Ushering in new eras

Rugby set for big change, as are the Kiwis and Auckland football, PLUS: Book winners announced.

Then-president of the Spanish Football Federation Luis Rubiales kisses Jennifer Hermoso of Spain during the medal ceremony of Fifa Women’s World Cup, won by Spain. Getty Images

 We’ve reached that time of the year when sports departments turn to that staple of summer - the listicle. I’m not opposed to a listicle; when done well the year-ender can be entertaining, if unsubstantial fare.

Over the next month, I’ll also be highlighting some of the most powerful sporting stories and images of the year, starting with the above, which created a firestorm and put an ugly exclamation point on what had until then been an amazing tournament and celebration of sport. The issue is still percolating away.

I’m still planning on rolling The Bounce out regularly during this period of mostly non-news, with a particular eye on the cricket, but it will likely be on a slightly haphazard schedule.

NB. Keep an eye out from December 1 for a Christmas gift offer. Now, on to a little bit of news…

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The country’s provincial and Māori unions (PUs) are ready to usher in a new era of rugby - but will do so with an almighty slap to the executive.

Reports Gregor Paul in the NZ Herald ($):

Last week, it is believed that a document signed by all member provincial unions was sent to NZR, stating that they accept governance change is imperative to the game’s survival in this country, with the letter also believed to have made critical remarks about the quality and performance of the national body’s executive leadership team and expectations of improvement made clear.

The letter is in response to the recent David Pilkington-led Governance Review, covered off exhaustively here, that recommended a fully independent NZR board the establishment of a Stakeholder Council to advise at a governance level.

For this to come into effect, the PUs would have to effectively vote themselves out of existence, something the Herald’s story says they are ready to do.

One thing that does confuse me, however was this line (emphasis mine):

The unions are broadly aligned with the findings but have asked for any new governance structure to ensure they have input and influence over the appointment process of directors.

This reminds me of the saying that you can’t be half pregnant.

This is a decent uppercut, though:

Whatever governance change is agreed, the [PUs] expect the board to have better processes and ability to monitor and judge the performance of senior staff.

There were some particularly damning lines in the review about the minutiae of the chief executive’s reporting “dashboard” and its nebulousness.

From the review:

The lack of clearly stated outcome expectations in favour of statements of intended activity, and the multitude of low-level tactical KPIs mean that directors are drawn into the operational domain. This tends to fix the board as a supra-layer of management. 

The PUs have clearly seized upon this and are basically saying if we’re going to sign our own execution orders, we want to chop the management, who only care about the elite level, down to size too.

The unions and management are scheduled to meet in early December to chart the next steps.

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Enjoyed this interview with Scott Robertson. It was airy and anecdotal and left me with this overriding impression: things are going to be different.

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Speaking of black jerseys and coaches… A regular correspondent to these pages wrote this is response to New Zealand Rugby League’s decision to ditch Michael Maguire as Kiwis coach:

“Right up there with the Red Sox selling Babe Ruth for $100,000 and the Portland Trailblazers not drafting Michael Jordan. The NZRL let Madge go as he was about to take the Kiwis into a new era. Unbelievable!”

Maybe. I’m not sure there was a right or wrong answer here, just awkward ones. And as for the new era, what exactly does a new era of international rugby league look like? The last era was marked by an extremely underwhelming World Cup in England and, more recently, by the Kiwis brilliantly beating the Kangaroos 30-0 in front of a woeful crowd in Hamilton.

When Greg Peters said that “we believe with the status and mana in the Kiwis shirt that we want someone who is 100 percent focused on that,” he’s talking bollocks,because international league, sadly, does not require a full-time coach and Maguire was in dual roles throughout his time.

Said Paul Suttor in The Roar:

The Kiwis have put the jersey before results by telling Maguire that he would have to fall on his sword if he wanted to take up the NSW State of Origin gig.

And that’s fair enough – in the dubious world of rugby league eligibility, it would be an extremely amateur look for the international game to have the same coach in charge of a provincial side as well as one of the main Test nations. 

And David Long in Stuff:

Michael Maguire says he’s 'shattered’ he’s no longer the Kiwis coach, but he’s brought this situation on himself. He has shown his true colours and they’re blue, not black…

There is a clear conflict of interest in trying to coach the Kiwis and NSW at the same time. A young player who is eligible for Origin and the Kiwis can’t play for NSW or Queensland once he’s worn the New Zealand jersey, but he could play for Australia, Tonga or Samoa. What path would Maguire want to send that player down if he had both jobs?

