SOUTH AFRICA 33 NEW ZEALAND 26

Well that’s one thing cleared up at least: Dave Rennie is not the Messiah.

With apologies to Brian’s mother1, he’s not a “very naughty boy” either, but he will have taken some harsh lessons from a test that slipped away from the All Blacks’ control early and despite a valiant effort, stayed at arm’s length of the Boks for the remainder.

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It was another really good rugby test between these two teams — who switched positions in the world rankings again, with the Boks regaining No 1 status — who seem to be able to lift themselves to another physical dimension when playing each other.

What was especially curious about this match was that, taken in isolation, it might have been viewed as a sloppy All Black loss. There were certainly enough aspects to be worrying. However, taken in the context of a multi-match series, it feels more like a manageable blip.

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A sobering reminder this week that the CTE issue is not going to quietly fade from the headlines.

From Yahoo!: “A new study of former NFL players’ brains found CTE in nearly 25 percent.”

A study published in the British Medical Journal reported that at least 24.5 percent of former players’ brains studied showed signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative condition diagnosed from X-rays showing abnormal protein clumps. As of now, the condition has been diagnosed only after death. The study analysed the brains of former players who died between 2016 and 2021.

The union told its players in an email blast that the findings “should serve as a call to action across the entire football ecosystem”. The NFL issued a statement that similarly preached proactive healthcare.

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That one-in-four figure is expected to be on the low side, but as the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist John Branch asks in the NYT ($): “As CTE Cases Soar, Why Do Football Crowds Still Go Wild?”

Twenty years into its CTE era, the NFL is more popular and profitable than ever. Revenues rise even as the math becomes clearer for the once immeasurable price paid in brain damage sustained by football players.

Fans know too much to plead ignorance. They now know, thanks to a new study, that at least one in four former NFL players had CTE among the nearly 900 who died between 2016 and 2021.

We are living in an era of cognitive dissonance, sociologists said. How many CTE cases, they wondered, are too many for fans’ collective consciousness? What would it take to quit watching, or to quit sending children into the scrum? How many irreversibly damaged brains in the NFL would turn away the masses?

It’s a good set of questions, and one I admit I have asked myself many times when tearing open a packet of Ready Salted, with a cold drink at hand, in preparation to watch young men and women put their heads into places where little good can come from it.

I look at the games I have bolded in the text below and recognise that it would be a statistical anomaly if someone didn’t get treated for brain trauma across the weekend. A couple might be for big, symptomatic concussions, but more insidious will be the countless number of subconcussive blows that nobody picks up on.

Cognitive dissonance or not, nothing about this issue remains in abstract. Post-mortem analysis of the brains of great mates Billy Guyton and Shane Christie, who died of suspected suicide, revealed they both had CTE. It’s here among us and it is almost certainly more prevalent than we think.

So while this study pertains to the NFL, it is not unreasonable to think that other contact sports would also have significant exposure to CTE, so it’s when Branch does some basic arithmetic that it starts to get real (the emphasis is mine).

If the one-in-four rate extended to the upcoming season, that would mean, on average, 13 players per team and more than 400 active players in the league would have CTE.

They, too, might experience CTE’s dementia-like symptoms, possibly including memory loss, confusion, impulsivity and depression. They, too, might have shorter life expectancies and far higher rates of addiction and suicide than those lucky enough not to get it.

By any standard of workplace safety, CTE is an epidemic. There may be no industry that does so much damage to its workers. And we know that the damage sometimes also reaches teens who play the game just for fun.

Yet millions of children continue to play tackle football. American universities spend billions of dollars on it — higher education leaders knowingly fostering a sport that leaves some of its students addled with a neurological brain disease. The pipeline of players, an inexhaustible resource, keeps flowing toward the NFL.

And fans keep cheering.

On which note…

Changes on the field and in the referees room.

P-Mac at 1news.co.nz (but for how much longer?) runs the rule over Dave Rennie’s team, with the Leroy Carter for Josh Moorby switcheroo the most intriguing.

The biggest surprise comes in the No11 jersey, with Leroy Carter starting ahead of Josh Moorby. Moorby was extremely solid there in the first test and scored his team’s first try of five after receiving Vaa’i’s excellent offload.

Clearly the selectors have seen something in the Boks’ back three that Carter may be able to exploit.

Or perhaps, for all Moorby’s good work in the first test, his missed one-on-one tackle on Andre Esterhuize, which led to the Boks only try, was what lingered most in Rennie’s memory banks.

It is likely Carter will be given a roaming commission, to try to go up-tempo on the few occasions the ball stays in play for any length, because the one thing you can’t help but notice when you watch through the first test a second time through is just how often nothing was happening.

That is not to say you were wrong for enjoying it. Not at all. It was intense, it was a classic styles-make-fights kind of match. But it was also a test where the ball was only in play for 28 minutes and New Zealand had less of it than South Africa.

I first saw these stats on Eggchasers, and the NZ Herald also highlighted them during the week, but that is miles down on the 42 minutes the ball was in play during their win over Ireland at Eden Park, for example.

It makes what New Zealand did in posting five tries even more remarkable. They scored a try for every 2m 42s they had the ball, a figure that is tilted significantly by Fabian Holland charge-down try, but still, that’s a potent strike rate. It must have been tempting for Rennie not to change a thing that wasn’t enforced, but he might see the livewire Carter as being even more capable of exposing the soft underbelly of South Africa’s defence than Moorby.

Other notable stats from the first test were that the All Blacks won just 53 rucks, which is far less than during the July tests, when they averaged more than 100 per game. That and the time in play numbers clearly work together, but if you are looking for the clearest contrast in how the two teams want to play, look no further than the 188 to 89 pass-to-carry ratio of New Zealand versus 89 to 104 for South Africa.

It might get down, it might get dirty, but there is still a willingness to let the ball do the work that ensures that this edition of the All Blacks are never less than watchable.

It’s why there is a great sense of anticipation1 waiting for kickoff at Newlands, even if we have to resign ourselves to the fact the ball will probably be in play from about half an hour of the scheduled 80.

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Meanwhile, the Georgian is out and the Australian is in. While you should never wish illness on anybody, from a purely rugby perspective, it would be wrong to feign disappointment at this turn of events.

Nika Amashukeli has pulled out of refereeing the second test between the All Blacks and the Springboks because of illness.

The Georgian official has been replaced by Australian Angus Gardner for the clash in Cape Town.

To be fair, those with the whistle in the middle are probably less frightening to the casual fan these days than those trying to influence the game from the TMO booth.

South Africa v NZ, Cape Town, Sunday 3am, SS1

The Bounce will be here, right here in this very spot, on Sunday to wrap events ($).

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There is little doubt that the All Blacks tour to South Africa has been a success on multiple fronts. The first test at Johannesburg was electric and there is nothing to suggest the remaining tests, including the relative novelty of Baltimore moneymaker, won’t provide a similar jolt.

From a high-performance perspective, it could not have gone much better for coach Dave Rennie. He has been able to blood players and reintegrate others, which grows depth, and get a sense of the combinations that are going to do the heavy lifting for him between now and November 13, 2027.

This tour was not just sold as a high-performance experience, however. Because if you were strictly looking at this as in that respect, it’s hard to make a case that playing one team four times, no matter how good that team is, provides more value that playing three teams twice each, like you would in a normal Rugby Championship.

