Turning nothing kicks into art
Warriors turnaround starts from the 10m line - time and time again, PLUS: A Kiwi stars in The Hell of the North.
Going to refrain from gushing about the Warriors in the wake of their 34-4 hammering of bogey team South Sydney.
Been there before. There’s no future in it, but…
Geez, it’s hard not to love some of the stuff they’re doing, both obvious and subtle.
One of those things used to bug the hell out of me, but now I better understand the method behind the mundane.
That is the apparent “nothing kick” that is anything but. When the Warriors kick from between the 40s and sometimes even closer in, Shaun Johnson very rarely looks for a contestable option, nor does he look to the heavens with an Adam Reynolds-style spiral bomb, and nor does he look for grass.
Instead, time and again, he pinpoints a corner, usually the one that houses the opposition’s biggest winger and best ball carrier, and kicks little half bombs that they take between the goal line and the 10m. It sometimes looks all-too-easy with little to no pressure on the catch, but that’s not the point.
Basically they’re saying to Souths, or whomever they’re playing, that if you’re going to beat us, you’re going to have to do it from your 10m line, you’re going to have to do it against a well-set defensive line and you’re going to have to do it without your best ball-carrying back for the first two tackles of every set.
In fact, a lot of what the Warriors have become good at run counter to the popular, hopelessly outdated narratives that have stuck with them from the days when the crowd would yell “Feed the Beast” every time they had possession1.
Their most intricate plays are now run down the narrowest of channels, the dummy half one. Johnson was the beneficiary of two pieces of Wayde Egan magic on the weekend.
The Warriors look so much more cohesive and in sync when Egan runs things from dummy half, but if you take a sharp intake of breath every time he gets smashed, you’re not alone.
As I said at the top, I’m not going to gush, but Billy Slater is allowed to.
“They’re dialled in. They can win the competition,” Slater said. “They’re a squad. They’re a team. They’re a club. Everyone loves the Warriors. If the Warriors make it through to the Grand Final it will be a huge occasion and I think they can.
“I think they can win the comp.”
Easy now, Billy. Baby steps.
***
On a less positive note, the attitudes of some in the NRL to obvious head injuries still leaves me bewildered.
During Canterbury’s upset win over Easts, one of the Bulldogs players - former Warrior Josh Curran - was clearly unwell, but his trainer gave him the all clear to continue. It was only the independent doctor who insisted he be removed.
That’s not good enough. The independent observer should be a backstop, not the person you hope doesn’t notice so your player can continue after having his bell rung.
The duty of care to athletes in the NRL still feels well short of where it needs to be
***
Except maybe when it comes to Michael Jennings, 35, who, as the SMH reported, made a return to the sport that was anything but fairytale.
Jennings played in Friday night’s loss to the Bulldogs after being activated as a concussion substitute, his first NRL game since serving a three-year ban for testing positive to prohibited substances LGD-4033 (Ligandrol) and Ibutamoren.
There is another mark against his name. Jennings was ordered to pay his ex-wife, Kirra Wilden, nearly $500,000 in damages for personal injuries, including post-traumatic stress disorder, following a civil case in the NSW District Court in December 2021. Wilden alleged in court that Jennings had verbally and sexually abused her during their relationship, that he would also drink and gamble heavily, and used cocaine regularly.
Jennings denied the allegations and appealed the ruling, which was upheld - but that wasn’t the end of the story.
In June 2022, a judge found that Jennings sold three investment properties and paid the proceeds, which exceeded $1.6 million, to a third party.
“I find that the payment of money to [a third party] was done in order to dissipate or minimise the defendant’s assets in a transparent attempt to avoid satisfying the judgement made in favour of the plaintiff [Wilden],” the judge found.
League does a much better job than many sports of recognising that the world is full of flawed individuals who have a much better job of rehabilitating themselves if they’re kept within the game rather than discarded. Maybe it’s drawing too long a bow, but the sport’s working-class roots lend a more empathetic embrace to those that falter.
But seriously, how does Jennings get re-registered?
In a possible nod to the fact they might not have got this one right, the NRL have announced they won’t officially recognise Jennings’ 300th match, as is tradition, when he reaches that milestone, possibly as early as this weekend.
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Pity the poor folk charged with finding multiple “talking points” from the weekend’s truncated and rather pitiful Super Rugby round.
The Drua provided one, with a bizarre and headless performance, which would have been the main talking point if it were not from the alleged behaviour of an alleged grub in the stands.
