Welcome back
Hello there! This is The Last Word. You might remember the column for such searing insights as Ten Reasons Liverpool Is The Club You Must Support, and Can You Name A Black Caps XI Containing Players Whose Surnames Start with M.
It’s been a good while. I think the All Blacks were still considered invincible the last time this column appeared.
The Last Word was put on ice for a few months as our sports department soldiered on with just two people when "young" Jeff Cheshire headed to England on his OE.
Happily, we are nearly back to full strength (watch this space), so it is time to bring back the column that has won a number of awards (that number being zero) and featured approximately 4358 combined references to Liverpool, Oamaru and Waitaki Boys’.
My email is on this page so please flood it with suggestions, quirky notes and gushing praise.
Brickbat I
The Rugby World Cup was great, the final was epic, the Black Ferns were inspiring/entertaining, and Joanah Ngan-Woo’s lineout steal was THE moment of the New Zealand sporting year.
Let me make it very clear that I share your excitement.
It was just so deflating this week when the squads for the second season of Super Rugby Aupiki — such an important development in women’s rugby — were announced, and there were some big holes.
No Portia Woodman, no Stacey Fluhler, no Sarah Hirini, no Theresa Fitzpatrick, no Ruby Tui.
In other words, none of the players — with apologies to Renee Holmes, Ruahei Demant, Pip Love, Maia Roos and others — you really want to see every week.
Aupiki is all over in five weeks and it needs every ounce of star power it can find to start making inroads into the crammed sporting landscape.
It was time to strike while the iron was hot. New Zealand Rugby should have moved heaven, earth and any amount of money required to ensure all its top players were in Super Rugby in March, and not playing sevens tournaments that, I’m sorry, are basically meaningless.
Brickbat II
The Last Word returns in full Old Man Angry At Cloud mode.
While the story of the Twickenham test last Sunday was the All Blacks collapsing in a heap with nine minutes to go — seriously, it was the biggest implosion since the 1999 semifinal — we also have to poke the borax at the Poms.
England choosing to kick the ball out to end the game rather than have a crack at winning was just a bit lame.
And it makes no sense.
The English had all the momentum. They were playing against 14 men. They were carving up an utterly rattled All Blacks team. It was not a World Cup, so there was no need to play it safe and bank two points for the draw. And they owed it to the Twickenham faithful to produce something special after the earlier loss to Argentina.
Women’s revolution
What a year it has been for women’s sport in this country.
The Black Ferns won a World Cup at home, the White Ferns hosted a World Cup, Zoi Sadowski-Synnott created Winter Olympics history, Ellesse Andrews cycled her way into Commonwealth Games immortality, Lydia Ko is top of the golfing world, new leagues in rugby (Aupiki) and basketball (Tauihi) were launched for women, and New Zealand just hosted the massive IWG World Conference on Women and Sport.
This genuinely feels like a wave now, and when we host the biggest women’s tournament in the world — the Fifa World Cup — next year, that wave will only build.
The Otago Daily Times continues to lead the way in women’s sports coverage, and next week we have some more exciting news on that front.
Cup runneth over
What a start to the World Cup in Qatar.
Germany and Argentina fans won’t like hearing this but you need a couple of shockers to really set the tournament alight.
I’m standing by my pre-Cup prediction of Brazil going all the way.
Doco of the week
Do try, when you have finished watching the actual football, to catch the Fifa Uncovered documentary (four parts, I think) on Netflix.
A lot of it is old ground if you are a sports fan but it is still mind-boggling to be reminded of the endemic corruption in the world’s biggest sports organisation.
Play(HQ) time
My colleague Adrian Seconi is the best cricket writer in New Zealand, so you should already be reading everything he writes.
Seconi has been in rare form this season wrapping up the happenings on a Dunedin club cricket scene plagued by the introduction of the new PlayHQ system, which has been about as consistent as Finn Allen’s form.
My favourite line was this: "The half-baked PlayHQ offered up another gem this weekend — Zac Cumming c Fill-in b Fill-in 2." Brilliant.
PlayHQ might, in time, become completely fit for purpose. And, to be fair, it is already better now than it was at the start of the season.
But it was a dog, imposed upon the clubs and regions by New Zealand Cricket when it was miles off being ready.
