Whinge up

A 50-word state of the rugby nation address, live from Roxburgh.

A no-context holiday shot after stumbling upon the South Island secondary schools ice hockey championships, with Fairlie’s Mackenzie College looking to make it 3-0 against Burnside High of Christchurch.

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A final, short, semi-holiday dispatch…

One thing you can be guaranteed of in the southern shires is footy chat.

As a way to gauge the mood of the rugby nation it’s more accurate than most places because apathy has not yet set in — generally speaking, they still care.

I’ve written about the sense of fragility in Dunedin rugby before, which mirrors much of urban New Zealand. Perhaps, though, it hits with a little more punch down here because Otago’s rugby fortunes have for so long been tied to those of the Varsity programme, which now stands as a shadow of its former self as the professional pathways skew younger.

One problem, says a mate who has spent decades at the coalface of community rugby here, is that the clubs rely more and more on school leavers to provide them the numbers required and many of those players are choosing not based on geography, school-feeder traditions or familial ties, but on what the clubs “can do for them”.

“Some big-name clubs down here are facing battles to field senior teams on an annual basis,” he said. “It’s not out of the question that some will disappear in the next five years.”

This I’ve heard, in one way or another, before, but it seemed more urgent than usual and was still simmering away in my thoughts as I stopped for a hit at Roxburgh GC, which if you haven’t already done, you really should.

Parked up in the 19th, a weather-beaten type who bore the telltale signs of a man who spends his daylight hours tending to livestock, asked me if I’d seen the test a couple of days earlier.

  “Yeah,” I said in a non-committal tone, expecting a diatribe on the state of refereeing and the breakdown laws. Instead he said something that surprised me and although I’ve put these in direct quotes, I’m relying heavily on memory.

“Good test match,” he said. “Shame we’ve become a country of whingers though.”

(Short pause)

“We whinge about the ref when we lose.

“We whinge about the coach not being good enough.

“We whinge about the players.

“We whinge about Super Rugby.

“We’re just not not good enough right now.

“Got to stop complaining and get on with it.”

And there, in about 50 words give or take, if your annual State of the Rugby Nation Report (2024) ©.

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To return briefly to a whinge…

Liam Napier made a good point ($) that in all the hubbub over the Ellis Park All Blacks’ woeful bench contributions and the inconceivable non-intervention of the TMO for Bongi Mbonambi’s ‘try’, it was the visitor’s putting the handbrake on any attacking ambition that played just as critical a role in their eventual downfall.

Whether it was intentional or subconscious the All Blacks attempted to protect their 10-point lead. More than any other aspect, this sparked their downfall.

With the champions rocked and rattled, rather than seeking to land the knockout blow the All Blacks reverted into a conservative shell.

They largely parked their attack, the intent to move the ball and the set moves that broke the Springboks on the edges to set up two Caleb Clarke tries. The All Blacks instead kicked incessantly and inaccurately to gift the ball to the Boks and invite them back into the compelling contest.

This conservatism was a game management failure and it cost the All Blacks another famous win in South Africa. 

Napier is right, but I don’t think this facet is mutually exclusive to the issues around the bench. If the All Blacks had a more capable menu of substitutes, this late-game conservatism might not be so inherent. 

The bench has been bolstered this week by the return to the pine of Beauden Barrett, so instrumental in turning the fortunes of the All Blacks around with his cameos against England.

Or is it ‘punishment’ for Ellis Park?

Barrett was involved in a lot of the good stuff that went through the hands in Johannesburg, but his kicking game was miles off and he was as guilty as anybody for what Napier described as “parking” the attack.

TJ Perenara will also be wearing a much higher number on his back after his volatile performance, with the inexperienced Cortez Ratima to start.

Regardless of whether the PR spin says the placement of two veterans onto the bench is to add experience to the second-half unit or not, it is a clear sign that playmaking was identified as substandard last weekend.

In that vein, it feels increasingly important that Damian McKenzie demonstrates that he can drive a team around the park against good opposition from start to finish.

