Picking a winner
By the time you read this, The Last Word will be in Wellington for a fleeting visit — and hopefully a smooth landing (CROSSES FINGERS) — to catch up with former colleagues Matt Smith and Rob van Royen.
These words were written not just before the second semifinal (Australia v England on Wednesday night) at the Fifa Women’s World Cup but before the first (Spain v Sweden, and I picked Sweden, doh.)
But I couldn’t see it. England to win. (Was I right?) The final to be 1-1 and go to penalties. England to win that 4-3. It’s coming home.
And then it will all be over. The biggest women’s sports event we have ever seen, or will ever see. The real moment everything changed for women’s sport.
Do not let this moment disappear, football (and other women’s sports). Make it mean something.
The NPC conundrum
Otago have been disappointing, albeit saddled with a nasty draw, and the Stags might have been gutsy but they took part in one of the all time dreadful games of rugby on Sunday afternoon.
But there is still something I love about the NPC.
It’s a bit old school, a bit chaotic, a bit of an unloved cousin.
It is what it is now: essentially a development competition, relegated to a distant third tier by the relentless expansion of the All Blacks "brand" and the much weightier presence of Super Rugby.
And that’s OK. It’s totally fine if the NPC is not as good or not as important as the higher levels of rugby. It’s not like we pooh-pooh people for watching Outlander when Game of Thrones is vastly superior, or brutally mock those who prefer Vegemite to Marmite (actually, we should).
Mark Robinson has made some blunders as the boss of New Zealand Rugby, but he is actually spot on when he says the NPC model is not fit for purpose.
It is ridiculous that some provincial unions are importing players and spending $1 million on wages, and it is getting really weird that every game is televised live from empty stadiums.
Me, I’d strip it right back.
Have an amateur competition, pick the best players out of club rugby, televise just one game every weekend, go back to three divisions with automatic promotion-relegation, and make the NPC purely a celebration of the community game.
The name game
A colleague pointed this out some time ago and it just won’t leave my mind.
Why do so many Otago sports teams have names with quite violent connotations?
There are the Otago Whalers, of course. And the Highlanders were known for some reasonably bloody actions.
My favourites are the two Otago Golf Club teams in the pennant series: the Bombers and the B52s. Outstanding.
Our Kashi
My thanks to loyal reader Arne Leuchs for spotting an error in an RNZ story we ran earlier this week.
It said Sam Gaze had become the first New Zealander to win a mountainbiking medal at the world championships.
That was wrong — it should have specified Gaze’s was the first ELITE medal by a Kiwi at that level — and Arne should know.
His son, the great Kashi Leuchs, won bronze in the under-21 race at the world championships in Spain in 2000, shortly before he competed at the Sydney Olympics.
Wow, the Warriors
Did your beloved "Wahs" beat the Sea Eagles last night?
If so, they are firmly in third place in the NRL with 15 wins from 22 games and that represents an extraordinary turnaround from recent times.
Coach Andrew Webster and the reborn Shaun Johnson better win some awards.
Silly money
There is a cost of living crisis, but clearly nobody has told Chelsea.
The days of Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich at the London football club are over, but it looks like new owners Todd Boehly and Clearlake have pockets plenty deep enough.
They just splurged 115 million quid on young midfielder Moises Caicedo — yes, I am sour because I wanted him at Liverpool — to go with the £107m they spent on young midfielder Enzo Fernandez in January.
That means the new owners have spent nearly a BILLION quid on players in 12 months. Sickening.
Man in the middle
Hat tip to the great Phil Gifford for this yarn in The New Zealand Herald.
It followed the World Cup warm-up game between England and Wales.
"Nika Amashukeli, the referee from Georgia, is only 29 years old, but it’s easy to understand why such a young official is unfazed by shouts and whistles from a big crowd.
"He was tough-minded enough to continue refereeing after being stabbed by a disgruntled fan following a 2016 club game in Poti in Georgia. The home team, Batumi, had been denied a win by a last-minute penalty goal awarded by Amashukeli.
"‘After I left the pitch,’ he told London’s Daily Telegraph rugby reporter Charles Richardson, ‘there was a lot of abuse and swearing. Suddenly, I felt something in my leg. I looked down. Blood was pouring out. I had been stabbed. It was shameful, but I was never going to quit.’"