No, this was meant to be more than that, a trip down Sepia Avenue before turning right onto Nostalgia Lane.

It was meant to harken back to the great days of tours, when crowds would line the railway tracks to watch these mythical men pass by through the windows of the smoking carriage.

For whatever reason, the touring aspect of the tour has not lit fire. After a promising start in Cape Town for the opener against the Stormers, the crowds for the matches against the Sharks, Bulls and this week the Lions have ranged from modest to awful. Various reasons have been posited, from poor distribution of the games (four out of seven in the Gauteng conurbation), to unrealistic ticket prices for the non-test games.

It’s something that needs to be nutted out if the concept is to have a future beyond 2030.

From RNZ: “‘Spiritual home’: Warriors determined to play finals footy at Mt Smart over Eden Park.”

While the Warriors have been emphatic about wanting to remain at [Mt Smart], the match could be moved to Eden Park to accommodate a significantly larger crowd.

With a 50,000 capacity, Eden Park can hold roughly double the number of fans as Mt Smart, offering the NRL the prospect of increased gate takings.

The NRL sent clubs its updated finals policy before the start of the season, stating that “for all NRL finals matches, ARLC reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to determine venues considered most suitable to host NRL and NRLW Final Series matches”.

That leaves the Warriors with limited control over the decision.

There is an element here of creating an issue where none yet exists, but is also a good example of the NRL’s inherent ability to keep itself in the midweek news cycle so much more effectively than other sports. The first thing the Warriors must do is win their remaining matches, then we can panic about the venue.

While neither would make my list of Top 500 Stadiums in the World, at least Mt Smart’s blue-collar, semi-industrial aesthetic meshes perfectly with the club and its denizens.

It is hard to remember a lot of good things happening when league goes to Eden Park, certainly not the disastrous World Cup final in 1988, though that might all change when the State of Origin makes its NZ debut next year.

The three big matches this week as they pertain to clinching a coveted top two spot on the table, are:

Penrith v Canterbury-Bankstown, Sydney, tonight 10pm, SS2

Easts v Dolphins, Sydney, tomorrow 7.30pm, SS2

And in my favourite timeslot…

NZ Warriors v Newcastle, Auckland, Sunday 4pm, SS1

The cricket world hasn’t stopped just because New Zealand are having a bit of down time. With Sri Lanka due to visit this summer, it might be time to take notice of Sonal Dinusha. The 25-year-old left-hander has played just five tests, but is coming off a series against India where he scored 100, 84, 103 and a match-saving 133 not out.

Here’s the latest in our winter series of interviews, none other than the “Good Skipper” Tom Latham.

Quick hits

It would be lovely to see Northland keep the Log o’ Wood for a while. They meet Tasman on Sunday. Carlos Alcaraz makes his long-awaited return to Grand Slam tennis in the US Open singles, which this weekend. The Vuelta a España is very much the third of the three Grand Tours, but it takes on special significance as Tadej Pogačar aims to become the ninth male cyclist to win each one. He is dominating after week one and is doing ridiculous things, including a 50km solo breakaway on stage four that, big crash or natural disaster apart, has virtually ensured his general classification victory.

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SOUTH AFRICA 16 NEW ZEALAND 33

There is a lot about this enthralling test that doesn’t make sense, but one thing seems to be coming into focus through the dense fog of an early morning watch1 — these are not your 2020-25 All Blacks.

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While some of the parts might remain the same, they’re a different piece of machinery now. Steelier. Smarter. Pragmatic without being dogmatic. And although the word started to elicit a gag-reflex due to its overuse, at a moment like this it feels appropriate — “optimistic”.

For the first hour at Ellis Park, nothing indicated that a 17-point win for the visitors was on the cards. You don’t go into the beating heart of South African rugby with a scrum on roller skates and emerge unscathed. You don’t lose the battle for possession, for territory, for carries and for metres gained and come away with a win, let alone a big win. You probably don’t expect to rock up and kick the ball out of hand more than the Boks, either.

But this all happened.

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So conditioned has the rugby world become to the polymathic brilliance of Rassie Erasmus, that when I read Marc Hinton’s intro in Stuff that declared that the Springbok coach had put aside mind games, my immediate thought was: ‘Good grief, Marc, you’ve been sucked in by Rassie’s mind games!’

Briefly, poignantly, the mind games, the pointed narratives went out the window and voluble, serial-winning Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus delivered an emotional tribute to the All Blacks’ influence on his team’s ascension to the top of the global game.

The man is playing 4-D chess inside our brains and Stuff is enabling it!

But I needn’t fear — if there is one mind impervious to his charms it is that of the Ren-master, whose coaching philosophy of smashing things at the breakdown hides a more layered approach in the backfield.

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Can you pick a winner? Can anybody?

Would a poll help, or is it a cheap device to paper over the gaping cracks in analysis?

Can we read anything into the All Blacks the comfortable wins in the lead-in games? Or were they too an elaborate ruse cooked up by Rassie?

What do we make of Dave Rennie’s All Black team, which is heavy on fullbacks and light on experienced second-rowers (except for the one playing in the back row)? Pairing Fabian Holland with Josh Lord and omitting Patrick Tuipolutu feels like a risk, but probably a risk worth taking, Liam Napier explained:

The other notable talking point is Holland partnering Josh Lord in the second row.

Holland missed the entire Super Rugby season and the All Blacks’ three Nations Championship victories in July while recovering from shoulder surgery.

In [games against the Stormers and Bulls], the Dutch-born lock impressed with multiple lineout steals and [an] insatiable work-rate.

Holland’s presence points to the All Blacks attempting to pressure the South African lineout and challenge the Boks halfbacks by attempting charge downs while they repeatedly kick from the base.

It’s certainly an exciting looking team, though far from flawless. I have a small blind spot when it comes to the charms of Damian McKenzie. I thoroughly enjoy his jack-in-the-box talent and can think of few who offer more threats behind a dominant forward pack, but I’m not sure I trust him to put the bins out on the right night when he’s under pressure.

The first few high balls could be telling and, genuinely, I’d love nothing better than to be proved an idiot on the D-Mac front.

There is just so much we don’t know about this series. It’s just a bunch of questions. It’s a mind warp.

It’s Rassie’s fault.

That’s the beauty of it, I guess, and why this is really just an elaborate Post-It note to say the Bounce will be here on Sunday to wrap it up.

South Africa v NZ, Johannesburg, Sunday 3.10am, SS1

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Just discovered that the co-author of this piece from The Conversation via RNZ is the same Jeremy Hapeta I was briefly neighbours with on CD Farm Rd, Levin, in the early-80s. Jeremy has travelled the path less followed from the front row into academia.

As we celebrate the return of a big rugby tour, we should never forget what too many New Zealanders once accepted.

Well over half the squad of 44 have Māori or Pacific ethnic backgrounds. That would have been impossible 66 years ago when the 1960 All Blacks team toured South Africa. In fact, only 18 of the current squad would have been able to travel back then…

Despite growing unease and opposition, especially among Māori, the [“colour bar”] policy stayed in place for the All Blacks’ 1949 tour of South Africa (where they lost all four tests). By 1960, when the All Blacks were due to tour again, a genuine protest movement had emerged.The Citizens’ All Black Tour Association raised one of the country’s largest ever petitions, collecting over 150,000 signatures under its banner of “No Māoris — No Tour”.

