Tuesday, 26 November 2013

Deep. Can You Dig It?


After the Rugby League World Cup semi-final, I thought I’d seen it all. Shaun Johnson’s moment of magic after 79 minutes and 42 seconds, to snatch relief from the jaws of despair, was amazing. But then on Monday morning NZ time came an even greater Houdini impersonation. At the 79 minute 42 second mark, Ireland had just conceded a penalty and the All Blacks were busy taking then re-taking a quick tap inside their own half. Even the most fervent black-jersey-wearing mochaccino-sipping inappropriate-language-using fan (i.e. me) had flagged this as the All Blacks first ever loss to the Irish. I’d given up. But luckily I’m not the captain of the national team. Richie McCaw portrayed immense calmness as he implored his teammates to carry on. After the aforementioned quick tap was taken, McCaw’s troops worked their way steadily down the field as a courageous but physically exhausted Irish pack struggled to hold on. Finally, with the full time siren but a distant memory, a couple of slick passes allowed Ryan Crotty to crash over near the corner to tie the game. After a false start when taking the conversion, Aaron Cruden recovered to slot the extra two points and what had been an impossibility just minutes earlier had become a reality. The All Blacks had certainly dug deep.

We Kiwis always look at our team first when analysing a loss or a close result. And I will do just that in one moment. But this was a fantastic performance by the Irishmen. They were brave, skilful, immense at the breakdown and at set pieces and clinical in their execution. Well, they were clinical right up until the missed penalty with about four minutes remaining (Jonathan Sexton used up every second he could – maybe he took too long and lost concentration) which would have secured victory for the home team. But this Irish team was unrecognisable from the one that capitulated against the Wallabies last week. They should be very proud of their efforts despite the 24-22 loss.

The British media reacted with a mixture of joy and a tinge of surprise that the All Blacks are not infallible. Well, of course they’re not. The Chicago Bulls in the 1990’s lost plenty of games, as did the mighty Lakers outfit of the 80’s, Arsenal’s great side of a decade ago, Manchester United up until last season, the Australian cricketers of the late eighties till the retirement of Warne and McGrath; need I go on? Great teams lose games. But they win more than they lose. The Media up yonder have also commenced their usual ‘The All Blacks will be vulnerable come World Cup time’. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t.

But there were a few aspects of this performance from the AB’s that made me a little nervous.

Scrummaging
This very important set piece aspect of the game has looked shaky all tour and, despite an improvement, still didn’t look particularly solid at times in this test. I think loosehead stocks fall away sharply after Tony Woodcock, so I’ll be interested to see how Hansen’s project Jeff Toomaga-Allen goes if he gets any runs in the number one jersey next season. On the other side of the front row, I believe Owen Franks and Charlie Faumuina are very good props. But on too many occasions this season the opposition loosehead has managed to shunt the right side of our scrum backwards. This needs to be addressed urgently before next season.

Bulk
Has anyone else noticed how physically big international players from other countries are getting? It’s especially prevalent in the northern hemisphere where backs are starting to resemble loose forwards, loose forwards look more like tight forwards and tight forwards like rhinos. Examples in this Irish squad are lock Devin Toner who weighs 125kg and first five Jonathan Sexton who is 6 ft 2 in and 92 kg. Aside from any stats I just think these players look bigger and often stronger than our lads. Even Brian O’Driscoll appears to have grown a new set of guns. And I think we’ve been dominated at the breakdown by several teams this year because of that. The All Blacks are ridiculously fit, and that fitness has won them games and will continue to do so. But rugby is increasingly a game of physical combat that can be won and lost at the breakdown. I’ve said before I thought that if Sam Whitelock added just a few kgs of muscle, he’d be an even more amazing player. And I still believe that. I’m prepared to be told that other teams simply wear tighter jerseys and that it’s therefore all an optical illusion. I’m also happy to be told that our players are lifting more tin in the gym than ever before. All I’m saying is that I hope it’s something the coaches and their fitness gurus are keeping an eye on.

