When every story could be back page . . .
So there he was, The Offsider, as the year raced away ahead of him while time felt like it was slipping through his fingers like so many grains of sand.
At least spring had gotten off to an unseasonable good start surfwise, with the local west coast pointbreaks deciding to really fire up during September. One week last month saw some crew surfing six days out of a possible seven, all in clean, long period swells ranging in size from 1’ to 3’ (The Offsider always applies Hawaiian scale) with most everyone raving about getting a damned good run for their money.
There were too many good days to list or be specific about but the one session which stood out for the Age sportsbuster went down on a Thursday afternoon — his day off — where he was one of only around four guys out enjoying quality jade green rollers and offshores all afternoon. The bank was working out a little wider than usual but was in superb nick with every wave peeling from take-off to the shipwreck, while the icing on the cake was having a pod of giant dolphins clowning around out to sea before coming in close to play in the shorebreak.
It was in stark contrast to one day last week where a literal horde of longboarders, SUP-ers and boatboaters appeared as if out of nowhere and descended on a dying groundswell en masse only to depart as quickly as they had arrived. At times, relaxing and shooting the breeze in the warm sun on the beach, it wasn’t all that hard to imagine summer had arrived. Pleasant enough for the most part although The Offsider held mixed feelings about the changing weather pattern; sport at this time of year could be damned inconsistent and generally lacked the urgency of the winter scene.
Take for instance the Saturday and Sunday just gone where the first weekend of the school holidays once again proved notoriously quiet. Certainly suffered in comparison with the previous weekend where he was dealt one of the busiest dance cards he could remember facing in a long time.
Gigs on his list to cover then had included the junior footballers’ bunfight, a major motorsport rally blasting along local back country roads, an IRB race down 90 Mile Beach, while the local gymnastics guild held its major regional event of the year, attracting competitors from all the clubs across the province.
There had also been a fascinating and groundbreaking league clash at Waipapakauri — which saw the winners of the competition run by the body charged with governing the sport playing the winners of the local grassroots comp run by the rebel alliance which had controversially broken away from said body three years ago — and a match showcasing the renaissance of women’s rugby at Ahipara.
Taking into consideration that any one of the above events could have been back page material then it made sense that the only way to approach the sports section in each edition of the Northland Age was to regard every page as the back page.
■ The Offsider is Age sportsbuster Francis Malley. Respond at sports@northlandage.co.nz