Did they win?
Yes.
Will they win tonight?
Yes.
This could be ...
It all feels like a bit of a fairytale.
Otago have not seriously contended for NPC honours in so, so long.
They were ninth last year and 11th — 11th! Southland Stags territory! — the previous year, and were starting to make a habit of alternating mild promise with being distinctly underwhelming.
Then along came Mark Brown, Dylan Pledger, Lucas Casey, Christian Lio-Willie, Cameron Millar and crew.
And they said: enough is enough. We are Otago. This jersey with the golden O means too much to spend another season in the basement. It is time to entertain the people and start winning.
Bravo to all involved as they play Canterbury in the final in Christchurch later today.
May the best team win, and may that team be Otago.
... the greatest season
If the miracle season ends in glory, it will be impossible to resist the temptation to rank this team in Otago rugby history.
It would have to be a pound-for-pound exercise.
You cannot, for example, straight-up compare the 2025 lads with the heroes of 1998, as that was a completely different time, and you will never again see a collection of All Blacks like that playing in the NPC.
I think 1998 is certainly the best Otago team we have seen — but I also think this season, if it ends with an NPC title to go with the Ranfurly Shield, could fairly be described as the greatest in Otago history.
My estimable late colleagues, Brent Edwards and Alistair McMurran, helped educate me about the rugby history of this province.
If they were here, they would have two suggestions outside the championship years of 1998 and 1991 for greatest Otago seasons.
The 1948 immortals, including heroes like Charlie Willocks, Lester Harvey, Jack McNab, Laurie Haig and Bill Meates, resisted all challenges for the Ranfurly Shield, scoring 175 points and conceding just 15.
Then came the outstanding 1975 team, led by Duncan Robertson, Gary Seear and the Jaffray brothers, who won 17 of 19 games and were rated the best team in New Zealand the year BEFORE the NPC began.
Ali, bless him, would also have a story to tell about the great Vic Cavanagh.
Let’s see how tonight goes. But I’m not sure how it could get better than doing the NPC-Shield double.
Right winger
Had to pass on this one-liner from my colleague Adrian Seconi, who had been looking into the great 1991 and 1998 Otago seasons for a yarn this week.
Half of that sentence is correct.
Seems a bit bonkers now but a Soviet Union team did tour New Zealand in 1991.
The Russkies played eight games, winning four of them, and were beaten 37-11 by Otago at Carisbrook.
Swede success
Chances are you do not follow the Swedish football league all that closely.
It did, however, provide a cracking story this week.
A tiny club called Mjallby beat IFK Gothenburg to claim the league title — officially known as the Allsvenskan — for their first time in their 86-year history.
And tiny is the completely appropriate word. This was like Kurow winning the NPC.
Mjallby, based on the Listerlandet peninsula, represent the fishing village of Hallevik, which has a population of just 800.
Swedish football is magnificently egalitarian with every club being majority-owned by supporters, meaning you do not get billionaires swooping in to buy success.
Mjallby were in the third division as recently as 2022, and their boss worked for three years without pay.
Their manager is a former teacher who recently battled leukaemia, and their chief scout is a postman by day.
If you are wondering, there is an obvious reason why the Swedish league is one of those in Europe that does not follow the usual August-May schedule.
Just too darn cold to play football there in winter.
Permission denied
There is another interesting football story brewing in Spain.
La Liga came up with the bright idea of scheduling a game between Barcelona and Villarreal — in the United States.
The game was to have been played in Miami, basically just for commercial gain, but fans and other La Liga teams did not react well to the plans at all.
La Liga players stood still for the first 15 seconds of their games at the weekend in a co-ordinated protest against the idea, and the league has cancelled it.
Interesting development just a week before the All Blacks play Ireland in Chicago, and following the news a test against the Springboks next year will also be taken to a neutral venue for economic reasons.
The veteran
Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry becomes the 10th man to play 17 or more NBA seasons with one team.
Of the other nine, six — Dirk Nowitzki (21 seasons with Mavericks), Kobe Bryant (20 seasons with Lakers), Udonis Haslem (20 seasons with Miami), Tim Duncan (19 seasons with Spurs), John Stockton (19 seasons with Jazz) and Reggie Miller (18 seasons with Pacers) — spent their entire career with one team.
Hard not to see Curry retiring as a Warrior.