Both Long and Suttor leaned on the eligibility question to make their points, but that does seem to miss the point that it is the player who has agency in these situations. Nobody can make you play Origin if your dream is to play for the Kiwis. Conversely, if you think the pinnacle of the sport is to play Origin, then the Kiwis probably aren’t for you anyway (which is not necessarily a dig at Maguire, who is as entitled to max out his earning potential as anybody).

One thing is not up for dispute: the next coach has a great crop of talent to work with.

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Meanwhile, Warriors fans could get used to the idea of Kurt Capewell in Penrose. 

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While casting my eyes elsewhere, I almost missed the news about the A-League licence being awarded to American billionaire Bill Foley with a view to setting up a club in Auckland (dear Bill, I know your sentimental connection to the “Knights” name, but it is still a very bad idea). 

Curiously enough, some of my earliest forays into sports ‘news’ journalism centred around Auckland’s first attempt at making a mark in the Australian National Soccer League - the ill-fated Football Kingz. I was lucky enough to have a source involved in the start-up who also disagreed with most of the decisions his colleagues were making, so it was a lively old time. I covered the Kingz (speaking of terrible team names) first match, a 0-3 hammering at the hands of the even shorter-lived Carlton. That was basically when my interest in the Australian NSL and its successor the A-League ended and despite the odd flirtation, I’ve never recaptured it. 

Local football is a Bounce blindspot, there’s no point denying the obvious, but I am fascinated by one aspect of the A-League’s Auckland expansion: the reignition of the stadium debate.

Foley has expressed desire for a downtown boutique stadium, and while the idea for a venue that is size appropriate for football, Super Rugby and the NRL is appropriate, Trevor McKewen in Business Desk makes the case for anything being built on prime real estate being the national stadium ($).

Eden Park will seize on this by suggesting it stays the national stadium and that a smaller capacity waterfront venue should be built to accommodate the likes of Foley’s team and others.

Rival waterfront options promote 50,000-capacity venues, making them a direct threat to Eden Park’s future as the country’s premier sporting and entertainment stadium. 

Foley and other decision-makers need to see through any such play.

The reality is that all modern stadiums with 50,000-seat capacity routinely feature a ‘curtains’ concept that allows the top tier to be closed off, keeping an atmosphere and setting that still works for smaller crowds...

It would allow the Warriors, Blues and Foley’s A-League club to play out of one stadium à la rugby’s Waratahs, the NRL’s Roosters and Sydney’s A-League clubs at the rebuilt Sydney Football Stadium. 

But importantly, it still allows for a waterfront stadium that can still handle pinnacle events that draw 50,000 crowds, such as All Blacks tests, World Cup hosting rights in various sports and other high-drawing events.

Quite frankly, Bill, you would be wasting your money on a 20,000-seat waterfront stadium.

That not only defies logic but will leave Auckland propping up the white elephant of Eden Park while adding yet another stadium to the Queen City when we already have too many.

Although I’m not a huge fan of the ‘curtain’ concept, McKewen makes an entirely valid point. 

If there is one thing you can guarantee, it’s that the City and its administrators will screw it up. After all, this is a place that can take seemingly sentient humans and lead them down a path where they think moving cricket’s operations to Glen Innes is a good idea.  

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Staying with football, this is a lovely read from Paul Hayward on Terry Venables, who passed away last week.

Getty Images

In retrospect, a football manager who had to pulp his own autobiography, was upbraided for “deliberately and dishonestly” misleading a jury and was banned from being a company director was never likely to be remembered solely as a tracksuit thinker. But Venables could be mesmerising company. The more time you spent with him the more you noticed his hyper‑vigilant need for knowledge. Between comic anecdotes and tactical asides he would poke and prod everyone around the table for bits of information on this player, that chairman, this or that club. Behind the lights of his smile, his love for singing Frank Sinatra songs and his wise-guy self‑regard, Venables possessed a football brain with no off-switch. He was always alive to the next opportunity, the ever-present need to stay ahead of the hounds.

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The test summer starts tomorrow in Sylhet, live and presumably exclusive on Rabbitholebd Sports (via YouTube). It’s a low-key but tricky assignment to start the World Test Championship cycle.