Number 10
This is probably not a particularly popular view, especially after his kicking heroics at the death, but I wonder if we’d be better playing Beauden Barrett ahead of Aaron Cruden. For me it’s partially related to the ‘Bulk’ point I’ve just made. Barrett is a more physical player who still possesses similar kicking and passing abilities to Cruden. I also think Barrett is the better defender of the two. Cruden seems like a top bloke, and he had some lovely touches in this most recent test, but I wonder if opposition teams sometimes target him as the weak link due to his physical stature.

Depth/Problem positions
There are some positions in which we are blessed with exceptional depth. But there are some roles that do not have so many capable understudies available. I’ve mentioned loosehead prop already. To that I add hooker (assuming Andrew Hore is done), number eight (until Jerome Kaino can prove he’s as good as he was or Victor Vito finds a way back), midfield backs (Ryan Crotty does his job, and does sport tremendously masculine facial hair, but he’s a journeyman and I really don’t think Ben Smith has the physicality in his game to play centre; hurry back SBW)

But overall, well done to the All Blacks. A perfect season (in terms of results) is a phenomenal achievement. If 90% of overseas journalists are picking on you and trying to find fault in everything you do, you must be doing something right!


Rugby League ‘World Cup’
As expected it’s a Kiwi/Aussie final. It was almost an Aussie/Pom final, but it’s not.

International rugby league really is, as Tony Kemp suggested, a debacle. Eligibility rules, if they exist at all, are flouted left right and centre. Kiwi squad member Sam Moa played for Tonga in April. Petero Civoniceva only finished playing for Queensland and Australia in the recent past but he’s been leading Fiji in this tournament. Tenuous ancestral links have resulted in the USA and Italy fielding half-decent sides. You even have the silly situation of Jarryd Hayne having played for Fiji at the last World Cup then scoring three tries against them while playing for Australia this weekend. Indeed, the NRL has apparently supplied 174 of the players representing ‘their’ countries at the tournament and another handful have made the trip from lesser Australian domestic competitions. So it’s essentially a case of Australia vs. New Zealand and England.

Then, bizarrely, tournament coverage rights have been priced in such a way that Radio Sport are not providing any match coverage and in England the BBC is only broadcasting matches featuring England while all other matches are being shown on some random pay channel that almost nobody has access to. Gee, that’s the way to grow an international sport….

So what to do? Well, start with eligibility. State that from [insert date here] players will only be permitted to represent one country. This will almost certainly result in some players delaying declaring their eligibility for a country other than Australia or NZ until later in their careers. And that would mean the next World Cup might have a diluted pool of players available for selection. But that’s OK, because taking a longer-term view would be good for the game and would, hopefully, provide some depth and quality in the Island nations’ own teams, not just for New Zealand and Australia.


Till next time,
SG

Monday, 18 November 2013

Black and White


Night and day. Chalk and cheese. The above title doesn’t just refer to the obvious colour difference in their attire. It’s about the teams’ abilities, the selections, possibly the coaching and definitely the way the respective national bodies operate.

I am, of course, talking about the All Blacks and the All Whites.

Firstly the footballers. To get it out of the way, that performance in Mexico was appalling. The Men in White offered a hapless midfield and almost nothing on attack. But their defence; oh my god. An A-League team would not have provided that much space to opposing attackers. The number of free headers whereby Mexicans rose unchallenged in the New Zealand penalty area was embarrassing.

On not many occasions does a team concede a fiver and you can say the keeper had a great game, but you can in this instance. Glen Moss was absolutely superb. He made several world class saves and without his outstanding performance the score could easily have hit double figures.

Some of coach Ricki Herbert’s selections were puzzling to say the least. Winston Reid’s injury was extremely unfortunate as he is far and away our best defender. And I didn’t have a problem with Herbert playing Tony Lochhead at left back, although you’d probably have to say his career at this level is pretty much done now. But some selections just didn’t make sense to me.

