Playing mantis keeps Manawatu audience entertained
Coney is one of the few New Zealand cricketers to succeed at the lectern.
Many of us wondered how wordsmith Jeremy Coney could follow wild and woolly Aussie Jeff Thomson as the speaker at the 17th Manawatu Cricket Association dinner on Friday.
Well, the radio and British TV pundit and raconteur, know as ‘‘the playing mantis’’, held the spell of 165 diners who had paid $120 each with his theatrical storytelling and allowed himself only three ‘‘bloodys’’ all night.
That was a ‘‘parsimonious’’ number, to use his favourite word, for the annual dinner. Last year, when Thommo, the former express bowler with the blonde mullet, was rolled in, entertained and sort of staggered out after numerous stubbies and a few hundred ‘‘fuggins’’.
Coney was the opposite end of the cricketing spectrum, a former Onslow College music teacher who now works as a lighting designer in theatrical circles in England.
He lives near Oxford and plays for a wandering village cricket team, The Gaities, which was founded by a music hall artist.
On Friday, Coney was allocated a half hour and verbalised for an hour, sucking up so much oxygen in the room no-one asked a question afterwards, probably because so many were bursting to attend the loo.
Rising 65, but in good nick, Coney was as slender as he was when New Zealand captain. Formerly married to NZ netball captain Julie Townsend and to journalist Sue Donald before that, he has a third partner, Englishwoman Helen, and family.
Understandably, his memory of cricket matches has faded. He had spoken at the dinner previously, but couldn’t recall when or what he spoke about.
He did recall playing at our Fitzherbert Park for Wellington when his team had a one-armed kit man, Bob Forsyth. He told how Central Districts batsman Henry Sampson lobbed up a soft catch that Graham Newdick spilled and Coney recalls an enraged Forsyth calling from the pickets: ’’Newdick, I could have caught that with one arm tied behind my back’’.
When CD’S fast bowler Gary Bartlett was in full flight, Coney said the Wellington batsmen would lock themselves in the toilets.
Coney is one of the few New Zealand cricketers to succeed at the lectern.
Friday’s gathering included many youngies who would have barely been tadpoles when Coney was cricketing between 1974 and 1987, so his stories about the likes of Ewen Chatfield were getting a little dated. A few cryptic remarks about his former team-mates Richard Hadlee and Geoff Howarth almost went unnoticed.
Also, our Jacob Oram won the heads-tails raffle thing and instantly donated the $467 prize to Manawatu Cricket.
No leeway for Lexi
There will, sadly, always be selfrighteous folk who revel in others’ miseries.
One had to be the TV viewer who potted golfer and runaway leader Lexi Thompson in California on Monday, at the tournament So (Yeon Ryu) won.
The snitch had spotted and potted Thompson for replacing her ball on the 17th green perhaps a millimetre off line the previous day. It cost her a massive four shots penalty. She would have copped less for murder with an 8 iron.
The American miseryguts virtually ensured Thompson lost the tournament after she played the final holes in tears with the crowd and the golfing world hollering for her. It was also an unfair distraction for her opponents.
Golf is in the process of liberalising its archaic rules, although this one simply states the ball must be replaced from where it was lifted. Lexi was pinged two shots for her indiscretion, something PGA Tour players said online was commonplace on their tour.
While Lexi was lax about how she replaced her ball, the slowmotion footage made it look worse. The film we saw was spliced into one segment when it didn’t happen like that in real time. Fellow players can police those creepers who take liberties with their ball marking.
But to penalise her a further two shots for signing an incorrect scorecard for a crime she wasn’t aware of is typical golf, especially when the officials had accepted her third-round card. A few years back she would have been disqualified and shamed. Now, it has enhanced her fame.
After this uproar, golf will surely banish eagle-eyed lounge bullies. Next we’ll have home bodies picking up sins in rugby and match-fixers betting on the best markers of the golf ball. Golf has always been a self-policing sport and can easily station a rules official in the TV truck. Even then, only the leading players are the ones being filmed.
The South Korean winner still went and dived into Poppy’s Pond with her entourage, as per tradition. She might have shown some class and opted not to, out of respect for Lexi, because the Korean was a de facto winner who profited from the 4-stroke misfortune.