offer up?
After days of radio silence, the vacuum filled by wild speculation and mild late-night ‘drama’, NZR gathered media for a stand up at 2pm (and this time turned up).
Finally the news that all journalists and the rugby public had been waiting for was delivered. The answer to all the problems facing the team was… in fact… Ethan de Groot and Shannon Frizell!
Ian Foster will be head coach.
Sam Cane will be captain.
Joe Schmidt will not be travelling to South Africa.
Honestly, LOL.
That is some boss-level trolling there NZR. Kudos, doff of the cap, touché.
“There is no doubt that I am under pressure,” Foster told the assembled blood-sport enthusiasts, “but I’m always under pressure and always felt that pressure.
“As an All Blacks coach you live in that world all the time. Does it hurt? Yes it does, but the key thing is I do everything I can to make sure we have the right people in the right seats.”
To be fair, there are still moves afoot in the coaching space, with employment “processes to be followed”.
In the absence of solid information I can only repeat the speculation I’ve picked up on that some of the existing assistants will be jettisoned - Greg Feek, John Plumtree and Brad Mooar seem to be the most vulnerable though honestly it could be all of them - and new faces added.
The latest wheeze is the new faces could be Leon MacDonald and Jason Ryan. If so, the securing of Crusaders assistant Ryan would be a massive “eff-you” to Scott Robertson.
This is, I repeat, jungle drums banging away here, not solid leads.
As it is, I’ve been loath to lead on rugby every day this week because I know a lot of subscribers have signed up for The Bounce because of the promise of a range of topics and sports being covered.
But this is a story that goes way beyond the white lines. It comes at such a fascinating juncture for the sport, and it’s not drawing too long a bow to suggest these issues are surfacing at a time when rugby is searching for its place in a new New Zealand.
Look at the myriad talking points and the questions they raise.
The All Blacks are not very good at the moment.
Can they restore faith before the World Cup next year?
Is this part of the natural cycle when good players leave and the replacements take time to reach those levels?
Is it a reflection of poor coaching?
Or is it perhaps something more far-reaching coming home to roost, something that myself and Gregor Paul have been writing about for the past five years or so - that the professionalisation of the schoolboy game has had a profoundly negative effect on playing numbers, which has led to a chipping away of the base of New Zealand Rugby’s pyramid, which has led to teetering across all levels?
NZR has just sold a chunk of the All Blacks brand to private equity interests.
Does Silver Lake already have buyer’s remorse?
Will institutional NZ investors baulk at jumping aboard.
Is NZR under more pressure for the All Black brands to deliver results because of the deal?
Sanzaar is a smouldering ruin.
Has South Africa’s clubs moving north irrevocably tilted the balance of power?
Will Australia make good on its threat to start their own domestic competition, leaving New Zealand without a viable commercial and high-performance partner below test level?
The relationship with media, even friendly outlets, has taken a dive.
Is NZR in a position to bully its way through it under their old “they need us more than we need them” mantra?
Did anybody ever anticipate that former media man Joe Locke’s absence would be felt as keenly as Richie McCaw’s?
OK, that last one was milking the situation, but there is no question that newly ensconced All Blacks media man Matt Manukia has some bridge building to do after his colleague Jo Malcolm made it clear this week how little NZR thinks of working journalists.
On so many levels this two-test tour to South Africa is pivotal, not just for Ian Foster’s future, but for the way New Zealand rugby on a broader level is viewed.
The aura of the All Blacks has been chipped away, the value of the All Blacks™ brand might remain intact, but for how much longer?
One of the points I made when taking aim at the All Blacks’ comm team last time out, was the organisation’s failure to acknowledge their privileged position within the sports media ecosystem - their belief that they have a divine right to the sort of coverage that other sports can only dream about.
It was a point picked up and expanded upon by hockey fan Kerry Nitz (edited for length and clarity):
NZR should feel absolutely blessed over the coverage they get. The recent hockey world cup in the Netherlands and Spain got barely any coverage in the MSM - even The Guardian had zero coverage despite England being seen as a contender and making it through to the quarter-finals. The Hockeyroos won bronze after pushing the Dutch to the limit in the semi and solidified their No3 world ranking, yet the Sydney Morning Herald has printed nothing on hockey since the Tokyo Olympics men’s final loss. Not a single line on the whole tournament. Finding any independent analysis is essentially impossible, despite some interesting developments like Germany (4th) fielding players better known as defenders in their attacking line, something NZ pioneered with Julia King at Tokyo.
Well put, Kerry. A justified rant.
THANKS, AND WELCOME!
This newsletter enjoyed a big, um, bounce in subscription numbers this week and as much as I’d like to puff my chest out and say “it’s all about the content”, it’s really all about the shares. So thanks to everyone who posted my newsletter to Facebook, Insta, Twitter, LinkedIn, and to those that recommended it to friends, family and colleagues.
To all you newbies, welcome. I’ll just reiterate what I posted on Wednesday. If you like what drops in your inbox, or know of somebody that would, pass the word on or share. It all helps.
