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December always brings equal measures bad and good. The bad? Airports chock-full of noisy families off on school holiday adventures, no more Test rugby, the Black Caps – and our personal space invaded by aural pollution in the form of crappy, plastic Xmas music.
Apologies by the way if I’ve offended anyone by using the term ‘Xmas’ instead of the de rigueur, PC ‘seasonal’ or ‘holiday’.
The good? An end to the clown nonsense and a chance to rest and refresh for a few weeks before returning to the pure, unbridled joy that is watching the Kings light up Super Rugby.
Let us savour also Canberra’s Senate recess. There are a few things New Zealand does better than Australia, but surely the best of them is to avoid investing disproportionate power into a self-interested rabble, unaccountable for the chaos and disruption they inevitably cause.
South African rugby fans will know exactly what I mean by this.
Imagine Michael Cheika selecting the Wallabies, then have the team go to a panel of parochial, half-mad fans from each state before it can be confirmed. One who tells the media he won’t horse trade, while in the same breath agreeing to drop Dean Mumm but only if his cousin gets a spot on the bench. Another demanding Will Skelton plays on the wing, or else he’ll release secret footage of David Pocock not only eating at a multi-national fast-food outlet, but lazily putting his cardboard container in the general waste.
And then, when his wonkily selected Wallabies are duly beaten, it is Cheika who has to front up and take the blame for it regardless. Oh hang on, that’s what happens already.
Also good – excellent in fact – was the opportunity to once again mingle over ‘seasonal drinks’ with the good folk from The Roar. An eclectic mix of hardcore sports nuts, sage old-timers, hipster types plus, unsurprising in these times where young school kids are encouraged to choose their own gender, a handful still sorting out which cohort they belong in.
These ‘festive drinks’ weren’t as erotically charged as the year, from a past life, when Rachael from marketing rather too enthusiastically showed me her new nipple piercings… “go on, you can touch them, it doesn’t hurt”, but this occasion provided the very satisfying opportunity to cosy up in a quiet corner and chew the fat with fine men and writers like Spiro, Sheek and Kersi Meher-Homji.
Riffing back and forth over topics as diverse as cricketing greats, rugby glories, political misfires, media disintegration and internet trolling, I found the time flashing by and my beer going down as easily as Jade North in the penalty area.
The jewel in the crown, however, was to re-live, directly from the horse’s mouth, Spiro’s account of his only first-class cap for Wellington, facing none other than two of cricket’s greatest, Frank Tyson and Fred Trueman.
Anyone who has faced express, intimidatory bowling – without all of the body protection afforded players these days – knows the particular blend of courage, bravado and skill it takes to do so. But to write about it, as Spiro did so spectacularly last year, his account arguably the best piece of sports writing ever to grace these pages, is quite another skill altogether.
Spiro’s spellbinding tale, replete with tasty minutiae and enriching sub-plots, proves all the richer for its telling in the context of a dreadfully lame one-day cricket series between Australia and New Zealand; the fact that my warning comments on preview pieces that were naively heralding a tight, competitive series are proved correct, providing no consolation.
It’s not just being wise after the event to point out that Australia improving its bowling attack – Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins, all fit and coming together as a unit – coinciding with New Zealand presenting a middle order of Jimmy Neesham, Colin Munro, Henry Nicholls and Colin de Grandhomme, none of them true international-class four or five batsmen, was always going to end in tears for the Black Caps. And the Cricket Australia bean counters as well.
After seeing off the old blokes, an enjoyable beer or two was also had with The Roar’s hipster set; living proof that a predilection for craft beer and smashed avocado is no barrier to a love of sport and the development of encyclopaedic knowledge equal or even better than previous generations.
In fact, the only disappointment was The Roar posse, set loose into the night, discovering that the McDonald’s at Wynyard Station was now ‘permanently closed’. I was so looking forward to these responsible citizens teaching David Pocock a lesson in using the correct recycling bin.
By that stage, I had given up on explaining why I happened to be in Sydney, as every time I replied, “to meet with Andrew Hore, CEO of the Waratahs”, the questioner would respond, “oh wow, he’s that All Blacks guy who clubbed seals to death!”
Well no, actually. A very different Andrew Hore for one, and two, there was no seal clubbing at all, rather the reckless discharging of firearms from a fishing boat. It’s a tricky distinction to articulate but perhaps there’s a case to be made for shooting to sit slightly below clubbing on the evilness scale.
I didn’t discuss the matter with Andrew but if it were me – if I knew that everywhere, people were calling me a seal clubber behind my back, as if it were fact – it would be enough for me to change my name by deed poll to something more anonymous and less hate inciting. Like, say Ivan Milat. Or even Nick Phipps.
Hore, however, is not the type of personality to shy away from anything, as transparently genuine and honest a high-level sports administrator as so many are not. We share reminiscences of mutual friends from University days and, after a couple of sessions, one on the state of world rugby, and a follow up the next day, detailing the strategic plan for NSW rugby, I’m left in no doubt that the Waratahs are in the hands of someone who not only is visionary, but who is also prepared to work hard at the detail of implementation.
And even perhaps – as rare as this is for Australian rugby – get everyone within his reach, pulling together in the same direction.
Already, a more appropriate governance structure has been set in place, bringing more closely together the NSW rugby union and the Waratahs organisation. Grassroots rugby people in NSW with an axe to grind with the ARU over matters of neglect should ready themselves for a far higher level of sympathetic engagement under Hore’s NSW stewardship.
If New Zealand sports fans look past the MCG it was a good weekend for them, with yet another visiting side falling foul of the ‘Hamilton curse’, where sides of all codes become so bored by nothing to see or do, they play like they’re dosed up on Diazepam.
It takes a special team to make the Phoenix look sharp and fluid, but the Central Coast Mariners manage it with ease, in the city where one of the top three landmarks remains a McDonalds halfway down the main street. To be fair, unlike Wynyard Station, at least theirs is open.
And kudos to Joseph Parker and Andy Ruiz Jr for conducting the lead-up and their WBO world heavyweight title fight with a mutual respect and humility seldom seen at boxing’s highest professional level.
Parker collects his hard earned belt and a likely unification bout sometime in the future, potentially against Tyson Fury. Meanwhile, the narks will be out in force, denouncing Parker’s close victory and the WBO; most of them gutless, anonymous keyboard hacks who wouldn’t last twelve seconds in a ring with Parker, including the ten needed to be counted out.
Just as they’d be leaking brown stuff from the rear at the mere suggestion of facing Frank Tyson; unlike Spiro – helmetless, with only thin schoolboy pads, a tiny pink box and old-school gloves, the ones with the green rubber spikes for protection – actually walking out to the middle and doing it.