Stewart’s profile rises above a year to forget
Most of us enjoy Twenty20 cricket and would love to have 20-20 eyesight. But as for the year 2020, to quote Hilary Barry, it can ‘‘b..... off’’.
While the rotten Coronavirus skewered this column for a few months, stuff still happened.
Cyclist Campbell Stewart was my pick for Manawatu¯ sportsperson-of-the year.
That indeed was how it panned out, even if as aworld champion he didn’t get past the Halberg Awards final four sportsmen when it came to the national gong.
In pushing Stewart’s case for both accolades, my article was headlined ‘‘Olympics beckon Stewart’’. They still do as part of New Zealand’s track team to Japan in July.
The Japanese are determined to stage the Olympics, but again the C bug and its mutated variant will determine that.
Stewart continues training at Cambridge and has been signed by the new Black Spoke road cycling team, backed by wealthy Auckland businessman Murray Bolton who hopes to take it to Europe and the Americas. Bolton was formerly the major shareholder in the Blues Super Rugby team.
Black Spoke and Stewart will ride the upcoming NZ Cycling Classic around Wairarapa and Steve Stannard’s Gravel and Tar Classic around Manawatu¯.
The Manawatu¯ Sports Awardswere twice torpedoed by the pandemic and were held quietly online with basketball coach Joe Frost and cricketer Jacob Oram yet to be anointed for their services to sport.
Longburn’s Julie Brougham rode the dressage at the Rio Olympics in 2016 and soon after was fighting complications from a cancer operation. She’s still riding every day and battling the insidious disease.
Last Christmas came the news that Manawatu¯ sporting statesman, Sam Strahan, had died suddenly at home. My interview with Sam on his farm at Kiwitea sadly proved to be his last.
While writing about his legacy when on furlough in Melbourne, I had to endure the indignity ofwatching the Black Caps having their noses rubbed in the Melbourne Cricket Ground turf during the Boxing Day test.
It was the greatest sporting embarrassment of the year until the All Blacks also face-planted on Australian soil, to the Wallabies and Argentina.
If the Black Caps somehow get to Lord’s and go on to win the world test final, then they can claim to be the world’s best – on their home tracks.
Last summer the poor crowd attendances at sporting events was a concern. Cricket was saved only by the masses of Indian fans lighting up the New Zealand-india series.
By that time NZ Cricket had crazily signed away six years of television rights to Spark Sport, amarketing initiative which should efficiently halve their audience.
One way to get eyes on the cricket is to emigrate to Australia. Friendswho live there get to see all of the Blacks Caps’ stuff as part of their Foxtel subscription.
Crowds returned from Covid exile once Super Rugby Aotearoa erupted with two games aweek, only to dwindle during the NPC as All Blacks coach Ian Foster airfreighted more than 40 players to Australia, many of them used as mere training fodder.
Foster took Manawatu¯’s Ngani Laumape and barely played him while continually messing about with two centres in midfield.
The Manawatu Turbos bluffed everyone, including the coaches, by being all powerful in the pre-season games and that was mostly it. But they did unearth an exciting young specimen in No. 8 Tyler Laubscher.
Against Otago in September, while Aaron Smith was at halfback for the Turbos, Jamie Booth became the first player to captain Manawatu¯ from the wing since Ken Granger in 1983.
Ireland rugby coach Joe Schmidt’s autobiography came out with the under-stated title of Ordinary Joe and strangely has yet to be marketed in New Zealand. Since then he has become World Rugby’s high performance directorwhen he should have been in the All Blacks coaching hunt.
In July, rugby league colossus Olsen Filipaina’s biography The Big O blew the lid on a career of bullying and racism in Australian league. Oh, while on books, there are still copies ofmy precious historical tome, Forever In Bounds, available from the Manawatu¯ Golf Club or on loan in the city library.
At Napier, Manawatu¯ batsman Dane Cleaver dented the bonnet of his uncle’s car when hitting a six in his innings of 201 for Central Districts.
Wellington’s Daniel Hillier won the first Super Sixes tournament at the Manawatu¯ Golf Club in March. The $70,000 was the country’s biggest domestic purse and is to be contested again in February, hopefully with someone like Ryan Fox headlining the field.
In October, the Silver Ferns played the NZ men’s netball team and there was no mention from the little-known men that they deserved equal pay with the women.