Jeremy Christie lives in the United States and can’t find a club team to take him on. Leo Bertos is now a bit-part player for the Phoenix and seems to have lost more than one yard of pace. Ivan Vicelich is 37 years old, is at least four years past his best and looks thoroughly out of his league at this level these days. Rory Fallon was a national hero in 2009 but now plies his trade as a journeyman in Scotland and is surely not an international-level player anymore. I also think Shane Smeltz offers more at the top level than Jeremy Brockie, who seems to disappear from view far too often. And Marco Rojas, although still coming back to full fitness, should probably have got more minutes on the pitch than he did.

And the tactics; sigh. While it would’ve been crazy to play all-out attack and risk conceding goals on the break, it was equally ineffective to sit back in midfield and defence and let the speedy, skilful little Mexicans run the game and pass, pass and then pass some more. Whenever the Kiwis did manage to get some possession they, as I read in one on-line commentary, initiated a classic old game of ‘forceback’ as they took NZ football back 35 years by bashing the ball down the middle of the park as far as they could without any thought of holding onto the ball or creating any pressure of their own. I really hope they can salvage some pride next Wednesday at the Westpac Stadium. I’ll be one of the 37,000 in attendance hoping and praying for the 4-0 miracle to become reality. Time to give some of the young fellas a go. What do we have to lose?

But their problems go much deeper than one game. As an organisation, NZ Football/Football NZ seems disorganised, rudderless, leaderless and relatively clueless. From player availability for their clubs (Phoenix) prior to departure to scheduling of appallingly insufficient warm-up matches to advising that the players would be available for media duties upon their return without first consulting them (although that was handled abysmally by the team’s management); everything they do seems uncoordinated, amateur and clumsy.

Football is by far the biggest sport on the globe and it is being run as if we are still living in 1979. When the All Whites came within a coat of paint of beating Italy in the 2010 World Cup and progressing to the knockout stages of that tournament, New Zealand Football should have capitalised and grown the game here. But they didn’t really seem to do anything. Any youth development in this country comes courtesy of private academies such as those run by ‘Ole’ or Wynton Rufer.  After our only other appearance at the World Cup in 1982, NZ Football sat on their hands and didn’t do a lot to grow the game when they had a prime opportunity to do so. Looks like nothing much has changed in 30 years.

Contrast that with the All Blacks. Success breeds success. Their on-field triumphs over many years have become world famous. As a result they have become a marketer’s dream and the big bucks have come rolling in. Now players can be retained (although the number of players at junior level not being retained does concern me) and developed, the brand grows even further and the juggernaut rolleth onward. In 2013 they have won 13 out of 13, despite referee Craig Joubert’s decidedly average, and relatively one-sided, display of officiating in the test against England this weekend, and should realistically defeat Ireland next week to complete the first professional-era unbeaten international rugby season.

Off the field too, everything is slick. The players and coaches (including Mumbly Hansen) are available to the media frequently when I’m sure they’d often rather be walking into the dressing room or just be somewhere else. The multitude of sponsors also get their money’s worth I think. And the NZRU, although I’m certainly not saying I agree with everything they do, provide leadership and clear direction for their money-makers dressed in black.

And rugby is nowhere near as big a sport as football.

So what should Football New Zealand do? Promote the All Whites. Schedule international matches that actually matter and that create some level of interest amongst the New Zealand public. Create a Bledisloe Cup equivalent. Get local football shown on TV. Move football, at least at the senior level, to the Summer (I seem to recall this being tried previously but I don’t know if or why it didn’t work). Work with academies to identify young talented players, ensure they’re linked to a club in NZ and if they’re good enough, actively work to find them overseas contracts. It may cost a little bit now but we have so many potentially excellent players in this country that the pay-off could be huge one day.


This is the End
This weekend saw two sportsmen pull the pin on long and illustrious careers.

Sachin Tendulkar will undoubtedly be remembered as one of the all-time greats of the game of cricket. He made his international debut for India as a 16 year old in 1989. He finished, in his 200th test match (!) with a typically composed 74 before being caught in the slips and making his way back to the pavilion for a final time as the Indian crowd sat and stared in silent disbelief before erupting into emotion-charged cheers and applause. ‘The Little Master’ will without doubt be mentioned in the same breath as the incomparable Sir Donald Bradman. Indeed Bradman himself once said that Tendulkar was the only modern player who reminded him of himself in terms of the way he played. Praise doesn’t get any higher than that.

