TV Review
For our big sporting clashes, we can’t help but observe some arcane rituals.
That one win by Oracle was down to me, it seems. “I knew we’d lose now that you’ve started watching” went the gloomy post-mortem in our living room after Emirates Team New Zealand briefly loosened its grip on the Auld Mug. I’m normally the one yellow-carded for saying, “Game? What game?” When a competition finally gets frenzied enough to attract my interest, it’s the kiss of death, apparently.
Sport remains a deeply superstitious business, requiring red socks, lucky black undies and – Mike Hosking never learns – not displaying such pathological positivity that you jinx it. There’s been no ignoring these arcane rituals we live by lately. Rugby has seen us invaded by red-shirted hordes with 12 years’ supply of pent-up patriotism to unleash upon us.
Here was a chance to be reminded that the British do a better class of sportspeak. “They are battle-hardened like an old Praetorian Guard,” intoned former Lion Will Greenwood, over-optimistically.
As it turned out, the All Blacks were not noticeably enfeebled by having toy lions waved in their faces as they ran out of the tunnel for the first test. The game was so thumpingly physical that my own hamstring pinged in sympathy. There was a streaker. We won. The Lions fans seemed to enjoy the heck out of the game, so rugby was the winner.
Then there was the sailing, or whatever it is they do out on the water with their bikes, foils and wing-trimming “x-box” these days. On Seven Sharp the night before the final race, Hosking seized the opportunity to pull us in line for imminent glory to rival the Second Coming. Imitating the whining of recalcitrant infidels, he demanded an end to “this stupid rigmarole: ‘I don’t like the America’s Cup. It’s a rich man’s sport’”. On Planet Hosking, where Mike seems to be increasingly modelling himself on Kim Jong-un, dissent will not be tolerated.
The tension of the finale was drained at our place when, attempting to ramp up the volume on our recording, I accidentally changed channels and revealed that we’d won. Never mind. By that time, short of our boat turning into a spectacularly hightech banana, it was done. As Sky Sport’s American commentator Ken Read assessed Oracle’s chances at that point, “The bar has been set high by that other boat that’s constantly kicking their butt.”
Emirates Team New Zealand took the win with the stoicism of … a battle-hardened Praetorian Guard that had been kicking serious butt. “Yeah, thanks, mate,” said Peter Burling to Ken, who was desperately trying to wring some excitement, or anything, out of the coolly victorious helmsman. Pete Montgomery bellowing definitively about whose cup this now was would have helped. He was bellowing, but on the radio. Poor show not having a Kiwi television commentator.
The ceremony was relatively matter of fact. As skipper Glenn Ashby put it: “To come through and win this bloody trophy … Full credit to the team.”
The racing this time has indeed been a technical and tactical marvel, though it seemed a slightly bloodless forensic business. If these boats get any faster and lighter, they’ll be planes. By the time the next competition starts, the crews will probably race the things on their laptops from the comfort of their couches, with drones to film the action and robots in the commentary box. Danger, Larry Ellison.
Still, it will be good to have the harbour seething with life and Auckland swarming with people from Italy, France and everywhere, like a real city again. Breakfast’s Hilary Barry took upon herself the task of being barkingly overexcited about it all on the nation’s behalf. “New Zealand has done the unthinkable!” she raved wildly. It was never quite unthinkable, surely, Hilary.
“I have no words!” wailed the show’s sports presenter, Brodie Kane. Sadly, she soon found so many I was forced to switch channels. One thing is sure: Hosking will be insufferable.
Montgomery bellowing about whose cup this now was would have helped. He was bellowing, but on the radio.