Regardless, and despite the Sharpeville massacre just two months earlier, the 1960 tour went ahead without any Māori players.

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Thanks again to JT, John Tulloch, whose reminisces yesterday on the somewhat forgotten tour of ’92 bought a smile to my face. For the benefit of all subscribers, I have brought it out from behind the paywall.

Please enjoy.

There was an epilogue to my book of [Richard] Loe woes. After the win, the Kiwi media was invited into the All Blacks dressing room. I was in the midst of interviewing a shirtless Frank Bunce, whose midfield battle with the brilliant Danie Gerber had been a highlight of the test, when Loe growled from across the room, “Who let that prick in?” I froze, fearing I’d be turfed out, missing out on this extraordinary opportunity. Bunce, whose back was crisscrossed with large red rake marks courtesy of Bok sprigs, paused for a moment, glanced at Loe, then turned back to me resuming the interview. I could have hugged him!

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It was a real kick to see the Cambridge Blue of Northland win the Ranfurly Shield for the first time since carless days. Without wanting to pass myself off as Nostradamus, after watching the team once known as North Auckland make light of my Amber-and-Blacks a week ago, I warned my Hūkerenui-raised neighbour that this could happen.

As I sent him a congratulatory note last night he brought a little poignancy to the moment: “If only my old man had lived another eight months to see it…”

That one-line text immediately took me back to a piece of sportswriting that has become a bit of a touchstone (I know I have featured it on these pages before): Tom Verducci’s Sports Illustrated feature on the 2004 Boston Red Sox, who broke an 86-year curse when they won that year’s World Series. The story included this passage, which gets me every time:

Rooting for the Red Sox is, as evident daily in the obituary pages, a life’s definitive calling. Every day all over New England, and sometimes beyond, death notices include age, occupation, parish and allegiance to the Sox. Charles F. Brazeau, born in North Adams, Massachusetts, and an Army vet who was awarded a Purple Heart in World War II, lived his entire 85 years without seeing the Red Sox win a world championship, though barely so. When he passed on in Amarillo, Texas, just two days before Boston won the 2004 World Series, the Amarillo Globe News eulogised him as a man who “loved the Red Sox and cheap beer.”

Rest in peace.

Northland have eight days to prepare for the challenge of Tasman. They will spend those eight days as Kings of Whangārei.

The return of the Ranfurly Shield to Northland, for the first time in 48 years, saw Taniwha faithful flock to Whangārei airport to welcome their team home on Friday afternoon…

On arriving home, outside back Jade Stewart was emotional with the reception the team received.

“Must [have] been cutting onions…to be greeted like that is unreal.”

Webby loves the Wahs, and that’s great news for the club.

Look at the clubs who have typically enjoyed long periods of success in the modern NRL: Penrith, Easts, Melbourne and Brisbane. What do most of them have in common? Long-tenured coaches.

Stability rocks. Stability is also easy to sell to free agents.

“It’s humbling to be able to secure my future here for this long,” Andrew Webster said. “I’m super proud every game I get to be a head coach in the NRL. It’s a dream and to do it with this club and these players is extra special.

“I love this club, I have the greatest belief in what we can achieve and I’m excited knowing I’m going to be here until 2032. I’m so grateful to have this opportunity.”

Bless him.

To more pressing matters, the Warriors probably have to run the table to force their way into a coveted top two (and even then it’s not guaranteed). The biggest impediment to that goal is tomorrow.

Souths v NZ Warriors, Sydney, tomorrow 7.30pm

It feels like a week or so ago I was reading a headline about Liam Lawson being replaced at Racing Bulls by a Bulgarian, and next minute I look up and he’s going for a blat in a Red Bull (again).

Lawson was promoted to the top team following the announcement that Isack Hadjar had suffered a wrist injury and would be unable to race this weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix.

It will mark his return to the team for the first time since his brief stint at the start of the 2025 championship where he lasted just two rounds before being demoted to Racing Bulls where he has been since.

“It’s obviously not what I expected coming into this weekend, but it’s a good opportunity,” Lawson told media at Zandvoort...

Lawson had always felt that he hadn’t been given long enough in his initial stint with the top team. So does he feel more comfortable this time?

“Overall, for sure in terms of just being in Formula 1. I’ve had a lot more races since then as well. I feel much more comfortable racing in this sport, but it’s going to be a very challenging weekend, for sure.”

Dutch GP, Zandvoort, Monday 1am

Continuing the BYC’s off-season interview series, here’s our chat Zak Foulkes, the world’s greatest concussion sub folowing the glorious Battle of Trent Bridge.

Foulkes was famously thrust onto centre stage in all the Ben Stokes fourth-afternoon madness. As the word got out that Stokes was retiring, Foulkes, after a gritty 6 off 40 balls, he found himself facing and nicking off to his fellow Christchurch born seamer. Funnily enough, he didn’t actually know just how central a role he had in it until afterwards.

“To be fair, me and Daryl were out there batting and it came on the big screen and there was a massive cheer. Because Joe Root had been rarking up the crowd in moments when they were a bit flat, we just thought it was that. And then obviously, I poke at one on eighth stump and snick off and trudge off. I get back to the change room and everyone’s like, “Oh, do you know what’s happened there?”

Only then did Foulkes realise he’d ensured himself a small scene in the Ben Stokes movie.

“Yeah, not ideal.”

And because every one needs a bit more BYC in their lives, here’s the Schadenfreude episode covering off Darwin and the theory of Bangladesh’s cricketing evolution.

Much has been made of the All Blacks in South Africa being a return to the glory days of touring. Just to make sure us punters get it, we’ve had the marketing babble of ‘Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry’ inflicted upon us.

Most of the talk around about this series uses 1996 as a reference point, when the All Blacks famously won their first series victory in the Republic. The sight of Sean Fitzpatrick thumping the Loftus Versfeld turf is etched in the collective memory of rugby fans, but a tour four years prior to those glorious scenes mostly gets forgotten, even though it has a place in All Black history that is unlikely to be repeated.

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The 1992 tour of Australia and South Africa, on which I was fortunate to have been a correspondent for the now defunct Independent Radio News (IRN), spanned 16 matches, including four tests, and two months. In the 34 years since, there has not been a lengthier All Black tour outside of world cups, and nor will there likely ever be. In the interests of word count, there is not the time to recount all the fascinating events of that trip, so what follows is a random selection of moments and experiences that impacted upon the psyche of an impressionable and wide-eyed 26 year old.

This tour was still technically in the amateur era, which created a distinctly different dynamic between players and the media compared to later years. There was an almost charming naivety in the relationship between the two groups.

Working under the stern coaching of Laurie Mains and the old-school mentality of manager Neil Gray, Ric Salizzo toured in the newly created role of press liaison officer.

Ric, who would go on to fame and fortune as the creator of cult TV show Sports Cafe, seemed to spend much of the tour being grumbled at by Mains, but for us journalists we found him courteous. Despite his truculent coach, who was always wary of the media, Ric tried to be as helpful as possible. Our access to players was tremendous. We were allowed to conduct one-on-one interviews at length, with no media minder on hand. There was none of the modern trappings of “putting players up” to sit at tables adorned with sponsors’ beverages and backed by a wallpaper of advertising logos. We’d meet with players in their rooms or in a quiet corner of the hotel for in-depth chats.