Thanks again,
Dylan
THE WEEK THAT WAS
It was r-r-r-ugby most of the way, but there was other stuff going on, including golf’s civil war heating up. Henrik Stenson, Europe’s Ryder Cup captain no less, is the latest ‘big name’ to defect to the LIV circuit, reportedly for US$40 million. That’s stupid money for a has-been on the course, though the symbolism of signing a guy supposedly steeped in European Tour history - with what the Ryder Cup stands for and everything - is key to the cost-benefit exercise.
This is a fraught time, especially with newly minted Open Champion Cam Smith supposedly on the verge of announcing a $100m switch.
Dear reader, can someone please explain in really simple terms to a middle-aged man what a non-fungible token is or, more importantly, what makes them desirable to the purchaser?
New Zealand Cricket has this week announced a partnership with Indian sports tech company Dream Sports to “build cricket’s first-ever comprehensive suite of digital fan engagement products in an exclusive five-year deal”.
Part of that is fantasy leagues, part of it is gaming, but it’s the NFT stuff that intrigues me because it feels so unknowable. This paragraph from the release sort of helped, sort of sent my head spinning.
“Rario will launch NZC’s cricket NFT program and enable cricket fans to engage as a community, and own a piece of NZC cricket history through digital collectibles across player cards, video moments, and cricket artifacts; with FIAT-only products offered in India.”
My personal ignorance aside, this is a huge deal for NZC. The Bounce understands that outside of broadcasting rights and ICC dividends from major tournaments, this will be NZC’s biggest source of revenue.
Knowing this deal was in the works would have given the board far more comfort in signing off on the recently negotiated five-year Master Agreement, which featured 29.75 percent of all revenue going into a player payment pool, of which far more will be distributed to women (including pay parity on match fees).
Track and field is one of my favourite sports. All jokes about performance-enhancing drugs aside, there’s a purity to a foot race or a competition to see who can throw a sharpened stick the furthest, that can’t be matched when you start putting inflatable balls or teammates into the mix.
But I’ve really struggled to engage with these world championships in Eugene, Oregon. Part of it is the sheer amount of attention rugby has demanded over the past fortnight, but an undeniable part of it, from my perspective, is the lack of transcendent athletes.
There’ve been some nice stories, sure, including Zoe Hobbs lowering her Oceania record and Jack Wightman’s stunning win in the 1500m while his father was commentating, but outside the women’s sprints where the two great Jamaicans Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Elaine Thompson-Herah continued their battle alongside compatriot Shericka Jackson, there are a lack of transcendent athletes.
Athletics needs instantly recognisable names and faces - your Bolts, Farahs and Isinbeyavas to name a few - to retain global appeal and it feels like the sport is lacking them at the moment.
THE WEEKEND THAT WILL BE
Good on Stacey Jones for not only dropping Reece Walsh to the bench, but clearly outlining to the public (via the media) his reasons for the “shock” move. Will it help them beat a Raiders team who last week turned over the Storm? Probably… not.
Canberra v NZ Warriors, Canberra, tomorrow 5pm, Sky Sport 4
The Black Caps post-England party tour of Ireland, Scotland, The Netherlands and the West Indies continues. I know the Black Caps is a tightly controlled professional environment, but if you threw an itinerary in front of your average group of young antipodeans that had Dublin, Edinburgh, The Hague and Bridgetown, Barbados among the venues, the last thing most are thinking about is cricket.
Ireland v New Zealand, 3rd T20 Belfast, tomorrow 3am, Spark Sport
I’m more a one-day classics fan than the grand tours, but this has been a fascinating Tour de France, with two young cyclists - Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard - who appear set to compete for the general classification for the next decade.
Pogacar, 23, the two-time defending champion, is set to lose this one to his Danish rival, but his performance despite losing his best climbing teammates early in the tour, has been remarkable. Meanwhile Vingegaard, 25, will, barring disaster, sweep into Paris with time up his sleeve. He’s a brilliant climber but benefited massively by having the world’s best cyclist, Wout van Aert, at his side.
Pogacar’s last hope to make a dent is the 40km time trial from Lacapelle to Rocamadour.
Tour de France, Stage 20, tomorrow 10.55pm, Sky Sport 2
Hi Dylan. They probably need a good deal like that. NZC’s deal with Spark could do with some robust analysis; as a tragic I was annoyed when they shifted but understand why, lot of eyeballs still watch cricket on Sky though; strategic error shifting even if better financially in short term?
Hey Dylan,
A fellow Kiwi Substacker, David Farrier, goes into NFTs when he's not busy exposing Zuru and Arise Church's questionable antics in his newsletter, Webworm. Despite being a studious reader of Webworm, I still have NFI WTF it is about NFTs... So I suggest you look there.
In the BYC podcast, you questioned who would come to Russell at this time of year. As a motel mananer in Russell, I can confirm that not many people are coming actually - I've had plenty of time to read my newsletters and such like. The quiet winters we had pre-covid seem to have come back. Also, no sightings of Jason around town either..