• A question . . .
What takes an even longer holiday break than a 7pm television current affairs show?A newspaper sports editor's weekly bits-and-bobs column.
Happy New Year, dear readers. I am only 38 days late. What have I been up to? Well, I've been thinking.
1 Are we almost at the point where it will be a massive disappointment if the Black Caps do not win the World Cup?
2 Or will you be satisfied with a breakthrough appearance in the final?
3 Yet another semifinal exit?
4 A gutsy win over Scotland at the University Oval?
5 Are there still people sore over the appointment of Mike Hesson and the subsequent decision to make Brendon McCullum captain?
6 Well?
7 Can you remember the cricket buzz in this country being more intense in your lifetime?
8 Was there a tiny part of you that was just a teensy bit regretful that the record partnership that guided the Black Caps to victory in the first of the two Dunedin ODIs was between a South African and an Australian?
9 Or did Irene van Dyk change everything? If you wear black, you bleed black?
• . . . or three . . .
10 Can someone PLEASE explain to me the relevance of the Caltex Whatsit rating?
11 Six days till the Super rugby season begins. Excited?
12 Depressed?
13 If you name a Highlanders starting XV today, how many spots are immediately filled?
14 If money/time/travel were no object, would you choose to go to the Wellington Sevens or the Auckland Nines?
15 Do you think Manny v Floyd is FINALLY going to happen?
16 Gutted it didn't happen five years ago?
17 Floyd wins, right?
18 Was it hilarious or pathetic to watch SBW fight yet another oversized chump?
19 Is it hilarious or pathetic to think of an Otago cricketer - someone who wears the same cap as men such as Bert Sutcliffe, Walter Hadlee and Warren Lees, men of class and dignity, did before him - getting in the ring with New Zealand's nastiest blogger?
• . . . to ponder
20 Lydia Ko. I don't think there's any question to be asked. Wow.
21 Is the Robert Allenby saga even weirder than the Tiger Woods scandal?
22 It will be great to see Warne, Botham, Sir Viv and others at the golf, but isn't the New Zealand Open supposed to be about golf?
23 Was the Asian Cup final the most exciting football game we'll see this year?
24 We need to get the All Whites into Asia, don't we?
25 One last time: what the HELL were the Seahawks thinking on that play?
26 Is Serena Williams finally going to get the love she deserves?
27 Will we see anything funnier this year than Andy Murray's fiancee's shirt?
• Oamaru's rasslin' link
Among the dozen or so books I consumed on my long break (a list which included Red Or Dead, a sports book unlike any I have read that has immediately vaulted into the top five of my Pantheon) was a real labour of love.
New Zealand fighting historian Dave Cameron has published 70 Years At Ringside: A History of Wrestling in New Zealand. Part one, no less!Among the anecdotes and snippets and potted biographies is a fascinating reference to the best little town in New Zealand.
Apparently, it was in Oamaru that New Zealand wrestling great Lofty Blomfeld came up with the idea for his famous move, the octopus clamp.
Blomfeld had wrestled in Oamaru in 1936 and, back at his hotel room, started thinking about a variation on a double-barred toehold.
Brilliantly, he woke up his room-mate, brother Val, and applied the hold. When his brother shrieked in pain, Lofty realised he was on to something.
So, there you go. After we get the Richie McCaw statue erected, we'll need to do something for Lofty.
• In the hood
The Clutch has a little prize to give away to mark the column's first appearance of the year.
It is an official 2015 Cricket World Cup hoodie - which, er, won't be of much use at sunny University Oval in the next couple of weeks - courtesy of the organisers.
To be in the draw, email your name and a daytime contact number to the address below. The prize will need to be collected from our Dunedin or Oamaru offices.
• The first quote
''Cricket's one-day tournament isn't a real World Cup, it's an excuse for one. It is more irrelevant than ever, now that 50-over cricket is the poor relation among the three forms of the game. One day, the World Cup will get beaten up by T20 free-for-alls such as the Big Bash, and disappear.''
- As always, The New Zealand Herald columnist Chris Rattue pulls no punches.
• The second quote
''It baffles me why some companies are not more open to the idea of sponsoring women's sport.''
- Mystic netball chairwoman Dianne McAteer urges businesses to get on board after revealing a new deal.
• Triumph
In one of those Cinderella stories, Murphy Taramai (great name) was in the crowd at the Wellington Sevens last year. This weekend, he is in the New Zealand team.
• Disaster
I know very little about the racing game. The few times I interviewed him, Steven Anderton was friendly, patient and helpful. Deepest sympathies to his family and the Otago racing community.