Players had not been coached on “key messages” and spoke genuinely and from the heart. The likes of Grant Fox, Ian Jones and Mike Brewer gave insightful, considered opinions. With the greatest respect, the quotes the modern All Black provides are clichéd and dull in comparison, workshopped to death to state the obvious and avoid controversy.

Facebook and Google had yet to begin their ruinous plundering of traditional media advertising revenue, so print, radio and terrestrial television still prospered — and that meant journalists got to go on All Black tours —lots of them. On this trip no fewer than nine media outlets were represented, with a press corps of a dozen. The group included Graham ‘Moods’ Moody from Radio NZ, the Press’ Bob Schumacher, the incomparable snapper Peter Bush and equally talented Ross Setford, the New Zealand Herald’s Wynne Gray, Brent Edwards of the Otago Daily Times, the doyen Bob Howitt of Rugby News, and the telly crew including John McBeth, Stu Wilson, David Kirk and Bill McCarthy.

While the journalists from individual newspapers were pooling copy to media groups back home, they had a distinct focus on their local rag’s readership. Edwards was a softly spoken, almost shy individual but was fiercely loyal to his beloved Otago and the ODT. Every question he asked was framed around players who wore the ‘Golden O’. In Mains, and players including Brewer, Jamie Joseph, John Timu, Marc Ellis and Aaron Pene, he had plenty of material to work with. The parochialism of the ‘Oddity’ as it was affectionately known was legendary. The joke went that when the Titanic sank back in 1912, the only question from the ODT editor was, “How many passengers were from Dunedin?”

The undoubted leader of the corps was the Herald’s Gray. He was an intelligent student of the game whose analytical ability made his copy a must-read. He also developed a great network of sources which assisted him in delivering regular scoops. He had a disdain for the press conference, much preferring to sidle off quietly for a private yarn with coaches and players. He’d be seen standing at the far end of a training ground in long, intense discussions with Mains, and we often wondered who was imparting wisdom to whom.

Bush was not only a fine photographer, but a magnificent storyteller. With such a lengthy career he had a good stock of yarns. During the tour of South Africa one night at dinner in Cape Town, Bushy had us all spellbound with the tale of his first visit to South Africa, describing his view from the deck of a Swedish freighter berthing in the same port almost 50 years prior, describing the scenes of the black workers on the wharves hauling bales off ships, working in terrible conditions.

It seems incongruous that the 11-match Australian segment of the tour with three tests against the world champion Wallabies was seen as the curtain-raiser to the five-game South African leg, but the thirst for the return to the Republic by the All Blacks after a gap of 16 years was intense.

The Aussie tour was marked by a thrilling series in which the Wallabies triumphed 2-1 with the winning margins one, two and three points across the three tests. A stark memory involved thuggery rather than rugby. In the second test in Brisbane, Richard Loe infamously smashed an elbow down onto the face of diminutive Wallaby winger Paul Carozza. After the match as I wandered down a dimly lit corridor under the main stand at Ballymore, I passed Carozza being led by a trainer, with the player’s face slathered in blood and his nose mashed though remarkably not broken. He looked like he had been involved in a car crash and was in obvious distress. It was a visceral moment that repulsed me and made it difficult for me to engage with Loe after that.

That was the beginning of my Loe woes. With the Aussie media in an uproar, the All Blacks management closed ranks, developing a siege mentality around the Canterbury prop, and a heightened sensitivity to any perceived criticism of him.

An intro to a third test preview I had filed, which included audio from Loe, had been rewritten without my knowledge. It changed the tone from an innocuous piece about scrummaging into Loe allegedly boasting about how poor the Wallaby front row was. This was reported back to Loe who confronted me in the foyer of the team hotel. He tore strips off me, giving me a verbal spray that lasted several minutes. My protestations of innocence were ignored. He never spoke to me again on tour, and I was well aware he let other players know of his disdain for me. I genuinely feared being frozen out.

My fellow journalists thankfully showed solidarity and, after a few frosty days with Mains, I was let back into the fold. None of the other players seemed interested in Loe’s beef with me.

FOLLOWING THE Australian leg, Africa awaited. It was the first official contact of any kind between New Zealand and South Africa in the Republic for 16 years due to the sanctions imposed during the Apartheid-isolation era, not counting the ill-conceived and poorly planned rebel Cavaliers tour in 1985.

Anticipation was at fever pitch and genuine. Every match was a sellout, from the opener at Kings park Stadium in Durban to the Ellis Park denouement.

It was a far cry from the current tour and its ad-agency manufactured “Greatest Rivalry” promotion, which hasn’t been able to mask the swathes of empty seats in the non-test games.

The media got off the plane first at Johannesburg’s Jan Smuts airport and we walked out into the arrivals area to be greeted by a crowd of thousands. It didn’t matter that we were lowly hacks, we were with the All Blacks and cheered and applauded like heroes.

This tour was as much about politics as it was rugby. Nelson Mandela was just two years out of Victor Verster Prison, and the country was in a state of flux. That meant conversations with the locals were as much about post-Apartheid policy as it was about scrums and lineouts.

We were grateful for the magnificent hospitality, courtesy and generosity of the South African media. They welcomed us with open arms, invited us to braais, bought us copious cold Castle beers and argued the case for their beloved Bokke. But the talk inevitably always turned to politics.

One evening, admittedly after a few beers, one of South African journos, a proud Afrikaner, spoke passionately about his hopes and fears for the future of his country. Speculation was rife about roles for white people in a society so scarred by Apartheid. He was at pains to stress while he was white he was as African as his black countrymen. “Our people have been here for nearly 400 years — I am African, I am African!” he exclaimed with tears rolling down his face.

Politics was to the fore in the one-off test at Ellis Park. The Springboks were very much seen as a symbol of the white population. As Scotty Stevenson wrote in The Bounce, from rugby’s colonial origins, “New Zealand harnessed the game as a so-called egalitarian pursuit, and at some point South Africa weaponised it as a reflection of white dominance”. Even the logo of the leaping Bok was considered divisive. The ruling African National Congress party (ANC) had demanded the soon-to-be replaced orange, white and blue national flag not be flown nor the anthem “Die Stem van Suid-Afrika” be sung (“Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika” had yet to be adopted).

As we emerged into the stand in bright sunlight we were greeted by 60,000 screaming, nearly all Afrikaner fans, madly waving the banned flag, and lustily singing “Die Stem”. These were fading echoes of the Apartheid era and lent a surreal feeling to the occasion.

Even the presence of the redoubtable Naas Botha at first-five and captain felt like a hangover from a previous era. He had a wobbly old time of it and although the scoreline will forever read 27-24 to the All Blacks, it was never really that close, with the away side roaring to a 27-10 lead before fading late in the thin air.

(As an experience, that August day in 1992 stood in stark contrast to what I was to experience three years later as I sat at the same press bench for the World Cup final between the same two sides. On that sunny June afternoon in 1995 we sat amongst a mixed crowd of black and white, waving the new Rainbow Nation flag. To cap the remarkable transformation, we witnessed Mandela walk out as president, wearing a Springbok jersey. The power and emotion in that feeling of South African national unity and pride wasn’t lost on Kiwi journos. Irrespective of later-to be-revealed allegations of food poisoning, the atmosphere seemed insurmountable for the All Blacks. As Mandela walked to the middle of the ground amid a cacophony of cheering and singing, the redoubtable Wynne Gray turned to me and said flatly, “We’re fucked.”)

