In this week's newsletter, Scotty discusses what comes next for Crusaders Coach Rob Penney, a surprisingly good game of cricket between the USA and Canada, and the mysterious disappearance of Football Ferns head coach Jitka Klimkova.
Crusaders CEO coy on Penney's future
There was more than a touch of irony during the Crusaders’ post-season press conference yesterday when club CEO Colin Mansbridge refused to endorse head coach Rob Penney’s tenure with the club, despite having a year remaining on his contract.
Penney, who was handed the role for two years after Scott Robertson’s ascension to the All Blacks’ head coach position, has endured plenty of scrutiny this year. As the performance leader of an organisation that has enjoyed unrivalled success in this competition, that scrutiny is part of the job. It’s just not a lot of fun, I guess, when your team is putting up club records for all the wrong reasons.
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Penney’s reaction to questioning from 1News' Thomas Mead ahead of the penultimate round robin match (the team’s record at that point, 2-10) was widely reported, and 1News digital sports reporter Patrick McKendry wondered if that exchange was evidence enough the club would soon move on from their head coach.
Earlier in the season, Manbridge said calls for Penney to be replaced were “childish” and Penney himself said his relationship with the executive was “honest and fully supportive”. Well, life comes at you fast, as they say. On Sunday in Christchurch, the CEO could do little more than quote the employee relations handbook, saying: “We’ll do a review. We’ll make sure it’s a quality review.”
Aaron Jones shines in opening match. Aaron who?
OK, admit it. USA opening the ICC T20 World Cup against Canada in Texas was probably not on your list of must-see sports events this weekend but if you didn’t tune in, you missed one heck of a knock from Aaron Jones, the New York-born top order batter who clubbed ten sixes on his way to a match-winning 94* off just 40 deliveries.
Having scored 195 in their dig, the Canadians had the home side in all sorts at 45-2 after eight overs of the chase but this is a world cup, in Texas, and strange things are likely to happen. They did. Nikhil Dutta chucked a rank full toss over Andries Gous’ head to start the ninth over, and nine deliveries later finished the over, at a cost of 19 runs.
That wasn’t the worst over. That was the 14th, bowled by Jeremy Gordon and featuring 3 wides, 2 no balls, 3 sixes and 2 fours. Oh, and a review for caught behind. All up, Gordon’s ten balls conceded 33 runs and at that stage the US victory was assured.
Jones and Gous (131 runs) set a record for run rates in century partnerships at T20 world cups, theirs coming in at 14.29 runs per over. It was an extraordinary display and a buoyant crowd at Grand Prairie Stadium certainly looked like they were enjoying themselves.
More than Jeremy Gordon, anyway.
Chiefs lose match, Blues lose momentum
Tiny margins. If there were ever two words used more than any other to describe finals rugby, it is those. Tiny margins are the difference between rolling away or conceding a penalty, between stealing the lineout or defending the maul, between being penalised for not meaning to decapitate a halfback or being stood down for three weeks for intentionally decapitating a halfback. Different days, different outcomes, I guess.
The point is, the Blues had a chance to secure home advantage all the way to the Super Rugby final and squandered it as the Chiefs finished fast in a losing effort at Eden Park. No wonder the Blues looked deflated afterward. That top spot is the regular season’s ultimate prize, and after taking a step backward against the Crusaders last week, this was a team that looked like it had rediscovered its mojo against the competition’s most frustratingly erratic club.
It was not to be, and that will play on the minds of the Blues as they prepare for their quarter-final against the Drua on Saturday night. There are members of this Blues team who remember finishing top of the table in 2022, only to have the Crusaders roll up to Eden Park and beat them 21-7 in the final. They beat them in all the small moments. They beat them in the tiny margins.
The Chiefs had absolutely nothing tangible to play for at Eden Park on Saturday night. Their place on the table was secure, their quarter-final opponent (the Reds) already locked in place. And yet, they still wanted to create their own merry mischief in the stretch. The Blues were 31-7 up. They buttoned off, and allowed two tries in the final 12 minutes (including the last, costly one with 10 seconds left on the clock) and that can’t happen again this year if they want to call themselves champions.
