These are just some of my favourite things
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Welcome to an incomplete picture of some of my favourite sports media “things” this year. It’s a random collection of stuff, not Stuff, in no particular order. It also liberally features myself but seriously, if I’m not going to self-promote here, where on earth else am I?
(Okay, the answer to that is my Instagram, FB or perhaps I could join the TikTok generation, but I largely eschewed social media in 2023. Next year could be a different story though, as I determinedly set sail for 1200 IG followers with pictures of my cats doing cute things.)
This is not an exhaustive list. I’m relying on an increasingly creaky memory, so there might be obvious stories, docos or pods I have missed. If you wrote or produced those obvious things, sorry!
These are not my best sports moments of the year. I’ll save that for next week but you can start by assuming that a certain test match at the Basin Reserve will be very high on that list.
Please use the comments to suggest books, docs, pods or long-form yarns that I might want to read over the festive season.
Best NZ sports journalism
Margaret, who has been married to Wyllie for more than 40 years, is telling her story now because she fears that many more in her husband’s position have neither the wherewithal, the support or the patience to keep climbing over the kind of brick walls that were put in front of them.
Their account is poignant. It details the vivid diminution of a high-achieving person. The sad fact is that it is not unique. Many stories have already been told of rugby stars who believe the sport they loved contributed to their dementia, and there will be many more to come.
What elevates their story is that they fought the system and won. It’s a significant victory, though in some ways a hollow one: Wyllie will eventually die with no idea as to the significance of his case, or how many people might benefit from his trailblazing.
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There are tears in his eyes and his voice starts to break as Kevin Mullaney tells me how much he misses his friend Justin, “His legacy will be that he’ll be the first Kiwi rugby player to be confirmed to have this diagnosis and that he didn’t die in vain. That he sacrificed his body and his brain for the betterment of his fellow Kiwis.”
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Despite the off-putting news.com.au-style headline - “Exclusive: The dramatic real reasons Ian Foster wasn’t axed as All Blacks coach”($) - Gregor Paul’s insightful piece on the All Blacks coaching saga had the details others wanted and couldn’t get.
It involved Mark Robinson in a tense, clandestine meeting at Ian Foster’s house and back-channel machinations to pair Scott Robertson with Joe Schmidt.
Robertson’s ‘in principle’ team was deemed to lack heavyweight international experience — a problem NZR felt could be fixed if Robertson could find room for Joe Schmidt, the former Ireland head coach who Foster had only just enticed, after two years of persuasion, to join the All Blacks as a selector.
Schmidt, who had not travelled to South Africa, was encouraged by NZR to meet Robertson to determine whether they could work together.
Whether they were aware of what was playing out, or reacting to media speculation, the Crusaders, Blues and Hurricanes were by August 10 preparing to lose their head coaches.
Emergency board meetings were called, action plans scrambled, and it is understood that the Blues got so far as to put together a shortlist, which included former Wallabies coach Robbie Deans.
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There was something appealing about his story: a former gymnast who turned a curiosity about pole vault into an obsession. McColl famously spent tens of thousands of dollars buying a set of poles to get his programme off the ground, and later built a sloped runway for his athletes to train on. In the process, the self-taught guru built a world-class programme in a field event New Zealand previously did not have any pedigree in.
But within that programme, his behaviour went largely unchecked for more than a decade.
Last week, the mythology that surrounded McColl was stripped away. The national coach was handed one of the most severe sanctions in New Zealand sporting history after an independent investigation found his conduct “over a number of years” was improper and inappropriate, amounting to serious misconduct.
Among the broad strokes findings released to the public were that of harassment, including inappropriate comments to athletes in training sessions and through social media and text messages.
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A former All White who gained notoriety for both his alcohol-fuelled off-field antics and his relationships with a series of women is again courting controversy - this time over his involvement with an elderly woman who has paid him thousands of dollars from her pension.
Just a few weeks ago Michael Utting… made headlines after he suffered a heart attack and was saved by two autistic men who were in his care.
That publicity prompted the family of the elderly Horowhenua woman to speak out about their concerns over her relationship with Utting. She is 85. He is 53.
Pensioner and widow Daphne* (not her real name) and Utting have been “dear friends” for about 10 years. But Daphne’s family are deeply concerned about the friendship… Her sister, who has been granted power of attorney over Daphne’s affairs, believes Utting has manipulated Daphne into making more than 170 payments to him over the last two years, while at times leaving her unable to pay her own bills.
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Bonnie Jansen’s work on the Western Springs football club debacle was timely, with the Fifa World Cup due to hit these shores. She knew it wouldn’t be popular and would subject herself to a bunch of lazy tropes, but said “damn the torpedoes” anyway.
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Scotty Stevenson can put a paragraph together. Here he covers the most inglorious moment in the Ranfurly Shield’s history by invoking its proud and drug-free history.
Many of the greatest players in this nation’s provincial rugby history spent years trying to win that hunk of lumber. Many never did. To watch it seemingly treated like some throw-away prop at a B-grade party actually hurts.
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“Up the Wahs”, a Spinoff investigation!
Over the last few weeks, as the Warriors secured their first top four finish since 2007, Up the Wahs has made it into parliamentary record Hansard on multiple recent occasions, been tagged onto a train, tattooed on multiple bodies and seen a whole cell network renamed in its honour. The phrase has inspired unauthorised merch from T-shirts to baby bibs and a popular, royalty-free parody of ‘How Bizarre’. Little wonder the NZ Warriors recently copyrighted the phrase – but only after brewer Good George did the same for its unauthorised tribute beer.