David Tua also called it quits after his loss to genetically-modified Russian gigantor Alexandr Ustinov, whose head was only slightly smaller than Tua in his entirety. Despite reports to the contrary, I thought Tua looked beaten when he walked out. There wasn’t the old fearless determination behind his eyes anymore and Tua himself said he felt he was done after the fifth round.  He tried his best but ultimately he’s probably too small to beat a big top-rate heavyweight. I always remember when Tua fought Lennox Lewis for the Heavyweight Championship of the World in 2000. 99% of Kiwis, including me, jumped on the ‘Tua’s gonna knock him out’ bandwagon. But Sir Robert Jones, who is well known for his boxing nous, bet $30,000 (I believe that was the figure) on Lewis to win. When quizzed on why, he simply said ‘Tua is too small’. And, unfortunately, Sir Bob was right.

Tua beat some very good heavyweights along the way, including future titleholders Rahman and Ruiz. But if he came up against a good ‘big ‘un’ who had a strong jab, he invariably couldn’t get inside to deliver his killer hooks.

Tua deserves better than what he’s ended up with. He was at one stage worth millions when managed by Kevin “Botox’ Barry and Martin Pugh. Through his supposed prime boxing years, rather than fighting in the ring, he was fighting those two in the courtroom. Tua, without reservation, trusted Barry and Pugh with his $20 million fortune. I wouldn’t care to make any allegations or insinuations, but I would suggest Joseph Parker Googles “Martin Pugh” and reads the first article that appears before he agrees to any deals with Barry…

After several years of inactivity, a bankrupting legal battle, a financially disastrous ‘deal’ with Maori TV ($50k for each of three fights) which wasted more time that he was fast running out of and finally a divorce, Tua now drives a mini and lives in his gym in South Auckland.  He says he’s happy, and he probably is. Tua appears to be a genuinely caring person who always regards the glass as half-full, not half-empty. He has achieved far more than any other Kiwi/Samoan boxer in the modern era.

I hope he is remembered for his achievements as there were plenty. I hope he carves out a successful career in politics. And I hope he finds happiness; he deserves it.


Till next time,
SG

Monday, 11 November 2013

Fats


For Kiwi rugby fans, the main sporting news this week was the untimely and unexpected death of the legendary prop Peter Fatialofa. ‘Fats’ had moved from Auckland back to Samoa to start a business and to coach the Samoan Women’s rugby team.

Tributes flowed from all over the rugby world and the All Blacks showed the respect he was held in as they wore black armbands in their test vs. France on Sunday morning (NZ time).

Fatialofa played in a different era of rugby. He was a prop, and props in the 1980’s and early 1990’s were expected to be large, strong and tough. Fats could easily tick the box for all three of these job requirements and there are numerous stories in circulation of Fats The Enforcer. He was a big man but was also surprisingly mobile for such a large lump of granite.

It’s also fair to say that he was he was unlucky that two of the better props of the 1980’s, Steve McDowell and John Drake, kept him out of the Auckland and All Black teams of that era. When Waikato’s Graham Purvis was selected for the All Blacks in the late 1980’s, many felt that Fatialofa had been hard done-by.

Sure, in those rugby league-like days of being able to switch allegiances between countries (think Frank Bunce and Stephen Bachop  for example) he may have been able to have donned a black jersey for a while then a blue jersey later in his career. But if Fats had played a handful of games for the AB’s then sunk back into Auckland club and provincial rugby for a while, his legend perhaps wouldn’t be as grand as it is.

And that’s because for me the most memorable aspect of Fats’ legacy was helping to open the door to rugby careers for Pacific Island players. In the 80’s the percentage of Pacific Island players at the top level in NZ, and world, rugby was very low. When youngsters saw what Fats was doing in the world of rugby, they realised that this was something they could aspire to. It became even more appealing as rugby morphed from amateurism to ‘shamateurism’ to, around the time of Fats’ retirement, professionalism.

