This will be the new home of The Last Word. After five years (or thereabouts), the column has been shifted off the back page.
It's OK. We haven't been punished for not doing our homework, or for taking our tally of wildly incorrect sporting predictions into quadruple figures (the Highlanders did win last night, didn't they?).
The back page records man's accomplishments, Earl Warren said. And now that Saturday's Otago Daily Times looks a little bit different (four sections have been combined into two - fancy newspaper speak, I know), we can have a ''proper'' sports back page.
So, every Saturday, you may follow this simple procedure.-
1. Flip to the back page (to what will technically be the FRONT sports page) for news of the Highlanders' latest win.
2. Flip inside a page to find your weekly dose of trivia, bluster and rambling from The Last Word.
3. Go out and watch some grassroots sport. It's good for the soul.
Hired guns?
If the Highlanders did beat the Hurricanes last night, all will be well with the world and Jamie Joseph will still be the Messiah.
If not, well, there will be lots of questions over how it has all gone so wrong at the start of what was supposed to be a joyous and successful season.
One detected a certain level of schadenfreude north of the Waitaki after the Highlanders' rough start.
After years of being able to either ignore the Highlanders or promote the scandalous prospect of the franchise being relocated, the outsiders were obviously feeling uncomfortable with the prospect of Joseph's team being successful.
One or two have stooped to painting this team as some sort of mercenary band.
Odd, really, when all of the five New Zealand franchises, now the provincial links have been removed, are openly professional sporting organisations. Every single Super rugby player in this country is, technically, a ''mercenary''.
Consider this, too. Andrew Hore was rejected by the Hurricanes - and is as Otago as it gets. Nobody knew Aaron Smith. Colin Slade had to leave the Crusaders to escape Dan Carter's presence. Various players were scouted in Japan.
Criticise the Highlanders for anything else, but the gun-for-hire argument holds no weight.
New citizens ...
The Last Word is not a particularly political type - even if he did greatly enjoy telling his blue-blood rural North Otago family he voted Labour at the last election. (Was he telling the truth, though?)But the focus earlier this week on Labour MP Shane Jones and the report into his handling of the Bill Liu citizenship case sparked an idea.
If the New Zealand sports community could convince a fish-head to quietly arrange instant citizenship for a few athletes, who would be on the list?
... are welcome
My top seven urgent citizenship requests to assist New Zealand sport.-
1. Roger Federer (Switzerland). We desperately need a male tennis player. And the Swiss owe us - we gave them Russell Coutts.
2. Jack Wilshere (England). The All Whites have decent defenders and talented forwards. But there is a massive hole in central midfield.
3. David Rudisha (Kenya). Or any other Kenyan runner, really.
4. LeBron James (USA). He'd single-handedly lead the Tall Blacks to world championship gold. So talented he could play for our rugby, rugby league and cricket teams as well.
5. Frans Steyn (South Africa). Imagine the All Black backline with him outside Dan Carter.
6. Shane Watson, Mitchell Johnson, James Pattinson and Usman Khawaja (Australia). Straight into the Black Caps. No homework required.
7. Cameron Smith (Australia). Turns the Warriors and the Kiwis into instant favouritesYou will note there are no women on this list. No need - Valerie Adams, Lydia Ko and Lisa Carrington have got every base covered.
Aussie angst
Drugs? Check.
Match-fixing? Check.
Booze? Check.
Personal issues? Check.
Standards slipping? Check.
Australian sport. Brilliant.
Fern-tastic
A word for one of New Zealand's most-overlooked but most-improved teams of recent times.
The New Zealand women's footballers deserve high praise for their third placing at the Cyprus Cup.
The Football Ferns beat Scotland and Italy and took a 1-0 lead against a well-resourced English side before losing 3-1. The campaign ended with a 2-1 win over Switzerland.
You don't see these Ferns on the covers of magazines, or live on television. But those results suggest vast progress has been made.
Papal matters
From a Diego Maradona-worshipping, technically-Catholic colleague:- New Pope from Argentina. Fitting, since God is an Argentinian.- Pope to take the name Diego Lionel.
And another:- Pope Francis says he has been guided by the hand of God. Seems to be a common theme in Argentina.
As for the joke about 76-year-old Pope Francis joining the Highlanders forward pack? Outrageous.
A real minnow
New Zealand is firmly ensconced in the loosely-defined ''second tier'' of world cricket.
But spare a thought for Zimbabwe, which - as nicely summed up by Scyld Berry in the Telegraph this week - is ''going through what could be called a bad run''.
The African battlers have had 26 losses and a solitary win in their last 27 internationals across the three formats.
The victory was, you guessed it, over New Zealand, in an ODI in Bulawayo.
''Super hot right now''
From the Deadspin website comes a little tale that indicates guns are as popular as ever in the United States.
Seeking to raise some money to upgrade equipment, a junior baseball league in Illinois partnered with a local shop to offer a special prize: a military-style semi-automatic weapon, complete with 30-round magazine.
''Guns are super hot right now. They're extremely hard to get,'' league commissioner Steven McClain apparently told a local television station.
Birthday of the week
Patsy Donovan would have been 138 today.
An Irish-American baseballer, Donovan played for some of the most brilliantly-slugged teams in the history of sport: the London Tecumsehs, the Boston Beaneaters, the Brooklyn Bridegrooms and the Brooklyn Superbas.
