Forget the numbers for a second. Disregard the bells and the whistles, turn off the hype machine and pay no mind to professional sport’s reliance on artifice, writes 1News sports presenter and commentator Scotty Stevenson.
Resist the spoon-fed prime time stadium soft serve and grab a double scoop of the regions instead.
This is where the real rugby is still played, and there was plenty of it on show over the weekend.
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The provinces. They are the flies in the ointment, the squeak in the wheel. Big Brand Rugby has been trying to shake them for years, but they just won’t go away.
They are the itch that can’t be scratched, the road cones on New Zealand Rugby’s highway to private equity’s promised land.
The head office boffins are convinced the schools and the Super Clubs should be taking care of the talent while the provincial unions worry about, I dunno, sausage sizzles and volunteer referees, presumably.
Yet, here we are, trying to comprehend a weekend in which the Heartland Championship hosted its semifinals in far flung places that Silver Lake execs would struggle find on a map, and the NPC showcased four fabulous quarterfinals, all of which — barring a big brother bullying of Tasman by Canterbury — could have gone the other way.
Storylines wrote themselves, which is a good thing because the sports media world is fast running out of people employed to write them.
You don’t have to be much of a history buff, for instance, to know Waikato and Taranaki don’t much like each other. Once upon a time, the two provinces boasted the country’s largest dairy co-ops, before the two scrapped their way to agreement and formed Fonterra.
It was a competitive farming landscape in the 80s and 90s, and it was brutal on the park, too. Just as it was on Saturday in a match framed by the unfinished stands of Yarrow’s Stadium. Waikato won by a point, leaving the Bulls to finish their shield celebrations unencumbered by another title quest, and Neil Barnes swearing under his breath.
Wellington welcomed back a platoon of All Blacks and set about exacting revenge on Counties-Manukau for a round robin defeat. It was easy to forget the Steelers lost their first four games of the season and scored 169 points in their last four to claw their way into the playoffs.
They had put 50 points on the Lions at the end of September but didn’t quite have enough left in the tank on Friday night. In what was a more enthralling contest than the scoreline suggests, the old and the new both looked the goods with TJ Perenara and Cam Roigard both scoring tries.
The Battle of the Bays has become quite the match up in recent years. On the line, who gets to call themselves THE Bay for the rest of the season. That may sound like some kind of hokey provincial nonsense to those who live in the big smoke, but don’t underestimate what that means to the players.
Bay of Plenty is now THE Bay after somehow orchestrating a push over try in the 79th minute of the match. Actually that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has watched the Steamers’ lineout operate this year, but even so: What drama! A week after claiming the John Drake Boot against the Aucklanders (and a post-season without Auckland? Does that not say plenty about where the real engine room of the game remains?) here they are in the semifinals.
Which brings us to Trafalgar Park and a Canterbury side that was humbled 65-19 by North Harbour two games ago, somehow found a way to destroy the Mako 62-14, which is just the kind of ridiculousness I and everyone else (excepting folks from Marlborough and Nelson Bays) are here for.
The fact Tasman, a side that has been a tone setter for attack all season long could only manage 14 points from two Havilis and an Aumua is one of the more extraordinary occurrences you’ll encounter this season.
But why stop in the regional centres, when you can take a trip to Cook’s Gardens, and Owen Delaney Park, and Alpine Energy Stadium, and Levin-Da-Vida-Loca? Yes, the Heartland semifinals were the stars of the provincial show. The Swamp Foxes took down the Butcher Boys and King Country sent he Wiwi Nati back to the East Coast, but it was the two one-point victories that screamed, ‘look at us!’
In Levin, West Coast took down Horowenua-Kapiti by one point, which is fabulous on many levels, not least of which being there were 103 points in the match. Yes, the final score: 52-51, which is both exceptional value for money for the patrons and patently ludicrous as a result.
West Coast, for those less boned up in the storied and critical history of provincial rugby, last year became the last provincial union to win a national title. Can you imagine the trip back to Greymouth should they take down King Country this weekend?
And then, the story of the round, and how many great stories have emerged from Timaru? Phar Lap, Jack Lovelock, Tom Walsh, Dick Tayler, Danyon Loader, Penny Hunt! Add to that list the mighty men of Mid! The MC Hammers! They came down the highway from Ashvegas and ended the South Canterbury’s win streak at 39. Head Coach Matt Winter was apparently a stickler for the schedule after the victory, maintaining the historic two-stop only busso back to ‘Burton.
There is nowhere in the world that can boast an eight-game playoff script like this. There is nowhere in the world that can tap into the richness of the personalities and the breadth of the towns and places on show. There is nowhere in the world that can say they have competitions like New Zealand provincial rugby does. And I hope that counts for something, because there was a time when it was everything.
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