More reading: How did Wallace Sititi rise so fast to become first-choice blindside flanker for All Blacks?

South Africa v New Zealand, Cape Town, Sunday 3am, Sky

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A book that enjoys prominent real estate on my shelves is The Dirtiest Race in History: Ben Johnson, Carl Lewis and the 1988 Olympic 100m Final¹ by Richard Moore.

It might need a sequel.

Russian middle-distance runner Tatyana Tomashova has just been stripped of her silver medal from the 2012 London Olympic 1500m and given a 10-year doping ban. Given that she is 49, that latter part of that punishment is more nominal than practical unless she was contemplating a career in coaching.

From the Guardian:

[Tomashova] is one of six athletes who finished in the top nine of the London final to have tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. Immediately after what has been called the “dirtiest race in history” Britain’s Lisa Dobriskey, who finished 10th, told BBC Radio 5 Live: “I don’t believe I’m competing on a level playing field.”

The two-time world champion Tomashova originally finished fourth but was upgraded after the Turkish runners Asli Cakir Alptekin and Gamze Bulut lost their medals for doping, with Bahrain’s Maryam Yusuf Jamal crossing the line third but later promoted to first.

The Ethiopia-born Swede Abeba Aregawi, who also had an anti-doping violation in 2016 but escaped a ban, received her reallocated bronze medal in a special ceremony at the Paris Olympics only last month. That medal will now be upgraded to silver.

It won’t be much consolation to Nick Willis, but talking about dirty races, he was the first untainted athlete over the line in the 1500m at Beijing four years earlier.

Willis’ bronze would a year later become silver. Getty Images

He initially took bronze behind Moroccan-born Bahraini athlete Rashid Ramzi and Kenyan Asbel Kiprop. Ramzi was stripped of old in 2009 after traces of CERA, an ‘undetectable’ version of EPO, was found in his re-tested samples.

Willis was elevated to silver and Kiprop to gold. In 2017, the latter tested positive for EPO in an out-of-competition testing and was banned for four years. I find it hard to believe he took up cheating after he’d achieved everything he dreamed of during his career.

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The Bounce will take a closer look at a gloriously busy period of test cricket when it heads back north next week (the BYC resumes on Wednesday, day three of the Afghan test), but as a pointer to one of the inevitable talking points of the summer — Kane Williamson’s pursuit of 10,000 test runs — Cricinfo.com produced some wonderful stats nerdery. The premise being that the Fab Four is teetering on the cusp of becoming a Terrific Two.

Since the start of 2021, [Joe] Root has scored as many hundreds (17) as the three others put together. Williamson has been prolific in this period too with nine hundreds, but has played only 18 tests compared to Root’s 48. So, if we pair them up, Root and Williamson have scored 26 hundreds from 121 innings, while [Steve] Smith and [Virat] Kohli have eight from 104.

It helps, of course, that England have played many more tests in this period – 48 since 2020, compared to 35 by India, 34 by Australia and just 25 by New Zealand. To Root’s credit, he has gone ahead and fully capitalised on those opportunities.

Wow, the number that stands out for me there, is not the hundreds, it’s this: Since 2021, Root has played 48 tests to Williamson’s 18. Even accounting for some niggly injuries, that’s a massive discrepancy.

As it stands, Williamson is 25th on the all-time test run-scoring aggregates with 8743. Nobody above him has played fewer than his 100 tests (and in fact you have to go as low as Garry Sobers at 34th to find someone under a century of tests).

With 100 more runs, Williamson will burst into the top 20. That’s the good news. The bad is that with the way test cricket is headed, there is only a slightly > than 0.01% chance that any New Zealander will come close to challenging his record again.

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Here’s a long read I came across while on my travels that piqued my interest.

The business of football, with its opaque rules around financial  sustainability and the growing trend of multi-club ownership groups, never fails to intrigue, and within that billionaire’s boys club no team is providing a case study as fascinating as Chelsea.