My favourite story about the exploits of Fats was told this week on Radio Sport by former All Black, and Auckland team-mate of Fats, Andy Haden.

Prior to the 1991 World Cup, at which the Manu Samoa team really put their country on the map by defeating Wales and reaching the quarter finals, Fats asked Haden to address the team at training one day. Haden spoke to the players before they became aware of a few murmurs amongst the team. It turned out that a few of the younger players wanted to follow Michael Jones’ example and refuse to play on Sundays due to their religious beliefs, which would weaken the team at the upcoming tournament. Haden said he wondered how Fats would deal with this tricky situation.

Fatialofa stood in front of the team and said he respected their beliefs. He then, without creating any offence to any of his players, asked each of them to go away and come back once they’d found the part of the bible that said they were indeed allowed to play on Sundays. Each player found a verse that they believed permitted them to play, the Samoan squad was again at full strength, and the rest of that tournament has gone down in history.

Characters like Peter Fatialofa are few and far between. He will be missed.


FastFive is the New 20/20
The sport of netball is currently attempting to move into the 21st century where everything, apparently, has to be brighter, faster, more dramatic and simply oozing ‘entertainment’ from every pore. Netball’s attempt to enter this glitzy world is ‘FastFive’. It’s basically netball, but it isn’t…

Innovations include the introduction of a two point shot zone and a three point zone, two fewer players on each team (five rather than seven), rolling subs and a powerplay quarter for each team where all points scored are doubled. Matches have also been shortened from 60 minutes to 24.
And it actually all works really well. Games are (relatively) exciting to watch and countries such as Malawi are competitive against some of the ‘big guns’.

It actually reminds me of the early days of 20/20 cricket. Remember the match in about 2006 between NZ and Australia when NZ decided to extract the urine by sporting outstanding ‘taches, afros and the old beige kit. Aussie responded by playing proper cricket shots and smashing us. From then on, everyone started taking it a bit more seriously; especially when it became clear that a couple of seasons (6 weeks) in the newly-created Indian Premier League would mean a mortgage-free existence.

And that’s where this new sport needs to get to. Not the obscene pay-packets – that won’t happen in a sport like netball. I’m talking about taking it seriously. There needs to be some agreement with Netball Australia that they will send a full strength team in future. Most teams have selected their top players but Australia seem to regard it as a development opportunity for young players. If they send a top squad next year, the tournament will gain some respectability in the eyes of the netball world.

And speaking of respectability, those ludicrous dance routines performed by teams (and occasionally umpires!) have to stop. I know it’s all supposed to be jolly good fun as netball attempts to replicate sevens rugby in Wellington. But watching the England team sombrely sing their national anthem, then afterwards don bizarre facemasks and perform an even more bizarre dance routine was a strange experience. It doesn’t quite work. Keep the music and the lights and the costumes in the crowd. But either this is a tournament everyone wants to win where everyone plays hard and is gutted to lose (the Jamaicans were suitably unimpressed when they lost narrowly to Australia in the semi-finals) or it’s a party on the court where players are awarded bonus points for the best dance moves. It can’t really be both.


It Rolls Onward…
The All Blacks receive a lot of plaudits in the media and therefore you have to be very careful not to get carried away by jumping on the bandwagon and lumping more and more praise on them. But this team is seriously good. They’ve now won 31 of 33 games since 2011. No international team at the top level in any sport can boast a record like that.

The win this weekend in France wasn’t perfect. Indeed the result could easily have gone either way.  And, unless there’s a secret injury we’re not aware of, I though the decision to substitute Daniel Carter after 50 minutes was very strange.  But a win is a win and the French in France are a hard nut to crack. And they certainly weren’t helped by a turf that was an absolute disgrace which could easily have resulted in an injury to a player as multiple scrums collapsed as props could not get a foothold. And as for the ref … he played the advantage rule longer than any official I can remember and his penalising at scrum time as the turf gave way under the players was ridiculous. But the AB’s held on to record the twelfth win of the calendar year.