Stuff has the likely New Zealand playing XI and it contains two specialist spinners, Ish Sodhi and Ajaz Patel, a spin-bowling allrounder, Rachin Ravindra, and two frontline seamers in captain Tim Southee and Kyle Jamieson.

Without seeing the pitch, it’s hard to argue, though rather than picking three spinners who take it away from the right-hander, I’d swap one of them (not Ravindra) for Neil Wagner, who has shown a propensity for taking wickets on pitches that offer no assistance.

Meanwhile, some of the team will be stinging after being released from the IPL teams.

Tim Southee and Lockie Ferguson (both Kolkata Knight Riders), Kyle Jamieson (Chennai Super Kings), and Finn Allen and Michael Bracewell (both Royal Challengers Bangalore) have not been retained by their franchises and will enter the December 19 auction in the hopes of being picked up by another team. All five were either injured or bit-part players only this year.

Kane Williamson returns  to Gujarat Titans, the scene of his knee injury, while Devon Conway and Mitchell Santner are back at champions Chennai Super Kings. Trent Boult (Rajasthan Royals) and Glenn Phillips (Sunrisers Hyderabad) are also returning to their franchises.

Breakout World Cup star Rachin Ravindra is widely tipped to be picked up at auction.

BOOK WINNERS

That’s  to all who entered and thanks for the variety of answers, including one brave punter who made a case for Brendon McCullum’s duck in the 2015 CWC final as it was proof positive that he would do things his way to the very end.

Of course, there are no right or wrong answers. It’s all in the eye of the beholder. There are probably no surprises in my top five, but you could argue the order or a couple of omissions.

1. 302 v India, Basin Reserve, 2013

I talked with Kane Williamson about this innings about seven or eight years ago. At that stage in his career he described it as the best innings he had seen because it was the opposite of stats-padding. The only way New Zealand was going to get out of that test and preserve a 1-0 series lead, was by McCullum abetting for two days and scoring 250-plus. He got a bit of luck early when Virat Kohli tried to catch him one-handed when he could have taken it with two, but show me somebody who has batted for 12-and-a-half hours without a bit of luck.

2. 158* v Royal Challengers Bangalore, M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, 2008

Gave instant gravitas to a tournament that has, for better or worse (mostly better), changed cricket forever. The IPL would have been successful without McCullum, just as rugby would have gone professional without Jonah Lomu, but both sped up the process.

3. 225 v India, Rajiv Gandhi Stadium, 2010

I’m always surprised that McCullum’s first of four 200+ test scores doesn’t get more love. It was his first series without the gloves as he attempted to forge a second career filling what had been a hopelessly troubling opening batting slot. The move was only a qualified success, but this terrific innings was a triumph. It was also the first time he had hit more than three sixes in a single test innings, a preview of big-hitting things to come.

4. 59 v South Africa, Eden Park, 2015

Grant Elliott’s six was an incredible finishing note on a symphonic evening, but the innings was set up by McCullum’s 26-ball plundering of Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander. The straight six off Steyn into Eden Park’s second tier is indelibly etched onto my mind. A reminder: McCullum was out with the total at 71 to the first ball of the seventh over, and the sixth over was a maiden.

5. 96 v England, Lord’s, 2004

Twice McCullum came within a boundary four of etching his name into permanence at the Home of Cricket ™, but this first attempt was memorable for both the partnership contrast - Mark Richardson (101) was at the other end - and for the promise. This was just McCullum’s fourth test, he was promoted from No9 to No3 and he batted with such confidence and class that it suggested New Zealand had a serious talent to build around. It took a frustratingly long time for the promise exhibited here to mature into something more permanent, but he got there in the end.

Some honourable mentions: 116* v Australia in a T20 at Lancaster Park; 202 v Pakistan in a test at Sharjah (the ‘Phil Hughes’ Test); 80* v Bangladesh in an ODI at Queenstown (chasing 94 to win, NZ did it by 10 wickets with Jamie How 7* at the other end!).

Everyone who provided an answer went into the draw, which were picked at random from a hat. The winners have been notified with replies to their comments, but are (or go by the user names of): Kali, Paul Coughlan, Michael Mitchell, Nick Goodall and Cricket Punisher.

Modern New Zealand Cricket Greats: From Stephen Fleming to Kane Williamson, by Dylan Cleaver, Upstart Press, $39.99.