Back to ’92, there was an epilogue to my book of Loe woes. After the win, the Kiwi media was invited into the All Blacks dressing room. I was in the midst of interviewing a shirtless Frank Bunce, whose midfield battle with the brilliant Danie Gerber had been a highlight of the test, when Loe growled from across the room, “Who let that prick in?” I froze, fearing I’d be turfed out, missing out on this extraordinary opportunity. Bunce, whose back was crisscrossed with large red rake marks courtesy of Bok sprigs, paused for a moment, glanced at Loe, then turned back to me resuming the interview. I could have hugged him!

The security detail which accompanied the team were a hard-nosed looking bunch, some of whom had served in the South African Special Forces and seen action in the long-running Angolan civil war. They were friendly enough, but you were left in no doubt these were serious individuals who’d seen a thing or two. For an innocent New Zealander, I was taken aback by the large handguns they carried.

I witnessed one of these weapons being put into action on the last night of the tour. The New Zealand media were invited into the post-test celebrations at the team hotel. The gathering consisted almost exclusively of the touring party and us journos, but I had noticed a couple of South African fans who’d somehow gained entry. One of them, very much the worse for wear after a few too many Castle lagers, got into a heated discussion with someone at the bar and proceeded to swing a punch. In a flash, one of the security guards grabbed the drunken fan and threw him to the floor, holding a gun to his head. The fan and his mate were then led firmly from the room and the drinking continued as if nothing had happened.

The evening and the tour ended with a few of the All Blacks deciding it would be fun to collect shirt pockets by ripping them off unsuspecting victims. It was all in good fun but as the night bled into the wee small hours, word went out that a new game of throwing journalists into the hotel pool was on the cards. I knew there was a certain All Black prop who would need little encouragement to get his hands on a callow radio reporter, so I decided that it was time to retire for the evening.

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It was the end of the tour, but the memories of that two-month odyssey still loom large to this day.

The All Blacks tour to South Africa has become two distinctly separate stories: what is happening on the field and what is happening in the stands.

The first point will ultimately define how we view the exercise; the second will ultimately frame the concept’s future.

The …

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Richie Mo’unga has served his penance with Canterbury and has made his way to join the All Blacks in South Africa.

This is a logical end to one of the most protracted sagas in modern New Zealand rugby history. You can make a case (and Gregor Paul does $) that he has been New Zealand’s highest-profile player over the past two-and-a-half years without playing a game for the All Blacks.

Let’s get the obvious bit out of the way first. New Zealand is much better off having players of Mo’unga’s vast talent playing here than elsewhere. His availability for the All Blacks is unequivocally a good thing.

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But there is also something a little grasping and uncomfortable about the whole situation, none of which was the player’s fault.

Mo’unga, 32, chose to effectively end (or significantly hibernate) his All Black career when signing a multi-year contract to play in Japan following the World Cup final loss to South Africa in 2023.

This was understandable. He had given brilliant service to Canterbury, the Crusaders and the All Blacks, all below the market value we know a player of his class can command in Japan and Europe. With the end of his career closer than the start, his was a well-trodden path to the yen. Few begrudged him the opportunity to cash in while also playing a less attritional brand of rugby.

What made his case different was that from the moment Scott Robertson took the All Black reins in 2024, he pined for Mo’unga, sometimes unprompted. His lobbying to be able to select players from all around the globe came across as a front to get Mo’unga, his ‘quarterback’, back in the All Blacks No10 jersey.

From a purely playing perspective, you could understand why. Damian McKenzie never managed to convince he was the man to drive the next four-year cycle from first-five and the fact Robertson turned back to a 33-year-old Beauden Barrett was a reflection that the next generation of No10s wasn’t quite there yet.

There was an air of desperation, however, that didn’t reflect well on Robertson.

The NZR didn’t change their eligibility rules1 and Mo’unga didn’t end his three-year contract with Toshiba Brave Lupus early. Instead he signed an 18-month contract with NZR to take him from now through to the end of the World Cup next year.

To rewind before pitching forward…

Mo’unga had two cracks at the World Cup where he was the principal No10. At Japan in 2019, the only match he didn’t start at first-five was against Namibia (Jordie Barrett started as flyhalf), and four years later it was also the might of Namibia he was spared. The All Blacks didn’t win either tournament. Mo’unga was/is a brilliant player, but the idea that he is the panacea, a cheat-code for winning the biggest games of international rugby, is not necessarily backed up by facts.

One of the arguments I’ve heard, is that Mo’unga was hamstrung because he was never fully given the keys to drive the team. Instead there was always the spectre of Beauden Barrett and, later, Damian McKenzie, hanging over him, either as a twin pivot or to provide a spark off the bench. It was never Mo’unga’s team like it was Dan Carter’s team, say.

There was a validity to that argument, no doubt. But… and here’s the cautionary note in what was is otherwise a good-news story… if you accept that you must also at least consider the idea that Rennie is charting the HMS All Blacks back into the same choppy waters.

Because as critical as Richie might have seemed two years ago, the rugby wheel kept turning.

In Ruben Love, the All Blacks look to have unearthed a special talent. In a game increasingly dominated by field position and the management of collisions, Love has an eye for the wrinkles in the space-time continuum. He is young but not raw — in short, he looks the sort of player you could build a future around.

With Barrett the elder reduced to a peripheral squad role and McKenzie preferred as a fullback, there is certainly a role for Mo’unga but just as it was valid to ask whether Mo’unga ever got the freedom to dictate terms as the All Blacks’ playmaker, it it is fair to ask whether his re-entry will come at a cost to Love’s development?

To reiterate. It is a boon for the game here to have a player of Mo’unga’s class and skillset back in the country and fighting for a place in the All Blacks. But his reintegration back into the team and the ripple effect that it could have on one of its brightest stars needs to be managed — and managed a whole lot more delicately than the fight to get him home ever was.

MORE READING: Not surprisingly, Dave Rennie reckons everything will be hunky dory, per NZ Herald. Fair enough. He’s still sitting at a 100 percent win-rate, so he can still do and say whatever he likes.

“I met with all four 10s yesterday morning before I’d spoken to Richie,” Rennie explained…“Yesterday Ruben was saying how good it will be to have him in as a chance to learn. At the moment it’s been Ruben’s jersey, he’s going well and we’re happy with that. It will be good competition but all four 10s are really supportive of the decision.”

***

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Here we are then, at the start of a brand new grand old tour that starts this weekend in Cape Town and ends, as all the great South African odysseys of the past did, with a test in… Baltimore, home of Edgar Allen Poe, The Wire and a bloke who played 2632 consecutive games of Major League Baseball.

At least the ve…

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They’re a cussed lot in Stratford.

Scientifically, the place is perfectly situated to catch orographic precipitation.

Bluntly, the town sits under a mountain and is bloody wet.

Spiritually, you have no concept of true misery until you’ve experienced midwinter Saturday morning sport in sideways rain in Stratty.

