Sport is so cruel.
You win the Ranfurly Shield for the first time in 56 years, and lose it nine days later.
You lose a first-to-nine yacht race after leading 8-1.
You go to India, lose just one of seven games, and don't make the semifinals. Come again?
That was the fate of the Otago Volts, whose magical twenty20 run came crashing down thanks to the calculators.
A real shame. But The Last Word will go on record as saying bravo, chaps. Magnificent effort, and you should be proud.
... are always interesting
The Volts' streak ended at 15. That, improbably, is only the second-longest winning streak in a form of cricket, T20, that is supposed to be as much about luck as skill.
Pakistan's Stallions own the record with a ludicrous streak of 25 straight games.
Their run stretched across nearly five years, from February 2006 to October 2010. They played no games at all in 2007, and every single win was against Pakistan domestic opposition in either Karachi or Lahore.
Of the Volts' 15 wins, just five (four Dunedin, one Queenstown) were at home, and five came against international opposition.
Excessive appealing
Something in rugby is driving me nuts.
It's not shrieking commentators, or the thought of the Super 15 expanding to Super 46, or even the dreadful prospect of Southland winning our Ranfurly Shield again.
It is the growing and highly disturbing trend of players WHINGEING to the referee.
The disease has long permeated football - a beautiful sport crippled by the players' deceitfulness and propensity to surround and intimidate the referee - and is also rife in rugby league, where people like Paul Gallen regularly accost the officials.
I might be getting older and grumpier but it seems rugby now has the same problem.
Watch any test or ITM Cup game these days, and it will not be long before you see a player flinging his arms in the air as he casts a plaintive eye at the referee. They actually stop playing, while the ball is live, because they have made their own decision that a foul has occurred.
Even in Oamaru last weekend, when I watched my beloved Old Golds beat Wanganui, there were instances when players appealed for a whistle.
Enough's enough. Let's encourage referees to pull the yellow card out for serial whingers.
Backing Sir Russell
Ye gods, some people are still bent out of shape over New Zealand's greatest sailor being with another America's Cup syndicate.
I thought everyone had grown up, or at least moved on. It has been 10 years, after all.
But no, the odd vestige of ''Blackheart'' bitterness still exists. This is a sample of an email I received following my story on Coutts published in Tuesday's newspaper:''For actively campaigning, openly and publicly, against NZ in favour of the USA he is, by any reputable dictionary definition, a traitor and should be stripped of his knighthood.
''Currently Sir Douglas Graham is at real risk of losing his through his bad business dealings. I think treason is significantly more serious.''
Spare me.
Sonny boy
What's left to say about Sonny Bill Williams?He won an NRL title as a kid with the Bulldogs, won the Rugby World Cup with the All Blacks, and is on the verge of winning a second NRL premiership, this time with the Roosters.
His boxing is a rather unfortunate sideshow, and his departure from the Doggies still rankles with that club's fans.
But what an athlete, what a player. With luck, he'll lead the Roosters to glory, then come back to rugby.
The mighty has fallen
It was nice to see the national netball championships back in Dunedin this week - and Otago doing well.
But this former netball writer could not help but be a little sad at how much the tournament has been downgraded over the years.
Much like rugby's NPC, which has suffered from constant tinkering and the expansion of Super rugby, the provincial netball tournament has faded in the shadow of the ANZ Championship.
Just 12 teams were in Dunedin. Two of those, Otago B and the Invitation side, should not really have been involved. Massive parts of the country were not represented.
My first year as netball writer was in 1998, when the top players still appeared at the provincial tournament.
At Mystery Creek that year, while an Otago team for the ages swept to its first outright title in 66 years, no fewer than four grades were represented.
Marlborough, Thames Valley and Wanganui were there. Wairarapa. Buller. Even Canterbury Country and Aoraki got to play at a national tournament.
Old ways aren't always the best. But I'm not sure it's a good thing that so many netballers around the country have been deprived the opportunity to get some meaningful competition.
Ring ructions
Disputes happen. Feuds can erupt out of issues both big and small. He said, she said, they said, bang.
However it happened - and there are clearly two sides to the story - it is not right that Otago boxers have to (or choose to) represent Manawatu at the national championships.
Otago people should be wearing Otago colours at national tournaments. Bottom line.
Both the New Zealand Fight and Fitness Academy and the Otago Boxing Association seem genuine in their desire to repair this damaging split, and this newspaper would urge them to get it sorted.
Let me know if you want a mediator for the peace process.
And warm congratulations to those OTAGO fighters who won national titles.
Birthday of the week
Scottish football great Jock Stein would have been 91 today.
Stein became the first British manager to win the European Cup, with Celtic in 1967, and finished his glorious tenure at Celtic with 10 Scottish league championships, eight Scottish Cups and six Scottish League Cups in 13 years.
He also broke ground as the first Protestant to manage Celtic, a club with a staunch Catholic fan base.
My favourite Stein quote: ''The secret of being a good manager is to keep the six players who hate you away from the five who are undecided''.
