Sometimes it is good to step back and view a sporting event through the eyes of the old and the young.
My excitement at the All Whites' opening World Cup game increased after speaking to 83-year-old Dunedin fan Jerry Sigmund, grandfather of New Zealand defender Ben Sigmund.
Then the experience of watching the dramatic 1-1 draw with Slovakia was heightened by the presence of my 10-year-old stepson, Josef Sigmund, another of Jerry's grandchildren.
He's not a huge sports fan, our Josef - Star Wars has always held more appeal than sporting wars - but he agreed to get an early night on Tuesday so he could get up at 11.30pm for the game.
After about 15 minutes of yawning, he started to show previously dormant levels of interest in football, and the questions about the All Whites started pouring out.
By halftime, he was commenting on the efficiency of our front line.
With 15 minutes to go, he was making soothing noises about a respectable 1-0 loss.
And when Winston Reid popped up to score the late equaliser, a bolt-awake 10-year-old boy was fist-pumping and high-stepping around the living room.
It was a wonderful, spontaneous moment that I am sure was replicated at thousands of homes around the country.
It reminded me that the reason sport keeps such a grip on me is not just its drama, passion, beauty, tradition and the power of the extraordinary.
It's the look of delight in a 10-year-old child's face.
Nothing wrong with 1-1
The lack of goals at the World Cup so far should have All Whites fans rejoicing, argues ODT online editor Sean Flaherty.
While it makes for a less entertaining tournament, it demonstrates a closing of the gap between football nations, which can only be good for weaker countries such as New Zealand.
In the US, baseball fans have for decades bemoaned the decline in batting averages as a sign of a deterioration in the game.
But genius biologist and baseball nut Stephen Jay Gould used statistical analysis to argue persuasively that the standout hitters had been dragged back into the pack as overall skill levels improved.
The same is happening in football, Flaherty believes.
As all nations get better, scores naturally decline.
Weaker countries like New Zealand may never have a scintillating attack, but with more professionals in their ranks, players have better techniques and better fitness and in general can stick with better teams and keep a lid on blowout scores.
As they say, there are no easy games in international football any more.
Oh, except Australia.
Myths and legends
Wrap up warmly at Carisbrook tonight.
Take a spare set of gloves and that special jacket with the thick lining.
Because, you know, it's GUARANTEED to be cold, wet and miserable at a ground that can only be described as a soulless dump.
This must be the case, for someone called Eric writing in a Sunday newspaper told us so last weekend.
I'm not sure what exactly qualifies young Eric to be the authoritative voice on the subject, as he appears to have spent most of his life in Auckland, and his spare time, according to his profile on a television website, is devoted to the "hunt for the perfect pinot".
It takes some effort to devote 800 words to one theme - Carisbrook is cold - but then he did have all week to think about it.
Hammering a theme about as fresh as last year's bread, our scribe talks of the "unlovely place", the "ugly duckling" that was "always cold and often wet".
He urges us to ignore the blatherings of those who, "blinded by nostalgia", dare to speak warmly of Carisbrook's past.
And he finishes with a flourish, reminding his readers that going to a rugby game at Carisbrook was a student rite of passage, like gonorrhea, "though without the guarantee that enjoyment might somehow be involved".
Thank God for the sane voice of the Sunday paper, eh.
Oh, and Eric?
Try a little Mt Difficulty Single Vineyard.
You'll love it.
Two degrees of separation
It's a small world.
Welsh prop Adam Jones played briefly for the Red Deer Titans club in Canada.
His uncle, Wayne Morgan, is still at the club.
As is my cousin, former North Otago prop Dan Meikle, and my old flatmate, Wade Moore.
The whipping boys
Someone needs to justify the continued existence of the Athletic "Colts" in North Otago premier rugby.
The makeshift seventh team has been soundly thrashed in all eight of its games this season, scoring just 25 points (3.1 per game) while conceding a whopping 431 (53.9).
That's not a healthy situation.
Celebrating sportswriting
It's an odd mix of the lovely, the unexpected and the flat-out weird in The Awa Book Of New Zealand Sports Writing.
Edited by Wellington academic Harry Ricketts, the book features 80 pieces spread over a century and a-half.
There is a good range of sports and some beautiful writing.
I particularly enjoyed John Mulgan's "War As A Game", Warwick Roger's "The Sportswriter", John Saker's "Sport And Beauty", Brian Turner's "Screw Sessions" and Trevor Richards' "Whineray's Whites".
But I could have done without all the fishing - dear lord, so much fishing - and climbing and the TWO pieces on Richard Pearse (how is that remotely sport?) and the fiction and the radio extract (that's not writing) and the list of Chris Cairns' injuries (??) and the five-line Bill Manhire poem.
Ricketts said he wanted to choose stories, not just for the quality of the writing, but for the significance of the topic.
But he takes it too far at times, and some unremarkable pieces make the cut.
There is also an element of literary snobbery about the selections.
He finds room for Witi Ihimaera and Patricia Grace and Kevin Ireland and Bruce Mason and Paula Boock and CK Stead - "real" writers - yet a measly four of the items were originally published in newspapers.
It would have been nice to have seen more genuine sportswriting, and less writing that happened to include some sport.
Five things I would rather listen to than another 90 minutes of droning vuvuzelas:
• The entire respective discographies of Britney Spears, the Spice Girls and Justin Bieber.
• John Mitchell, All Black Coach: The Box Set.
• Large nails. Blackboard. Combine.
• Our cat after his tail has been pulled by my son.
• Ninety minutes of Murray Mexted.
NZRU wins few friends
The New Zealand Rugby Union will not be getting a Christmas card from the ODT sports editor this year.
It was bad enough that our photographer was kicked out of the test luncheon at Carisbrook yesterday, and that our reward for devoting a thousand pages to tonight's game was to be questioned why we needed so many reporters and photographers to get accreditation.
But the last straw was the union's decision to announce Highlanders coach Glenn Moore had to re-apply for his job (read: has been sacked).
When was the announcement made?
Shortly before 5pm the day before the test, thus ensuring the issue would be buried.
Nice work.