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There’…

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If you look back at a working life spent writing about sport, the chances are you will be able to point to several articles you wish you had not written. They are pieces, usually opinion-driven, that you felt strongly about in the heat of the moment only to later reflect that the heat of the moment is not a place where coherent thinking and clean prose make for easy bedfellows.

I nearly had one of those moments yesterday.

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As the spectre of winter bugs cast a shadow over Château Clèaver, a lot of the past few days has been spent within arm’s length of a remote control, looking for a quantum of solace1. It was to Glasgow I turned.

The logical next step was to turn those televisual experiences into an illuminating piece for Bounce subscribers. So that is what I attempted to do yesterday. It was full of zingers like “even the medal dais looks like it was bought at Look Sharp”, and continued with layers of snide on top of snoot.

And it was utterly pointless.

I didn’t think so at the time, obviously. I probably thought I was adding value to the discourse around whether there is a place for the Commonwealth Games in a post-colonial world.

MORE READING: Is 2026 the Commonwealth Games’ last dance or a future-proofing revamp?

The reason it never saw the light of day? I ran a few of those written thoughts past my spouse, who said words to the effect of:

“If there is a city willing to host the games and national federations happy to send teams, who cares whether it’s up to your standard or not.”

She was thoroughly enjoying watching athletes from countries she would struggle to find on a map wriggle their way from one end of a pool to the other and couldn’t have cared less if the (eye-strainingly small) timing clock on the screen was unlikely to flash up world records.

And she was right. Sometimes you need someone to tell you when your head has started to disappear up its own arse. The Commonwealth Games does not pretend to be the Olympics, nor even a Temu version. Instead, the jamboree represents a chance for the larger federations to provide international experience for their athletes, while most of the competitors from the smaller countries enjoy the thrill of a lifetime.

Also, I’ve attended a couple of Games (Melbourne ’06 and Delhi ’10) and was nowhere near as sniffy about them then, so to stoop to condescension from the safety of my couch would have been way cheaper than any of the venue fit-outs that Glasgow has scrimped on.

With the CTRL-A and DEL buttons successfully activated, it didn’t leave me with a lot to share, but I did run a quick thought exercise on stories and columns I wish I could have back. A few immediately sprang to mind. Top of the list in this exercise in self-flagellation were:

1. Capital Punishment. Thankfully no records exist of this mid- to late-90s Sunday News story, but I know and that’s enough. It was a story written to reflect the misery of sports supporters in Wellington who had crappy teams to follow. Hitting the newsstands on a Sunday morning, the NPC team went out that afternoon and thrashed Waikato (I think) in an upset. A charitable letters-to-the-editor writer noted that I had covered several sports in that week’s edition and it would be to the benefit of everybody if I put rugby to the side and never wrote of it again.

2. In a similar vein, during a Tuesday morning editorial meeting in the early days of the Herald on Sunday, I was asked by sports editor Paul Lewis to take a deep dive into the merits of Bangladesh remaining a full-member cricket nation after a string of awful results. Being not particularly enamoured of the assignment, I instead took the shallowest of dives and just keyboard-mouthed off about how useless they were. I knew they were playing a Tri-Series one-day match overnight in Cardiff against world champions Australia that would be finishing up as papers were being delivered to letterboxes and dairies, but what were the chances? It turned out that Australia’s blockbusting allrounder was thinking along similar lines to me. This is AI’s account of what happened that fateful night: “In June 2005, Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds was dropped from the team just hours before an ODI against Bangladesh in Cardiff after turning up heavily hungover and intoxicated from a late-night drinking session. ‘It’s only Bangladesh, a little bit of fizz won’t be a worry,’ he would later say of his thought process. Australia went on to suffer a historic and shocking five-wicket defeat.” A clever journalist would have at least fudged his intro to cover even the remotest of chances, right? Nah, here it is in all its gruesome infamy: By the time you read this Bangladesh would have once more been put through a ritual humiliation, this time at the hands of Australia. Oh dear lord. If you could see me now you’d know the cringe is still real. As a postscript, it should be noted that Bangladeshis are quite good at finding email addresses for obscure New Zealand journalists.

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Not your average Monday morning.

This was intended as a wrap of the All Blacks first international window under Dave Rennie following a mostly dominant 40-21 victory over Ireland. There is a bit to cover there, but that can wait.

The Fifa World Cup final was held in a sweltering concrete bowl of a stadium beside the Hackensack River, where vie…

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Being firmly of the belief that trying to draw significant conclusions from a home test against a nation that you have an 18-0 record against and points differential of 1039-185 is pointless, it seems better to focus on a single proposition:

Is Will Jordan the greatest professional-era try-scorer New Zealand has ever seen?

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That might seem like a given, seeing as how he became the first All Black to crack 50 test tries as he ran in a hattrick during the perfunctory 47-17 dismantling of Italy at the Cake Tin. But not so fast.

Numbers are always loud, but that doesn’t make them great storytellers.

There are various ways you can find yourself near the top of the charts that don’t necessarily make you the best at what you do. It can be longevity, it can be positional, it can be single-skill specific (for example, hookers that carry the ball at the end of a driving maul).

There is a difference between purity and proficiency.

To me, the greatest try-scorers have to be able to score a myriad of tries. They should be able to:

• Best defences on the outside with pace;

• Beat defenders on the inside with evasion;

• Bust tackles with power;

• Get on the end of kicks (occasionally your own);

• And, most magically, score tries from nothing.

Then there are the more nebulous factors, like scoring tries in the #BigMoments and possessing the ajna chakra, the all-seeing third eye that allows you the perception to see the field in a way that puts you in the right places to score.

When I think of New Zealand’s greatest modern try-scorers, I subconsciously mark them in the above categories so I thought, “Perhaps it’s time to consciously write out some of those thoughts.”

Here goes.

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Having digested much of the wash-up of the first Dave Rennie All Blacks Experience, it occurred to me that the first two rounds of the Nations Championship, including that two-point victory over a France team missing nine first-team regulars, is more a Rorschach test than a rugby test.

If you bought into the “optimistic” overuse syndrome, you saw a willingness to attack and the reluctance to resort to the box kick as proof positive the team is moving in the right direction. Through that same prism you could write off the sloppiness in skill execution and the disconnect on defence as teething troubles.

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That inkblot will look like rainbows and puppies.

In contrast, if you’re still a little a little over the coach-as-a-God fixation New Zealand rugby seems to have, you’ll have seen enough messiness against an understrength France team to reaffirm your belief it was never a Scott Robertson (or before him Ian Foster) problem but a talent-deficit issue.

That inkblot will look like rain clouds.

The France test should have been the centrepiece of the winter but their selection policy put paid to that and let’s not pretend that a match against an Italy side that was convincingly beaten by Japan is going to quicken the pulse. But it has sold out and that, you can only imagine, is largely down to the intrigue around the new direction of the All Blacks under Rennie. Wellington can be a hard sell at the best of times, so it’s nice to see the “Full House” signs out.

While not under the protection of a roof, the weather forecast looks stable enough to encourage the All Blacks to continue to develop a hyper-attacking style.

In that regard, it was slightly deflating to hear attack coach Mike Blair temper expectations.

“We think we’re dangerous with ball in hand and we can stress opposition with that,” Blair said. “We probably could have kicked a little bit more to have a bit more balance to the game.

“Kicking isn’t a negative thing. It can be used to break a game up, to create unstructured turnovers and counter-attack. We need to get the balance right with that.”