[Frank] Lomani, a Fijian test and former Rebels player himself, was slightly illegally taken out of a ruck by Josh Canham in the 57th minute with his side trailing by 14 points at AAMI Park in Melbourne. He responded by delivering a 12-6 elbow slice to the back of the Rebels lock’s head, a strike so dangerous it’s illegal in the UFC. Then, with the game well and truly gone, [Jone] Koroiduadua delivered a head butt to Alex Mafi as a scrum broke up…
To make things even uglier, footage has emerged of an alleged racial abuse incident in the stands after Lomani's send off.
What isn’t a talking point is the fact Damian McKenzie is a monster at Super Rugby level and the Chiefs are better with him on the field than without. Actually, I should rephrase that: it’s only a talking point if the comp leaves you with nothing else to say.
He would seem to have the inside track on the No10 test jersey Richie Mo’unga and Beauden Barrett domiciled in the land of the rising sun, but has McKenzie added the necessary layers to his game to elevate his test performances above the mercurial and, at times, flighty? I’d read a deep dive into that.
***
Sevens is in an interesting place. On a personal level, I used to take a bit of interest in the big tournaments… until it became an Olympic sport. Now it’s become a once every four-year thing for me. I suspect I’m not alone, which is probably not what World Rugby had in mind when celebrating its inclusion in the Games.
Still, I chanced upon the Hong Kong women’s final and stuck around for the men.
***
Billy’s Message, which screened last night on Sunday, was a powerful piece of television.
Being intimately aware of the story, it held few surprises, though I was particularly taken by Professor Maurice Curtis’ look of profound surprise that Billy Guyton, who died last year aged 33, was still allowed to play rugby with 17 concussions on his medical record. His description of the two hemispheres of Guyton’s brain having been sheared apart due presumably to its exposure to frequent trauma, was graphic but necessary.
There’s another side to this that I want to explore in greater depth, but it’s too complex to give it a once-over-lightly, other than to say people who are dealing with neurodegeneration can be frustrating to work with. Rugby has a very effective whispering network that ensures those who don’t need to know are still made aware of those with “personality” or “lifestyle” issues. You often hear variations of the theme: “It’s hard to help them unless they learn to help themselves.”
Which, when you think about it, is as stupid as telling a paraplegic that we can’t help you run unless you learn to walk yourself.
You tell ’em Brian, aka Gash.
The Bounce was getting quite worked up scrolling through Sky’s myriad channels trying to find Paris-Roubaix last night and finding screeds of replays and other poop, and not finding the single biggest day of cycling of the year (with the possible exception of the most brutal alpine stages of the Tour de France).
Compounding my misery was waking up to find that a young Kiwi had played a prominent role. Laurence Pithie was never going to catch Mathieu van der Poel who, with Wout van Aert out injured, is in a league of his own in the one-day classics, but he was fighting for a podium until crashing with 30km to go.
Here’s a great little story on the Groupama-FDJ rider’s seventh-place day. From the Escape Collective:
On the grassy infield of the Roubaix Velodrome, Laurence Pithie pulled away from the small crowd gathering around him, directed a few hearty F-bombs at himself, then slunk to the ground. His skinsuit was torn in several places, and streaks of blood were drying on his left elbow and right calf…
Most riders wouldn’t be disappointed with a top 10 in their first Paris-Roubaix. Most would be delighted just to finish. But even after finishing seventh… the 21-year-old Kiwi was kicking himself.
Turning to another race - one that is no race at all.
Liberty Media, the owners of Formula One, must have wanted to strangle Mercedes’ team principal Toto Wolff after he pointed out the blindingly obvious fact that nobody is going to catch Max Verstappen this year.
It’s not what he said that is controversial, it’s the fact he said it with 20 races remaining in F1’s 24-race season.
I’ll point to some great sports links in the midweek newsletter, but this ‘Hardest Geezer’ warrants checking out after running from the toe to the tip of Africa.
Russ Cook had long been dreaming of being on a beach in Tunisia with a strawberry daiquiri.
And, on Sunday, that became a reality as he completed his journey to Tunisia’s northern point at Ras ben Sakka.
Admitting he had shed a few tears at the start of the final day, he took a moment to stare at the horizon with his hands on his head.
Like I’ve always said, hard men drink daiquiris.
H/t to Dai Henwood for reminding me of that popular Mt Smart clarion call.
After seeing Rob Nichol everywhere in the media the last few weeks, interesting (and telling) that we haven't seen more from him on the Billy Guyton story. Looking after players post career seems fundamental to what the RPA should be doing, fighting about governance does not.
Watching the “crowds” and lopsided scores at super rugby this week then watching highlights of the last 16 of the European URC was humbling. Games in Italy, France and the home unions packed out with good rugby, singing and tight score lines jarred with the antipathy of the product in aus/NZ. Some big changes need to be made. For starters a fairer distribution of players. Give the force a few kiwi bench warmers… a few more fans may turn up when there is the prospect of a contest.