When ugly wins are simply beautiful
D-Mac turns heads, Adams-less Grizz in trouble, dead horses, and more...
This from Warriors super-fan and early-adopter Bounce subscriber Peter. I couldn’t say it better myself, so I won’t bother trying (lightly edited for clarity). Note the dyed-in-the-wool leaguie getting a not-so-sly jab in there at the 15-man cousins.
Wow! I’m only just recovering from the Marvel at Mt Smart!
Some 23,500 fans were riding every crazy moment of a wild game where the Warriors did everything to lose but still pulled a couple of rabbits out of the hat to win 22-14. This team is definitely the real deal. To beat a desperate Cowboys team with three of our big players missing, and after a loss last week, really was a statement.
It was definitely a messy game, with basic mistakes by both sides, but nevertheless it was 80 non-stop minutes of entertainment. Poor old Super Rugby.
The Cowboys had almost 60 percent of the ball and more yards but were turned away somehow by a Warriors team that was urged on by a raging crowd.
This Warriors team seems to be really playing for each other and even when they make mistakes, they rally around and bounce back.
Some notables:
Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad: Huge game, non-stop effort, player of the day;
Edward Kosi: Becoming an important member of the team;
Dallin Watene-Zelezniak: Poor game;
Adam Pompey: Enigma;
Marcelo Montoya (pictured above, right): Fabulous try assist, attitude to burn;
Dylan Walker (pictured above, left): Not a No6, but gives it 100. Prefer him as an impact forward off the bench;
Shaun Johnson: Continues his amazing renaissance, only injury will stop him;
Addin Fonua-Blake: Colossus;
Freddy Lussick: One dimensional, but does tackle;
Bunty Afoa: Good game, didn’t let anyone down;
Jazz Tevaga: Average game, with two drop balls;
Jackson Ford: Excellent 80-minute machine;
Josh Curran: One bad tackle miss - still a force, but needs to reach his previous form;
Tohu Harris: Consistent, a leader - the team needs his ball-playing art;
Tom Ale: Getting five percent better every week;
Bayley Sironen: Good workhorse, but why is he at dummy half?
Taine Tuaupiki: Never took the field - WTF?
Considering the Cowboys had a better team (on paper) with the likes of Jason Taumalolo, Jeremiah Nanai, Coen Hess, Reuben Cotter and a star-studded backline, to keep them in check was a fantastic effort.
The return of Marata Niukore and Wayde Egan will be important, but Te Maire Martin’s absence remains significant.
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Here is the table. It is not a misprint.
Here, also, is Steve Roach moaning about the Warriors’ Kosi feigning injury.
“I’ve got to say, I’m starting to get annoyed with players staying down, feigning injury,” Roach said. “They’ve obviously been told by the coaches if you get hit on the chin, you stay down. You see straight away as they got the penalty, straight up to his feet.”
Although the circular headline-generation between News Corp’s television and print and digital products can get tiring and even a bit boring (NRL 360, for example, too often reeks of controversy desperation), this is what league does so much better than rugby - it keeps the news cycle moving Monday through Thursday.
And Roach does have a valid point - it is a scourge that extends well beyond Ed Kosi.
There were plenty of talking points from the Chiefs’ impressive 33-17 win over the Hurricanes, ones that could be elevated by the right voices into Serious Debating Points of National Interest.
Top of the list is whether the best first five-eighth in the country is steering the ship not at the Crusaders or the Blues, but at the Chiefs. Although Damian McKenzie’s work in the black jersey has too often been patchy, players develop at different speeds and there is no question his work this season has been outstanding.
Steve Devine nailed it on SENZ:
“The thing that impresses me most about this kid at the moment is that he can play rugby on the back foot or he can play on the front foot,” Devine said. “The first half, things didn’t go the Chiefs’ way. They were going backwards a little bit and he still was probably the pick of the team…
“Sometimes 9s, 10s have that real struggle depending on whether the forward pack goes forward or not and I just think for the first time in a long time in this country, Damian McKenzie is in such good form, it doesn’t really even matter for him if he’s going forwards or backwards.
“I know Richie, he struggles a little bit when he’s going backwards. I look back over the last few years when we’ve played the Africans, we haven’t had that dominance up front, and he has struggled.
“Maybe for the first time after the weekend, I think maybe McKenzie is in the 10 jumper for the All Blacks this year.”