Fingers crossed the win-train can keep rolling after they cross the English Channel.


Till next time,
SG

Monday, 4 November 2013

Not Completely Convincing


I’m not really sure what to make of the All Blacks vs. Japan test in the weekend. Obviously the All Blacks were on a hiding to nothing; if they won by 48 (which they did) critics would inevitably say they should have won by 68 (some critics did say that). If they’d won by 68, they should’ve won by 88. And so on.

Japan have scored some very good victories recently, including one over a depleted Wales side. They are a vastly improved team and play at a hundred miles an hour with a hundred per cent intensity. But ultimately they are still a minnow of world rugby. So coaches Steve, Ian and Aussie must have been more than slightly concerned that their team, which admittedly wasn’t anywhere near a first choice line-up, wasn’t able to clock up an additional 25-30 points.

Firstly, the positives.

Sam Cane played very well. He’s developing his game further each time he runs onto the field. I still feel he’s not anywhere near dominant enough at the breakdown but he’s getting there. He’ll have to keep improving to hold off the challenge of Ardie Savea in a couple of years’ time.

McCaw filled in capably for Kieran Read, although this test showed just how good Read is in that no. 8 position. Carter played a solid game and his goal kicking was reassuringly good.  Ben Smith was pretty good in his role as Conrad-Impersonator while Charles Piutau was excellent. He showed outstanding pace and power as always, but the most impressive aspect of his game for me was his workrate. I think it was a big call by the Sky Television analysts to say that his performance puts pressure on Julian Savea for his place, but I take their point.

For me, unfortunately the negatives in that performance do outweigh the positives.

Let’s start with the scrum. I know Japanese props are squat, stocky, technically good and extremely strong. But the way Ben Franks and Wyatt Crockett were demolished by their opposites must be making British props lick their lips in anticipation. Although not all scrummaging woes are down to the props, they do have to shoulder (literally) a fair bit of the responsibility. My feelings on Crockett are well-documented and I think this test simply demonstrates that when he comes up against good props he tends to struggle. Franks is more of a loosehead than a tighthead, and on the evidence presented on Saturday, he’s not much of a tighthead at all.

I also thought second rowers Thrush and Bird were a little disappointing. The lineout didn’t go well and they also need to put their hands up re the woes at scrum time. But they are both very good players and they’ll bounce back strongly.

Tawera Kerr-Barlow will be given a fair few work-ons by the coaching triumvirate after that game. His delivery was sometimes a little laboured and his option taking could’ve been a lot better.

Another to disappoint in the backs was Francis Saili. His option taking was average, and his execution wasn’t much better. I also put his centre partner Smith very slightly in the negative column. Although he did a lot of good things, he also drifted out of the game at times and wasn’t as incisive as he could have been. But he’s a work in progress and showed enough to suggest he could be Conrad MK II one day.

But the thing that stuck with me most from that test is just how good the test incumbents really are. If we’d had Dagg, Smith (Conrad), Savea, Smith (Aaron), Read, Whitelock, Woodcock and Franks (the other one), I think that extra 25-30 points may well have been achieved.

Should be a cracking northern tour. Can’t wait.


Not Completely Competent
My god, the Black Caps are simply not good enough. To lose a single one-day series to Bangladesh is unthinkable. To lose two consecutive series is a disgrace.

What is the cause of this decline? That’s an easy answer; 20/20 cricket. The shots that result in our batsmen returning to the pavilion are often ill-conceived, badly executed and completely unnecessary. Slog sweeps, ramp shots and the horrendous switch hit have snuck into one day matches, and they’re just not necessary. A top five batsman will often have 30 or more overs to produce a decent score. I hope the coaches can convince them to simply return to playing proper cricket shots and accumulate runs. Be patient, defend the good deliveries and put away the bad balls by playing an appropriate shot. Pretty much everything we were taught at 9 years of age.

