Comeback kings fly the flag
OPINION: Grant Dalton has just joined Graham Henry as New Zealand sport’s supreme Redemption Men.
Except Team New Zealand’s triumph over Oracle in the America’s Cup final in Bermuda was much more emphatic than the All Blacks’ nerve-tingling 2011 Rugby World Cup title victory.
Who would have bet on Dalton standing atop the podium with the Auld Mug in his gnarly mitt four years after Team New Zealand choked so dramatically in the 2013 Cup final in San Francisco?
New Zealand sport was never big on second chances – until 2007 when the All Blacks flopped in the Cardiff quarterfinal.
Few distraught All Blacks fans thought head coach Henry and honchos Steve Hansen and Wayne Smith would keep their jobs. But they did and 10 years – and two titles later – it looks like Steve Tew’s smartest bit of business.
Now, Team NZ’S board has joined the sporting soothsayer ranks after consulting its own crystal ball.
Sailing followers might have expected Dalton to walk the plank after Team New Zealand blew a 6-0 lead to lose the series to Oracle, 9-8. How could any sporting franchise recover from such a public disembowelling?
Everyone could see change was needed, and it had to start at the top. There’s scant stowage space for sentiment in sport – Grant Dalton’s America’s Cup dream seemed destined for Davy Jones’ locker.
But Dalton’s hide is as thick as Henry’s. Skipper Dean Barker was fed to the sharks while Dalton got the big gig as CEO. Barker had been with Team NZ for 20 years but was summarily sacked in 2015 after failing three times to bring home world sport’s oldest bauble.
Not everyone was jettisoned from the sailing and support teams. Glenn Ashby, the long-time wing trimmer, was promoted to skipper. He supplies the allimportant institutional knowledge.
Dalton’s most inspired appointments were Olympic yachting gold medallists Peter Burling and Blair Tuke, who have belied their status as America’s Cup novices. Burling is a helluva helmsman, who may well go on to rival Russell Coutts as New Zealand’s greatest sailor. He and Tuke make New Zealand’s best sporting package – alongside All Blacks locks Sam Whitelock and Brodie Retallick.
The hoary adage that old dogs can’t learn new tricks obviously doesn’t apply to Dalton. Once no stranger to the limelight, he has wisely kept his weather-lined mug behind the Bermuda frontlines – in stark contrast to San Francisco where he blagged a berth on the boat for some Cup races.
Like the All Blacks after ’‘07,
Dalton has had some heavyweight backing with Warehouse founder Sir Stephen Tindall on the board beside another business baron Bob Field, a Team New Zealand family member for 27 years.
But Dalton and Burling had an even bigger crew behind them – 4.5 million Kiwis on board. Now, we’re not in this game for luffs.
Most of us wouldn’t know a tack from a sea turtle. Isn’t a gybe the cracks Steve Hansen and Warren Gatland are currently trading?
Yet, every four years, Kiwi couch commodores ride the wave with the black boat on every ebb, every flow of the America Cup’s emotional rollercoaster.
Interest in the 2017 Cup