The first two tries - one apiece for the Chiefs and Canes - were just outstanding examples of rugby at its finest. That they occurred during daylight hours appealed to me, and prompted reader Ash to note this about the potential of professional afternoon rugby to boost the community game too. Again, lightly edited for clarity.
Afternoon kickoffs for the pros and community rugby dragged forward to 1pm kickoffs might see a few more dollars into club rugby coffers. We’ve got to find new ways of making clubs relevant in a changed environment, with time and playing numbers the scarcest of commodities for most of us involved at grassroots level. Either that or change our club window to start first week of May and end last week of July; with the semi-pro NPC starting mid-August as club comps get skewed by players being withdrawn (or a swag coming into the union mid-season as the coach of the day realises he needs to recruit from outside of the club comp to be competitive in the - it’s a bit of joke really).
As an aside/vent, Saturday’s rescheduled professional game was played at the same time as all lower North Island community rugby, which probably won’t mean much to NZR or Super Rugby Pacific administrators, but it was bloody annoying for some of us who were looking forward to it after battling through our club commitments in the afternoon. We were told it couldn’t be helped etc, but not many of us bothered to believe that, we just switched to the NRL for the evening’s professional rugby entertainment.
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I might have questions as to Moana Pasifika’s ongoing feasibility in Super Rugby, particularly if they have to keep playing games out of Mt Smart, but even though they lost convincingly to the Reds in Apia, the story of two-try hero Miracle Fai’ilagi made it all seem worthwhile.
Earlier this week, The Spinoff took a look at the family connections within Moana Pasifika.
“I’m not even sure how we’re related,” Jack Lam (35) says as he looks over to his younger cousin D’Angelo Leuila (26). “We’re from the same village, so somewhere there we’re connected,” he says.
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Genuine questions: Am I being overly delicate when I profess to finding this imagery promoting the Blues on Anzac weekend a bit tasteless?
Also: Should that big plane with jet engines be there?
The Steven Adams-less Memphis Grizzlies are in big danger of losing their first-round playoff series to a Los Angeles Lakers team that dominated the boards in game one of their Western Conference match-up. That is why there is some desperation from fans for the Grizzlies to rush the big man back, even as team sources continue to say he is out for the season.
In other round one, game one match-ups of interest, the Boston Celtics dominated the low-flying birds of Atlanta, and the New York Knickerbockers beat Cleveland Cavaliers.
More intriguingly, the Milwaukee Bucks, favoured by many to win the whole damn thing, are 0-1 down against the Miami Hot-Stuff and their best player, Giannis Antetokounmpo aka the Greek Freak, left the game with a back injury.
Meanwhile, the series I was most looking forward to delivered, with the surprising Sacramento Kings beating the defending champion Golden State Warriors in a game-one thriller. The fans have waited a long time for a playoff win, about 17 years in fact, and weren’t going to waste the opportunity to have a party. When they win, they #lightthebeam, which is kind of cheesy, kind of cool.
You can’t, as your manager says, stop playing. Not when you’ve come this far.
The Grand National, held at Liverpool’s Aintree racecourse, is an epic event and a staggering feat of equine athleticism, but is the cost too high? The protesters who tried to disrupt the 175th running of the race certainly believe so, and three more horses died over the course of the meeting, with Hill Sixteen dying during the running of the Grand National after falling at the first fence.
His owner Jimmy Fyffe said: "I am absolutely gutted… It was heart-breaking.
“He could be in a field running about and you can lose a horse. The horses get looked after so well by all trainers. I’ve been in all the stables that I’ve got horses at and they are looked after like kings. They have a great life, they love running so I’ve not got any qualms with staying in this game.”
Campaign group Animal Aid had a different take on it: “Another innocent horse has their life taken from them in the name of entertainment and gambling.”
THIS WEEK
The midweek newsletter for paying subscribers returns this week, along with the Midweek Book Club. Thanks for your patience over the past few weeks of reduced content. Included in the newsletter will be weekend talking points ignored here or overlooked, plus a look at the early games of the Black Caps’ tour to Pakistan - which is not going particularly well, it has to be said. Wherefore art thou, Martin Guptill?
Hate to out myself as a plane nerd, but yes the 'big plane with the jet engines' is the RNZAF's much-maligned Boeing 757. Almost any time a person of note becomes stranded abroad, you can thank either of the two operated by 40 Sqn. Not to discredit the hard work done by said squadron in keeping the things flying in the first place.