Glorified training gallop
While the crowd roared all 14 All Blacks tries at Hamilton on Saturday, I was turned off. In fact, I will admit to turning off for a moment rather than seeing the Tongans whipped by a ton. Fortunately, that didn’t eventuate, but for a while it seemed the 145-pointer from Bloemfontein was within reach, when the ABS cleaned up Japan in the 1995 World Cup.
That reportedly set back the game in Japan for many years, even if it wasn’t terminal because they now have the wherewithal to buy our elite players and coaches and the Blossoms went on to beat the Springboks at the most recent World Cup.
To call Saturday’s match a test was a stretch, although Ryan Crotty did get through unscathed. The Tongans were over-run and overawed. It only took a turnover and when the ball sped wide, there was clear air for the All Blacks to jog over. The almost capacity crowd loved it and cheered every try. Perhaps it was a rare opportunity, especially for children, to see the All Blacks in person in daylight. I wanted a contest and sympathised with the woman whose placard read: ‘‘Just one try, Tonga.’’
George Bridge might have got four tries but twice he ignored unmarked men outside him and chose to crash opponents. Not against the big boys, George.
Among the Tongans who got around the field was prop Ma’afu Fia, who would still be valuable in shoring up the Manawatu¯ scrum if and when he returns from Ospreys in Wales, even if on a fraction of the coin. He left the Turbos and Highlanders in 2015, is still only 29 and in his prime as a tighthead.
Across the Tasman at Parramatta, where Samoa proved better organised against the Wallabies, prop Michael Ala’alatoa was making his test debut and he can thank the Turbos for relaunching his career. When he arrived in Palmerston North in 2015, he had been cut by the Waratahs and only a year later was picked up by the Crusaders.
The All Blacks were even looking at him last year until Taranaki smashed the Manawatu¯ scrum
in the Ranfurly Shield defence. Others who have had careers revived or revitalised with the Turbos have been halfback Kayne Hammington, loosie Heiden Bedwell-curtis, prop Fraser Armstrong, hooker Sam Stewart, fullbacks Nehe Milnerskudder, Sam Malcolm and Semisi Masirewa, wings Ambrose Curtis and Lote Raikabula, centre Hadleigh Parkes, prop Chris Eves, lock Michael Fitzgerald, and three-quarter Asaeli Tikoirotuma.
Meanwhile, a dozen World Cup games broadcast free-to-air on TVNZ will be fine by me, even if delayed by an hour, without having to fork out more hard-earned coin to the Spark lot. They have essentially hijacked the World Cup coverage and can’t be sure everyone can receive reception so, please, boycott them.
They will probably drop off the scene once it is all over.
Bianca can boot Serena
Now that Canadian teenager Bianca Andreescu has won the US Open tennis, Auckland tournament organiser Karl Budge should jettison Serena Williams and save a few bob.
Andreescu alone will haul in the crowds who will remember her all but winning at Stanley Street after having to play through qualifying.
As for Williams, she was her petulant self in 2017 at Auckland when beaten by no-name compatriot Madison Brengle and couldn’t wait to leave town after ‘‘a crappy game’’ in which she admitted she was ‘‘unprofessional’’. She abhorred the worst conditions she had encountered: the southwesterly wind, the cold.
What would pull the crowds would be to allocate Portuguese umpire Carlos Ramos to her matches after she infamously bellowed at him in last year’s US Open final, which she also lost.
Looking back
This from my 1993 archive: Manawatu¯ prop Gary Nesdale received a letter from Manawatu¯ All Black Kevin Schuler, who was playing in Japan at the time. To reply, Nesdale took the manual from his Japanese car and spent the afternoon writing back in Japanese characters. Herb Schuler received a letter telling him how to change a wheel and the crankcase oil in Japanese.
And this from the 2016 autobiography of champions rowers Eric Murray and Hamish Bond.
When Murray’s wife, Jackie, was due to have their baby just before the 2011 world championship, he asked Rowing NZ’S selectors if he could fly home from training in Europe for one week for the birth. This was abhorrent to the selectors and at a chaotic meeting, Murray was told he should be thinking of his career, not having children, and Jackie was accused of being irresponsible. They were enraged.
One selector was quoted: ‘‘Men didn’t come home from the war just because women were having children.’’ Murray did get back in time for the birth. Presumably things have changed.