But whether they are 0-4 or 1-3, the shock of hearing Neil Brew had rejoined the squad will take a while to wear off.
Nothing against Brew. Top bloke, great team-mate, outstanding midfielder in his day.
But his day has passed. In a squad that is now creaking with a bunch of players on the wrong side of 30, some fresh blood might have been the better option.
And if you are picking a bloke as cover, not as a first-string, surely it makes sense to select someone a little closer to home. Are Jayden Spence and Cardiff Vaega really that much poorer than Neil Brew? Is Jake Paringatai a vastly better player than Paul Grant?
My regular desire to be an American kicks in strongest this time of year.
It is the college basketball playoffs - ''March Madness''. Sixty-eight teams go in, and only one cuts down the nets at the national final.
Part sport, part entertainment, part BIG business, March Madness is all drama and heart and soul. It's utterly brilliant.
A quick primer to what will be keeping my American brothers and sisters so absorbed over the next couple of weeks.-Its full name is the NCAA division one men's basketball championship, and it has been going since 1939.
''March Madness'' only became popular in the 1980s, when broadcaster Brent Musburger started using the term on national television. But it originally came from a chap called Henry Van Arsdale Porter, from Illinois.
In 1939, he wrote this about a high school hoops fan: ''When the March madness is on him, midnight jaunts of a hundred miles on successive nights make him even more alert the next day.''
Lovely.
Its other nickname is the ''Big Dance''.
The field, which has been expanded over the years, comprises 31 champions from college basketball's various conferences, and 37 ''at-large'' teams. These are invited by a selection committee that is regularly criticised for getting it wrong.
You will hear a lot about seeding. A No 3 seed v a No 14 seed, that sort of thing. The teams are split into four groups for a single-elimination tournament. The four winners meet in . . . the Final Four.
. . . to madness
Another term to look for is the ''bracket''. It refers to the layout of the draw. Everyone fills one out, including the President.
A Chicago firm estimates as many as three million American employees will spend up to three hours of their work day watching basketball when the tournament tips off.
Another company says 48% of IT professionals it surveyed planned to limit or block access to March Madness sites. Evil geniuses.
CBS pays an average $775 million annually to televise the tournament. And the NCAA, a non-profit organisation, reported $814.5 million in revenue in 2011. Like I said, big business.
A bloke called John Feinstein has written some great books about college basketball. Google him. A March to Madness is particularly good.
A couple of Kiwis are/were involved this year. Steven Adams' Pittsburgh was knocked out yesterday, but Rob Loe's St Louis won.
Sports Illustrated ranked the competing colleges by ''coolest person who went there''. Missouri (Brad Pitt) was No 1, Oregon (Ken Kesey) was No 2 and Syracuse (Lou Reed) was No 3.
The four No 1 seeds heading into the tournament are Louisville, Kansas, Indiana and Gonzaga. Louisville is the overall top seed. Defending champion Kentucky, whose top players all left for the NBA, did not even make the tournament.
I like Indiana, because I have been to the university's famous Assembly Hall. Go Hoosiers.
Nuggets point guard Mark Dickel (who led the NCAA in assists while at UNLV) assures me Duke will win.
I don't even watch much college basketball - too much sport, too little time.
But every time I see some clips on ESPN, or read a sparkling summation of the big March Madness issues on Grantland.com, or talk to Dickel for a few minutes, the excitement builds.
Club rugby
Hopefully, the many proud rugby clubs in Otago will have quickly accepted the prospect of paying affiliation fees again.
The price to pay to help keep the union on stable-ish financial ground really does not seem too steep.
The clubs had every right to be aghast a year ago at the union's crippling accounts.
But time has moved on. Doug Harvie and his board, and Richard Kinley and his staff, are working hard to ensure mistakes of the past are not repeated. They deserve the clubs' support.
Kilted Kiwi
Speaking of club rugby, a former Harbour player has had a little taste of international action in Scotland.
Angus Duckett, who played on the flank for the Hawks, represented the Scotland Club XV against the Irish Club XV last week.
Duckett and Alhambra-Union lock Matt Kissick have been playing for the Selkirk club. They were recommended by former Otago and Harbour hooker Peter Mirrielees, a former Selkirk player.
Softball clarification
This still confuses me a little bit but I will try to clear the muddy waters.
Cardinals won the Champions Cup last weekend, beating Saints in a best-of-three finals series.
But it seems that cup should be seen as more of a stand-alone, season-ending honour, not the overall season championship.
Saints, who dominated the regular season, are technically the 2012-13 Dunedin premier champions. Congratulations, men.
Hot Totti
One of the great international footballers just keeps on going, Reuters reports.
AS Roma stalwart Francesco Totti is now 36 but is still carving up in Serie A.
One of the modern game's very few one-club players, Totti is in his 21st season with Roma and has found a new lease of life after briefly falling out of favour with some of the club's recent coaches.
He just became the Italian league's highest scorer with 226 goals, one ahead of Sweden's Gunnar Nordahl, who played for AC Milan and Roma in the 1950s.
Netball tickets
The ANZ Championship is upon us and The Last Word would encourage fans to give the Steel its support as it tries to move up the table.
The Otago Daily Times, on behalf of ANZ, is giving away two double passes to see the Steel take on the Adelaide Thunderbirds at the Lion Foundation Arena on Saturday, April 6 at 4.20pm.
To win, email your name, address and phone number to me (email below) with ANZ Courtside in the subject line. Entries must be received by Tuesday at noon.
Birthday of the week
Moses Malone is 58 today.
The ''chairman of the boards'' went straight from high school to professional basketball, joining the old ABA. He ended up playing an astonishing 21 seasons, was an all-star 12 times and MVP three times, and won the 1983 NBA title with the Philadelphia 76ers.