For lovers of the running game, the balance appeared just right in round one, but a quick perusal of the stats and you might be able to see where Blair is coming from.

The All Blacks kicked just 17 times in Christchurch. Only Fiji (15), in their disappointing loss to Wales, kicked fewer times. But perhaps what Blair is more specifically referencing is the contestable kick (including the dreaded and much-maligned box-kick), which was launched just three times by the All Blacks. Compare that to the world champion Springboks, who launched 20 contestable kicks, and you have two teams playing the same sport in totally contrasting ways.

Aside from the willingness of the All Blacks to run, the most glaring takeaway from the France game was the misreads on defence. No doubt pairing Jordie Barrett with his midfield partner at the Hurricanes, Billy Proctor, is a response to that.

That is the only real intrigue of a relatively predictable All Black side, though there is understandable excitement about Anton Segner’s first cap as his parents make their way from Frankfurt to witness him come off the bench.

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It has arrived, the rugby championship (no, not that Rugby Championship), that nobody knew they needed.

It’s the Nations Championship, North (minus Japan) versus South (plus Japan).

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Given the events of the past week, and in particular the garish spectacle that was the Ben Stokes retirement party, it seems like a lifetime since New Zealand’s talisman upped stumps. The contrast between how Kane Williamson bowed out and how the England captain left the game have already been highlighted, b…

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NZ 438 & 288 for 9d

England 354 & 212

NZ win by 160 runs; NZ win series 2-1

There was a scene, a small one, barely a vignette, at the conclusion of this magnificent third-test performance that summed up the past fortnight. There was Matt Henry, who would have dearly loved to take his place in the side but couldn’t, chatting to Daryl Mitchell, lagers at hand. Both waited a long time to establish themselves in this Black Caps’ side. Both have made up for lost time since. There were no microphones and probably only a vague awareness there might be cameras zoomed into their rooms. As they prepared to make their way to the presentations, Henry looked at his mate, fresh off one of the grittier centuries you’ll see, and said, “that was awesome”.

It didn’t matter if he was talking about Mitchell’s performance, which you suspect he was, or the performance of the squad across the series. Either way he was on point.

New Zealand were awesome. Often imperfect, frustratingly so at Lord’s, but awesome nonetheless.

This was never a series dominated by a superstar who took control and bent it to their will. It was a series of big moments, not big players. New Zealand grabbed more of them than England. Most satisfyingly, the moments were grabbed by a whole host of different players.

Some players, on balance, had a statistically average series, but their big moments were oversized — think, for example, Tom Latham failing in five out of six innings, yet really cashing in the one time he got a start, and captaining superbly on the frenetic fourth evening at Trent Bridge.

Even the bit-part contributors found a way to influence games. Ben Sears, the travelling reserve, struggled mightily in the first innings at Trent Bridge, then scored vital lower-order runs to guide Mitchell to his ton, mangled his finger in the process but got patched up enough to bowl a snorter to Ben Duckett to remove England’s most dangerous batter on stumps on the fourth day.

Moments.

This is not exhaustive, it can’t be, but here are my 1st XI of New Zealand-centric moments that have, in my sleep-deprived state, defined this series for me.

1. The ball hits the turf… rinse and repeat

Lord’s was a lottery. From ball one the pitch squatted and spat. It provided excessive lateral movement and, to compound matters, the test was played under leaden skies and often with the lights on, which assisted swing. Very good players looked like they were batting in blindfolds. In short, runs were like gold, and New Zealand let England get far too many of them by grassing simple chances. Harry Brook and Duckett were both dropped early on the way to useful scores as Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra had fielding matches to forget.

2. Nate announces himself

Among the wreckage at Lord’s, Nathan Smith announced himself as a critical component of New Zealand’s medium-term future (never pays to look too far ahead with fast bowlers). During the bulk of his five previous tests he had looked bustling but limited, but the helpful conditions and a six-wicket bag seemed to put a little extra puff in that chest. He needs more runs if he is going to bat at No 8, but player-of-the-series Smith is a wonderful fielder and has that uncoachable quality of being a cricketer where things tend to ‘happen’ around him. It seemed fitting that the last act of the series ended with the ball in his hands, having laid out at long-on to dismiss Jamie Smith (60), off Mitchell Santner (2-54).

3. The Big Night Out

One of the defining moments of New Zealand’s series occurred at a private club they’d quite probably never heard of. When Ben Stokes and Gus Atkinson decided to kick their first test celebrations up a notch by heading to Chelsea’s Rex Rooms, it set off a chain reaction that saw three England debutants appear at The Oval, and another two with just one test each. Mind you, New Zealand were missing someone themselves...

4. Goodbye to the Steadier of Ships

“I stand here to announce my retirement from international cricket and am happy to take questions from you all.” So said Kane Williamson, New Zealand’s greatest batter and a towering figure in the country’s cricket history. Some of us do have lingering questions, including poet and writer Tim Grgec, who has written a piece for The Bounce that will feature later this week and who concedes to feeling “quietly abandoned” by his BoP-ite contemporary. Whatever the motivations for Williamson deciding to call it a day mid-series, it left a 9500 runs-sized-hole in the New Zealand batting line-up. It also left an opportunity for Latham’s captaincy mana to grow without his most reliable sounding board. In one of those weird anomalies that is almost certainly coincidence, some of the Black Caps’ greatest test moments in recent history have come with Williamson absent, including the 2021 series-winning victory at Edgbaston and, of course, the 3-0 series win in India.

5. GP’s big flex

Having lost the toss and been inserted, New Zealand found themselves at a tenuous 188 for 5 when Glenn Phillips walked to the crease. That he was last man out for an even 100 with the total a match-high 391 only tells a fraction of the story. New Zealand’s best batter at Lord’s counterpunched brilliantly, first with Tom Blundell (51) and then with Kyle Jamieson (41) on a chaotic second morning.

The real theatre came at the fall of Blundell’s wicket on the first night, when a rampant Jofra Archer entered the scene and unleashed hell. At one point Phillips went to the sunglasses to try to see the ball better in London’s crepuscular light. It was an unscripted scene from a coming-of-age sports movie, as he ducked and swayed and found a way to keep New Zealand in the game. The creator of cameos went feature-length.

6. Nicholls’ finds a wholesome three-way

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NZ 438 & 288 for 9d

England 354 & 103 for 4

Has anything happened since “Notes” last came to you?

What a bonkers test. We’re still not certain how history will judge it, but regardless of whether the Roundheads or the Cavaliers prevail tonight and into tomorrow, let’s try to put some context around the madness. I won’t belabour each point because unless weather intervenes, and it shouldn’t (see below), there will be a collective big winner and loser from this series to dig into tomorrow.

1. If Daryl Mitchell was English, his innings would be written up as the greatest feat of physical and mental endurance since Shackleton. As it was, his gritty century will barely warrant a sidebar — but dammit, he’s getting lead billing here.

Mitchell’s performances in England have been extraordinary. As you can see on the stats below, his overall (or unfiltered) batting numbers are very, very good, whereas his numbers in England (filtered) are ludicrous.

In truth, they’re anomalous. Most players have a stat or two that signals a red flag to the auditors and Mitchell is not that good, but there is something about batting in England that brings out the best in him and I suspect it is that England’s players really don’t like him — and if Mitchell loves one thing it’s being in the fight.