As for the bowling, well it’s a similar story. Bad strategies and even worse execution. In the third and final one dayer, Ross Taylor’s slog-sweep batting strategy worked this time and produced a century as New Zealand produced an excellent 307-5. To not be able to defend such a total against Bangladesh (who must be close to moving ahead of us in the world rankings and who were missing their two best batsmen) is an awful effort. Players like Captain Mills and Mitchell McClenaghan bowl far too short and are far too expensive. These guys need to put in some hard yards in the nets.

As an aside, can someone please remove Danny Morrison from the commentary box? His ‘Rosco grabs himself half a dozen’ commentary style belongs in an episode of Saturday Night Live, not Sky Sport.


Calling Time
Liverpool Football Club captain Steven Gerrard has been a legend for a long time. He’s arguably one of the greatest British players, although Sir Alex Ferguson begs to differ. But, as with all great sportsmen and women, there comes a time to call it a day. There’s no bigger Liverpool fan than I (apart from someone I met last week who has two LFC tattoos – outstanding dedication), but as much as it pains me to say it, I think Gerrard has just about reached that time. You have to understand my pain; it’s akin to an All Blacks fan acknowledging that Richie McCaw needs to be put out to pasture, or a Silver Fern supporter admitting that Laura Langman hasn’t got the old magic anymore.

In Sunday morning’s match against Arsenal, Gerrard was nothing more than a passenger. He made no telling contribution over the entire 90 minutes and spent an extraordinary amount of time simply strolling along the halfway line. He didn’t get forward in support (he has admitted he can’t do that like he used to) and he didn’t often get back to help the defenders. His midfield combination with Lucas Leiva and Jordan Henderson was about as effective as Mike Catt’s tackling technique on Jonah Lomu. It’s got to the point where if he doesn’t offer to step aside, manager Brendan Rogers may have to make the call for him. Maybe he can work his way back into form. But if not, he may have to get used to riding the rimu for the rest of his career.


Northern Pacific
Are we witnessing the beginning of the future look of British rugby teams? England (and Wales) are now realising what New Zealand and Australia have known for ages; Pacific Islanders (please excuse the vast stereotypical generalisation) are wonderful rugby players.

England’s first choice centre is a Samoan called Tuilagi, and now their very impressive number 8 is an Australian-born Tongan called Vunipola who helped demolish the hapless Wallabies over the weekend. They are both, it seems, outstanding players. So in twenty years’ time will we see half a team of players of Pacific Island descent pulling on white jerseys and singing God Save the King (which a) will be the name of the anthem by then and b) is the most boring anthem in the world)?

As more and more players from New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands move to the muddy fields, wind and rain of old blighty to secure their financial futures, it becomes more and more likely. If Tuilagi and Vunipola are anything to judge by, they could end up with a heck of a team.


El Capitano
Just a mention of a couple of pretty random captaincy selections in the past few days.

Kyle Mills is almost 35 years old and I’d question whether he’s assured of his place in the Black Caps ODI team. I know he has vital experience, but I think if he’s conceding eight runs an over against Bangladesh, you’d have to wonder whether he’s worth a spot in the team.

The Wallabies have lost 70% of their tests this year. But often one of their best players has been lock, and skipper, James Horwill who leads from the front. So to strip him of the skipper’s armband was a strange call by coach Ewen McKenzie. And to replace him with loose forward Ben Mowen was equally perplexing. Mowen has hardly been a fixture in the team, but he has to be a permanent starter now.

And equally bizarrely, his deputy is Quade Cooper. I think McKenzie has fallen into something of a trap for new coaches; he’s trying to very publicly stamp his mark on the team. Such moves are all-or-nothing so I hope for McKenzie’s sake he’s made the right calls.


Unacceptable
Just to finish with something completely unimportant; Google ‘Rob Nicol’ and try to find a recent picture of the Canterbury cricketer. My mate and I were watching a bit of their HRV Cup game versus Otago on Saturday and we agreed unanimously that his hairstyle is effeminate and totally unacceptable. Cut if off for charity or for whatever reason you like. Just do it, please!


Till Next Time,
SG