All the noise that's fit to print
It’s been mercifully quiet on the administrative brouhaha desk since Thursday’s NZR Special General Meeting, during which a majority of voting members opted to do governance change their way. I say mercifully because there sure was a lot of noise last week, and most of it from Players’ Union boss Rob Nichol who has become the self-styled go-to man on all things NZR business and governance (despite not having a vote at the table and, as one sage correspondent noted to me, “probably because he picks up his phone”) and was a constant voice in the lead-up to the vote and in the immediate aftermath.
Nichol campaigned vociferously (via email, radio, television, open letter, and the requisite special guest appearance from R. McCaw) for the unions to adopt the full recommendations of the Pilkington Report, commissioned at Nichol’s demand in exchange for the Players’ Union supporting the really awful Silver Lake deal, but not the truly horrendous one. The unions – at least two-thirds of them – backed an altered proposal, and succeeded.
For now at least.
The events of last week require further study but change is coming to New Zealand Rugby, even if it’s not the change Nichol wanted. Nichol was unequivocal in his claim the NZRPA would not support a board elected under the unions’ plan. The chairwoman of NZR, Dame Patsy Reddy, said she would resign if that plan was passed. Dame Patsy is currently on leave, while Nichol had toned down his rhetoric by Friday.
Most of Nichol’s claims, ultimatums, and statements of disappointment have gone unchallenged publicly, but one claim that “the big loser today is the community game and the grass roots” strikes me as particularly disingenuous. The community game may build future members of the NZRPA, but what the NZRPA have done to foster it and halt its decline is unclear.
This saga is far from over but for now, there appears to be a brief ceasefire.
Football fails to front on Ferns coaching fracas
So, all we know is Football Ferns head coach Jitka Klimkova has taken a leave of absence while an investigation into an "employment-related matter" takes place. OK then, New Zealand Football – I guess that’s all we, or anybody else, needs to know.
Come on! This is a national sporting organisation with ties to government funding that purports to represent the nation at the highest level of competition and its flagship women’s team is currently playing in Spain, preparing for the Olympics, while its head coach, having recently been handed a contract extension, is nowhere to be seen.
Football fans deserve better than this. New Zealand Football stated that no further comment will be made by "officials, players or staff" until the matter is concluded. Reading between the lines, one would have to assume that plenty of officials, players, and staff know exactly what is going on here, which is more than we do.
I understand the right to privacy, but New Zealand Football must undertake also to be open and transparent about these events at some point – and preferably sooner rather than later. The situation reminds one of the Dew Report into New Zealand hockey, specifically the Black Sticks Women’s team and then coach Mark Hager. The report was commissioned, and then summarily buried by Hockey New Zealand, with support from a few friends in high places. This cannot happen again.
THE WEEK AHEAD AND WHAT TO WATCH FOR
Ryan Fox remains in the hunt for a maiden PGA Tour victory but will rue a third-round tumble that saw him drop a four-shot lead and finish in a tie for second, four shots off the pace. Fox is an enigmatic performer and if he can shake that off, he will very much be in contention this morning.
The Super Rugby quarter-finals hopefully get some of the rugby headlines this week, after a season during which the boardroom shenanigans have again overshadowed the on-field action. Most intriguing will be the fan reaction with the Hurricanes taking a leaf out of the Wahs’ handbook and offering $10 tickets for kids.
Decisions, decisions for Warriors coach Andrew Webster this week as a number of players re-enter the selection fold after time on the injury list. The team put together a special fortnight of performances ahead of the bye, and with Origin One set to hog the headlines, Webster will have time to think through his first-choice team.
It’s a fairly eclectic mix of first-round matches at the ICC T20 world cup, with New Zealand having a week to wait before they begin their campaign against Afghanistan in Guyana. In the meantime take your pick between Namibia v Oman, or the West Indies v Papua New Guinea.
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