On the last tour to England, the Birth of Bazball, the stump mics picked up the England players constantly chirping Mitchell for batting selfishly, a charge that seemed pretty asinine at the time and hasn’t aged any better.

This time they seemed almost performative in their refusal to check on his wellbeing every time he got pinned, which was often. Even when he shuffled into a bouncer from Gus Atkinson, Ben Duckett was the only one who appeared inclined to make a welfare check. Ben Stokes just winced from mid-off.

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Mitchell is an abrasive character, a cricketer of jagged edges and sharp retorts. You can easily imagine him prickling the skin of sensitive types but there was common decency and respect that appeared to go missing.

Because that innings, if nothing else, warranted enormous respect. It was ugly, man it was ugly, and across the third evening and fourth morning, Mitchell was making batting look so difficult I briefly landed on the idea that he was playing one of the more elaborate rope-a-dope ruses since the great man himself. But whereas Ali let Foreman rain down blows upon him, you can be pretty sure that Mitchell would have preferred not to have been cracked on both elbows, his helmet and multiple fingers, and beaten outside off stump more times than one can tally on their digits.

It was six-and-a-half hours of grit.

It was unquestionably his worst century; it was almost certainly his best century.

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NZ 361 for 4

There’s not a world we should live in where the team batting first in the deciding test of a drama-filled series watches two players who have struggled for runs score classic centuries, and finishes the day with less than half their wickets lost and more than 350 runs on the board and feels a little… deflated?

And yet here we are.

Two wickets on what turned out to be the final two balls of day one at Trent Bridge did not tilt the balance of power away from New Zealand, but it did take a little bit of the shine off what had been one of the great days in the country’s long history of touring the Mother Country.

1. The portents weren’t great. Those tuning in for the anthems could have been forgiven for thinking they may have stumbled onto the wrong channel as Ben Sears, Blair Tickner and Mitchell Santner (a chance to play even if injury hadn’t dictated terms) took their place in the line-up.

Matt Henry, the bowling hero of The Oval, was missing, his calf strained. Glenn Phillips, a batting hero of The Oval, was missing, his side strained. Kyle Jamieson was missing, his loads carefully managed following years of injury struggles.

The selectors treated each as straight swaps — Santner for Phillips, Tickner for Jamieson and Sears for Henry — and who knows, it might end up being a final-day blessing to have a frontline spinner to exploit what should be a sunburnt wicket.

That will be covered in later “Notes”, what is far more pressing is to celebrate…

2. The Tom and Dev Show. If you were inclined to dish out lumps of coal for Christmas gifts you might point out that it would be nice if they every so often didn’t score their runs in clumps together, but if this 317-run partnership provides the bedrock for a series victory in England they can keep failing and succeeding in simpatico for the rest of their careers and you’ll get few complaints here.

This was warm-the-cockles viewing. Latham survived an early piece of luck when Ben Stokes moved third slip to second gully the ball before he nicked one where third slip was, and Conway survived his customary period of stiff-limbed uncoordination to flourish under the belting Nottingham sun.

Latham’s tempo was excellent. He went to 50 off 65, 100 off 149 and 150 off 210. He never looked hurried.

The most surprising thing for me was his celebration upon reaching his century. It was uncharacteristically demonstrative, arms aloft the moment he clipped Stokes fine and a full length-of-the-wicket cellie. Perhaps it was equalling the great Martin Crowe’s 17 tons, maybe it was because it was his first against the Big Three overseas (and just second overall), or maybe he was feeling the pinch after a lean tour. Whatever the reason it was nice to see the normally phlegmatic Latham look like he’d struck the Powerball jackpot.

Latham is normally phlegmatic, Conway is always enigmatic. Whereas Latham looked comfortable in his game plan and method from the start, Conway’s first 50 runs were a struggle… well, I say that, but then go and look some of the square drives early, and especially at the back cuts he played to go from 39 to 43 and 45 to 49 and you’re just left shaking your head and going, “Wow, that’s just beautiful and definitely worth butchering another night of sleep for.”

What was not a struggle was Conway purring from 100 to 150 in 36 balls.

There will be fair criticism of him holing out so soon after Latham departed, but the aggression was at least somewhat justified. Conway was ‘feeling’ it and with the new ball due in a few overs, this was a great chance to make hay against a part-timer. It didn’t come off , but that was much easier to stomach than what happened later.

3. The modern player scoffs at antediluvian notions, such as “batting out for stumps”. And even though I grew up in an era when the idea that you shouldn’t risk your wicket with at least 20 minutes to go to stumps was no more to be challenged than the idea that you shouldn’t swim after eating, cricket is a much better game for these conventions being challenged.

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NZ 391 & 362

ENGLAND 291 & 202

NZ won by 253 runs

On behalf of the body clocks and circadian rhythms of New Zealand cricket fans, we salute you Matt Henry. As the Black Caps were no doubt preparing to sup on a few Theakston Old Peculiers around the corner at the Prince of Wales, we were delighting in the prospect of a relatively early night.

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There isn’t a lot to add from yesterday. New Zealand were fantastic in all aspects of this test, leaving the series beautifully poised as they board a bus to take them up the M1 to Nottingham.

England took advantage of lottery-like conditions at Lord’s to win comfortably, whereas New Zealand took advantage of their opponent’s off-field turmoil to win handsomely at The Oval. On both occasions the team losing the toss won.

1. Henry’s performance just reiterated how badly the 100 percent version of him was missed at Lord’s. Both Glenn Phillips and Henry Nicholls made brilliant and gritty contributions with the bat, but it was Henry’s combination with Tom Blundell that was the critical factor at The Oval.

Henry’s transformation from back-up to “weapon” is covered here. It includes this nugget.

It was a remarkable individual performance which capped a four-year period that has seen Henry emerge as New Zealand’s attack leader and lay claim to being one of the world’s leading fast bowlers. Since the start of 2022, Henry has taken 115 wickets in 21 Tests at an average of 19.53; only Jasprit Bumrah has taken as many at a better average (17.67).

New Zealand swept Pakistan at home in 2021 to officially qualify for the World Test Championship final. Henry played the last of those two tests, replacing the broken-toed Neil Wagner. At the conclusion of the Hagley Oval test, in which he took a solitary wicket, his average stood at 51.55 after 13 tests.

He was statistically one of the worst bowlers in the world. We knew this wasn’t true.

He’s now rated as one of the best in the world. We know this is true.

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Two competing ideas can stand in stark contrast to each other and both, somehow, be right.

For example:

1. That was an incredible Super Rugby final. The Hurricanes defied the dreadful conditions and the weight of the occasion to play the type of breathless, inventive rugby that will win fans back to a game they have long since box-kicked to the backblocks of their sporting consciousness.

2. That was a dreadful final, the biggest sporting mismatch since Brett Lee bowled an over to Piers Morgan in the MCG nets, but without the humour. The Chiefs were overwhelmed, their big names either anonymous or awful, and if they arrived in the capital with any fight it went missing between the airport and the Cake Tin.

Take your pick, or find some happy middle ground.

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As a quasi-neutral, it felt gratifying that the Hurricanes’ attacking approach this season was rewarded, so there was a bit of trepidation when the players ran out to the sight of the corner posts in recumbent state due to the high winds.

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