Dalton drops the Cup with dreadful victory dirge
chris.rattue@ nzherald.co. nz Grant Dalton won the America's Cup. Then he dropped it.
Ironically, the supposedly controversial Aussie Jimmy Spithill may have lost the Auld Mug in Bermuda, but he won a lot of friends with his generous praise of Team New Zealand after defender Oracle's humiliating defeat.
Maybe former Wallaby Phil Kearns and the other Kiwi naysayers are right — we don't do post-match sporting grace very well.
When the All Blacks lose, it's the refereeing which brought them down. When the opposition plays well, don't mention the opposition.
There was another example of that on this Lions tour when Sam Whitelock was interviewed after the tourists’ muscular victory over the Crusaders in Christchurch. Whitelock, who may become an All Black captain, could hardly bring himself to even mention the Lions. French referee Mathieu Raynal then copped it in the neck from the pundits.
Sadly, Dalton was a horrible bore in victory. After all those struggles, the magnificent way he held a crumbling team together, he chose the victory podium as the place to get close and personal and nasty about Spithill. Jimmy did this. Jimmy did that.
In all honesty, who even cares what he was referring to? Snide remarks were so irrelevant to that moment.
No wonder commentators led by former Team New Zealand member Mark Orams begged TNZ to keep Dalton quiet throughout the regatta. Dalton has proved himself a brilliant leader and nutty loose cannon all in one.
The Bermuda victory was about a team, a magnificently unified team, but he turned it into something personal. Wrong place. Wrong time. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
He even made a derogatory sounding comment about his old TNZ skipper Dean Barker — “if you want to be Japan, you need to be Japanese” — although I would suggest this was another crack at Oracle, who used Barker's team as a regatta comrade. Imagine this: Roger Federer taking a dig at Rafael Nadal, on court, with the Wimbledon trophy in hand. Or a golfer putting on a green jacket while slagging off an opponent. In those moments of supreme triumph, with the “world” watching, glory works and goring doesn't. Dalton had the right of reply to whatever was tearing him apart, and it would be great to hear what it was all about, how it affected him. But the time to do it was later, away from the victory euphoria, when he had a chance to elaborate. Most of those watching or reading about the victory pageant didn't have a clue what he was referring to. It was too in-house.
As for Spithill, he was my favourite character at the Cup. Spithill is refreshingly uncomplicated.
Grant Dalton’s is one of the great redemption stories. The way he held this team together, and turned them into champions, is utterly amazing. He has re-written history, after being written off. We salute you.
But in the moment of triumph, Dalton made it sound as if the America's Cup was all about . . . him.