Intense has been the analysis and loud has been the wailing since the Black Caps returned from Bangladesh.
Reviews have been called, some scathing - nay, brutal - assessments of various players and hangers-on have been made in print, press conferences have been called, and the general reaction to the 4-0 series defeat has been frenzied, bordering on hysterical.
Am I alone in thinking we are all getting a little carried away?I have long thought the New Zealand public loses its sense of perspective when it comes to considerations of its national cricket team.
Apart from a period in the 1980s, when New Zealand was a genuine power thanks to the blessed coincidence of having its greatest bowler (Richard Hadlee) and its greatest batsman (Martin Crowe) in the same side, our cricket history has hardly been glorious.
We tend to punch our weight, as a generally competitive but occasionally useless second-tier nation.
Those who are losing sleep over our inability to win the Micromax Cup (huh?), in yet another meaningless one-day series, need to reach for a soothing drink.
And when does losing to Bangladesh cease being an unforgivable crime, anyway?The Bangers have beaten most teams, they're clearly sleeping giants and it is inevitable they will follow Sri Lanka's lead and become a genuinely competitive world side.
Yet every loss to them is followed by the words "shock" and "minnow".
It's getting as out of date as saying "Liverpool" and "top four", or Outrageous Fortune and "brilliant TV show that hasn't at all jumped the shark".
Face facts, everybody.
The Black Caps are doing what they have always done: batted like drains and lost a few games.
Ho-hum.
Heading for the spoon ...
Speaking of a crisis, how about that Otago rugby team?The first of my four years as rugby writer for this paper was 2005, when - after covering the All Blacks' 3-0 series sweep of the Lions - I was lucky enough to follow an Otago team all the way to the NPC final.
It was the year of Chris Smylie, the shy but dazzlingly talented halfback, and of a famous semifinal win against Canterbury at whatever the Christchurch ground was called that year.
Now here we are.
Otago is dead last in an expanded, diluted national championship that has undergone two name changes and I guess three format changes in five years.
Last. Last. Last. Otago is last.
It is the FOURTEENTH-best team in the land.
To put this dubious achievement in perspective, think back to 2005 again.
My beloved North Otago had qualified fourth to make the semifinals of the old second division.
There were 10 teams in the first division at the time.
Making North Otago ... the 14th best team in the land.
... but give Mooney a chance
Look, it's been an appalling season and we can all see Otago rugby is at its lowest point in 125 years.
But I wouldn't sack the coach.
Phil Mooney has hardly been a roaring success in his debut year but he deserves a chance - as do new chairman Wayne Graham and new deputy chairman Laurie Mains - to get Otago out of this mess.
Mooney doesn't have classy players like Smylie and Nick Evans and Josh Blackie and Craig Newby and Carl Hayman and Anton Oliver in his present squad.
The union needs to put a better team together next year, and we should give Mooney a chance to make this season seem like a horrible, horrible blip.
The other Williamses
Everyone in Otago knows about Yvette Williams, New Zealand's greatest female athlete, and her brother, Commonwealth Games decathlon champion, Roy Williams.
But another family with the same surname has gone under the radar in Otago.
Former Dunedin man Trevor Williams, now based in the outback New South Wales town of Ivanhoe, is in town this weekend for King's High School's 75th jubilee and popped in with some details of his athletic forebears.
Trevor's father, the late Neil, was one of 12 Williams siblings who grew up in Dunedin.
Neil, who was a Dunedin firefighter, and brother Walter were in the New Zealand water polo team that won silver at the 1950 Empire Games in Auckland.
A photo shows the brothers Walter (back row, far right) and Neil (next to Walter) Williams line up with the New Zealand water polo team in 1950.
Neil was also a New Zealand basketball representative and accomplished football player, swimmer and surf life-saver.
Other sports-mad siblings, who had success at varying levels, included Arthur (diving, swimming and surf life-saving), Leonard (basketball), Billy (basketball and football), Maureen (swimming and synchronised swimming) and Stuart (diving).
A sister, Isobel, produced a son, Ian Brown, who continued the family tradition by captaining the New Zealand water polo team.
Floyd = drug cheat
Forgive me if I haven't been turning cartwheels since learning Floyd Landis was coming back to ride the Tour of Southland.
They can trumpet his achievements and his history all they like.
The fact remains he was a systematic drug cheat and inveterate liar who sought to profit from his deception and further tarnished the image of one of the world's great sports events.
On par with the best
Big news from New Zealand Golf this week!No, it's not what you think.
Six months after promising a decision on the venue of the next New Zealand Open, there is still no confirmation it will be Clearwater.
You don't want to rush these things.
No, the organisation has announced it is to establish a Hall of Fame as part of its centenary celebrations next month (aha, so that's why the Open announcement is being delayed).
Two inductees will be announced at a dinner at Te Papa on November 27.
I am a massive fan of halls of fame - that's the American sports fan inside me coming to the fore - and I await with interest the unveiling of the first two inductees.
Surely, it has to be Sir Bob Charles and Michael Campbell: the only New Zealanders to have won golf majors.
Scouse humour
Did you spot the ad in last Saturday's Otago Daily Times?
FOR SALE: Washed up overvalued Football Club; heavily in debt due to mismanagement and high wage bill; all offers over 300 million pounds considered. - Apply Liverpool FC, Anfield, UK.
Cheeky bugger.