From a distance it seems that the policy is to buy anybody that is young, has two working legs and can kick a ball, and sign them to inordinately long contracts. In the meantime, they alienate half their own squad and many of the owners of the clubs they are bidding against.

But is there a method behind their madness? In five years, will the rest of the football world be in thrall to Chelsea’s genius. ESPN takes a balanced look at the project that has most pundits baffled. 

The Blues made Atlético Madrid forward João Félix the 39th signing of the Boehly/Clearlake era for approximately £42m; then, on deadline day, they made Jadon Sancho the 40th, on loan from Manchester United with an obligation to sign permanently next summer for around £25m. Both can operate as wingers, both in similar positions and styles to Sterling, and join a squad blessed with multiple options in wide areas already including Cole Palmer, Noni Madueke, Mykhailo Mudryk, Pedro Neto and Christopher Nkunku. Only two — or at a push, three — of these players are likely to start every week in a conventional system, despite costing the club a combined £256m in transfer fees.

Furthermore, Chelsea currently have no fewer than eight goalkeepers on their books: Robert Sánchez, Filip Jørgensen, Marcus Bettinelli, Lucas Bergstrom, Gaga Slonina, Eddie Beach, Djordje Petrovic and Kepa Arrizabalaga. The latter four were sent out on loan, but the club still signed a ninth, Mike Penders, who will join from Genk next summer.

The squad building in these positions appears nothing short of farcical. However, it is symptomatic of a clear change in approach from the ownership’s original strategy after completing their takeover in 2022.

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Last chance to get yourself into the draw to win the stunning Sweet Spot: 36 iconic golf courses that celebrate the best of New Zealand.

We’ve already received a bunch of great entries, and I mentioned above I’d played Roxburgh as I manoeuvred my way through the lower South Island this week. That was a minor revelation, but possibly not as much as Tokarahi, which is an absolute jewel. After two nice but relatively typical country-course opening holes, you climb up behind the second green to an elevated tee box and this incredible collection of holes awaits you.

I blessed this wonderful layout with the worst golf of my week, but you can’t help but leave the course with a smile on your face.

If you’re a fan of food, golf and/or the sweeping grandeur of South Island scenery, if you don’t take up my recommendation of brekkie in Kurow, a round at Tokarahi, a drive over Danseys Pass and lunch at Naseby, then I’m afraid there’s not a lot else I can do for you. 

The third at Tokarahi. Liam Cleaver

But back to the book. This is a beautifully presented and packaged book highlighting, as the subtitle suggests, three dozen of New Zealand’s most iconic courses. The box set contains two books, one on the courses of the North Island, written by beer Substacker Michael Donaldson, and one from the South covered by Phil Hamilton. The stunning photography is courtesy of Arno Gasteiger.

Valued at $95, if you want the perfect coffee-table addition or a gift for a loved one, you need to tell me in the comments section what your favourite golf course in New Zealand is and why. The course must be sensibly ($) accessible to most New Zealanders. Only entries in the comments will be considered, not emails.

The winner will be announced next week.

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I’m aware that there has been a fair bit of sport that has largely passed me by this past fortnight, including the final rounds of the NRL, the challenger series of the America’s Cup and, most pertinently, the Paris Paralympics. There was also a bit of big-gish news, with Brendon McCullum (still being described as a maverick) becoming England cricket’s cross-format boss and a long-anticipated return to long-form rugby tours..

Thanks for your patience as I got some admin (mostly) in order and enjoyed a short roadie with the eldest child.

There will be no post-test Sunday Special, but The Bounce returns in full on Monday, where it will digest the best from Newlands and much more.

Thanks once more for your support.

 

1. I’ve been contemplating the idea of a communal sports book swap (for those harder to source titles) but am unsure how it would practically work. As a toe-dipping exercise, if someone is interested in the Dirtiest Race in History and wants a read, flick me an email and I’ll send it out. If there’s more than one, I’ll provide on-send instructions and we’ll see where we get to.