Anything could happen
Which All Blacks team will show up tonight?
Will it be the one that muscles up in the forwards, that delivers a polished and powerful set piece, that plays with purpose and accuracy, and that comes up with some really nice rugby through the likes of Cam Roigard, Will Jordan and Ardie Savea?
Or will it be the one that loses the key moments, that struggles in the air, that appears to have no discernible attacking plan, and that still does not know how to string together a series of good performances?
What I do know is that Bledisloe Cup Part Two in Perth will either go some way towards easing fears these All Blacks are not tracking particularly well in the right direction, or it will raise giant alarm bells ahead of a tough northern tour.
The Bledisloe might be tucked away for yet another year, but there is still a lot at stake.
Name of the week
Leroy Carter has made a fine start to his All Blacks career.
It is not just his top-end speed or his elusiveness but his sheer work rate and willingness to get involved.
As a more astute rugby observer than me noted, Carter — at 26 and with years of intense action with the national sevens side under his belt — is not really a rookie, and it should be no surprise he has settled in so quickly.
Carter looks a keeper, and it is time to let him and Caleb Clarke bed in as a wing combination.
Meanwhile, the question has to be asked: is Carter the only Leroy in New Zealand sport?
Some quick research reveals welterweight boxer Leroy Hindley fought at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, and Leroy Brown is not a bad, bad 5-year-old gelding with five wins from 23 career starts.
Shield quiz question
Cricket scoring great Malcolm Jones, such a big fan of this column he named one of his sons after the writer, offered a great bit of trivia following my naming of a combined Otago team of the modern Ranfurly Shield era.
"Interestingly, that team of Ranfurly Shield winners includes one player who won the Ranfurly Shield, the White Horse Cup and the Hawke Cup."
No, I did not immediately know the answer, but it did not take long. Jonesy’s Otago Country links gave it away.
Michael Collins won the Ranfurly Shield (three times) with Otago, the White Horse Cup with the Wakatipu club, and the Hawke Cup — the symbol of regional cricket supremacy — when Otago Country took it off my beloved North Otago in 2011.
Who’ll rule the world?
There are, I think we can all agree, too many Cricket World Cups.
Putting aside that minor quibble, let’s hope the White Ferns can come up with another big result to put Otago great Suzie Bates back at the top of the world.
The cricketing immortal has done it all and deserves — should this indeed be her final World Cup, although presumably there are three more next year — to go out a world champion. Not that we are retiring you, Suzie!
Hoop dreams
There was a strong Oamaru influence at the New Zealand secondary schoolboys basketball tournament in Palmerston North last week.
Toby Hunt, who had his first few years at Waitaki Boys’, guided Shirley Boys’ to their first national title with victory over defending champions Christ’s College.
Hunt created waves last year when he poured in 46 points for North Otago as they walloped Taranaki at the New Zealand under-18 tournament.
Shirley Boys’ had some southern flavour on the bench as well in the form of assistant coach Sam Senior, another Waitakian and a former Nuggets assistant coach.
Interestingly, The Last Word was told one of the commentators on the livestream of the schools tournament was throwing some shade at my old school and suggesting trading Waitaki for Shirley was a no-brainer in terms of basketball.
He is likely too young to remember when Waitaki Boys’ dominated the South and finished fifth, sixth and seventh at the national championships between 2005 and 2007.
Not sure many schools in the South Island can match the Waitaki legacy created by Brian de Geest and Ian Cathcart when you consider players of the calibre of Riki Buckrell, Gareth Dawson, Dan Peck, Mitch McRae, Danyon Ashcroft, Max de Geest, Josh O’Connell, Marshall Hall, Toby Lewis and Kalib Mullins came out of their hoops nursery, and now Hunt is becoming a star.
Mighty have fallen
You are enjoying a cold drink in Antigua when Viv Richards walks in.
You say: "Oi, Viv. Do you reckon the West Indies will ever lose a cricket game to Nepal?"
Imagine what the great man would have said to that.
But, yep, here we are. Here is an actual headline from this week: "West Indies avoid whitewash with convincing win over Nepal in third T20".
Ye gods.
An amazing run
Well, it had to end eventually.
The Penrith Panthers will not be winning a fifth straight premiership.
When your NRL team wins one, it is nice. Two in a row is fantastic. Three in a row is mind-boggling. Four in a row — unprecedented in the modern era — is an achievement that almost defies description.
Penrith spent 1463 straight days as the champions.
Let’s all be Broncos fans for the grand final tomorrow. Nobody needs to see the Melbourne Storm winning anything.
