“Netball has been losing market share in the ‘blood thirsty suburban nana’ demographic to league and UFC,” said NZ Netball marketing manager Suzuki Swift. “The rugby cross-pollination has flipped that around – we’ve gained  great traction with our ‘spunky chicks smashing into each other’ promotional strategy. I’m totally confident rolling mauls will take it to the next level.”

Reports that Australia’s Melbourne Vixens was spotted practising spear tackles at training this week were unconfirmed.

At one stage, we were playing sublime football, all wingers, full backs, overlapping runs, tasty balls through the middle (ooo-er) and goals going in all over the place. We were also genuinely challenging for the league. Or so we told ourselves. And anyway – the beauty of being in the top three for the first  three quarters of the season was that surely, surely, if we messed up, at least we could fall back on Champions League qualification for next year.

Right?

Um, this is Tottenham, haven’t you been paying attention? The two Big Distractions came mid season. First came the ‘is Harry Redknapp a dodgy geezer?’ court case, to apparently no effect. The players rallied around and continued winning. But then, on the day Harry was found not guilty, Fabio Capello flounced out (if you can flounce out in a car) of the England job. All of a sudden the newly-not-dodgy ‘Arry was the popular choice for England. And Spurs began crapping themselves.

The slide was painful. Whenever Tottenham start doing well, I’m bracing myself for the inevitable failure. THIS SEASON, for the FIRST TIME, I’d finally come to terms with us being a Proper Team, a team that wouldn’t just inexplicably fold in a Tottenham-like matter when it really counted. But slide we did. Second. Third. Fourth. FIFTH. Jesus wept.

Somehow, we kind of turned it around toward the end, and clung on to fourth. If it wasn’t for WBA’s second choice keeper throwing the ball into the net three times against Arsenal, we would have wrapped up third and a definite champions league spot on the last day, but we should have wrapped up third (at least) months ago. We only had ourselves to blame.

And so, our fate was in Chelsea’s hands. The veterans Terry, Lampard, Drogba, all tackles, dirty tackles, painful OTT goal celebrations, referee abuse and loathsomeness beyond reasonable levels had one last chance to get that European trophy their owner has been so desperate to buy. But against Bayern? In Munich? Surely they’d have no chance.

Right?

Again, this is Tottenham.

I worked myself into an epic frenzy on the Twitter but sadly, it had no effect on the outcome. Chelsea, with their football-free style took it, in the most painful fashion you can imagine if their success was the difference between your team making the Champions League next year. It was awful.

And so, we’re out of (proper) Europe, and I expect it’ll be a very long off season. Some Spurs fans have turned on Harry after his flirtation with England. Modric and Bale will no doubt be linked with every top Italian or Spanish club, and may well go. I don’t have a clever way to finish this, it’s been a harrowing, frankly. As Ali G said, there is a high, but there is also a low. I’d love to be optimistic that we’ll build on what we have now, but you know, this is Tottenham. Let’s see who’s still there next season.

Picking up the steed for the weekend

So when I was offered the chance to drive a Honda Insight for the weekend by Honda New Zealand as part of their Business Insight challenge, I thought “finally, here’s my chance to do a sweet Clarkson-style car review. Yinnow, pick up a car, hoon around in it, then write some witty shit about it. I didn’t know I’d always wanted to do this, until now”.

Unfortunately for me and my Hamilton right foot, burnouts were pretty much off the menu. The challenge (against other Telco types) was to bring the hybrid Honda back with the most fuel efficient score I could. When I arrived at Honda’s Newmarket branch, Peter (who is a lovely man) talked me through the Insight’s control panel. There’s numerous cunning ways to show how much gas I used, including a kind of glowing orb that throbs green when you drive like Metiria Turei, and throbs blue when you drive like a bogan. As I set off into Friday rush hour traffic, my eyes hovered between the road and the panel, as it told me second by second if I was using petrol, no petrol or charging the battery.

On Saturday, after a quick child-seat install (there are child seat bolts and side bars, safety fans), we went for a weekend drive from East Coast Bays along the Riverhead highway. Turns out it was possibly the worst road I could possibly have taken, its twists and turns were poison to the economical driver. I did myself no favours on the way home either, when I explained to my co-driver that I owed it to myself to plant the foot just the once. I did, and the car went forwards faster than it had before, but kind of slowly, like a hungover thirty-something creaking out of bed.

But that’s OK – you wouldn’t buy this car because you wanted to mix it up with the kids at the traffic lights. It’s a modern, well-put-together economical car. Would I buy one? Maybe. It’s like owning a good, solid golf umbrella. Yes, it’ll do its job and do it really well, but would the 16 year-old-you have reckoned you’d end up as the kind of guy who REALLY APPRECIATED the pleasures of an umbrella? Not very rock ‘n’ roll, is it? The Honda Insight is a car for grown ups, proper ones, that want the right tool for the economical car around town job – it’s perfect for that.

As for the competition, it was the Constellation Drive motorway on-ramp that killed me. I had to negotiate it and the bumper to bumper traffic on the morning I had to return the car to Newmarket. At the bottom of the on ramp my ‘economy score’ was 5.1. By the time I’d crawled to the top of the hill, apparently braking and accelerating in a more gas-guzzling manner than the Dukes Of Hazzard, I was on 5.5. Gutted. Careful negotiation of the harbour bridge and spaghetti junction took me to 5.4, mid-table in the competition.

I’m happy with that. I’ll take my rock ‘n’ roll where I can get it these days.

That said, sportreview.net.nz is a keen student of the football fans crying genre, and when the two Manchester teams went head to head in full final-day-championship-dramageddon, there was bound to be some tasty crying action for the neutral.

0-0, 22 mins in. I wonder if this City ginger is this kid all growds up?

As an aside, there certainly seems to be a connection between gingers, with all their comedy awkwardness / unrequited longing for fulfilment / susceptibility to sunburn / appeal to bullies and Manchester City fans. At least this one isn’t prepared to take any shit.

1-0 City. All the hurt built up over the long glory-barren years being is released like a tennis ball can being opened in an explosion of beer-guts and dry humping in the stands at this stage.

1-2 QPR. Not going well. No-one waving an inflatable. Mass head clasping and looking around like a bus passenger trying to avoid eye contact is the form.

News of QPR’s goals filters through to Sunderland, sparking happy-head-clasping and hope against hope. Could this development mean an against-the-odds premiership win for Man U?

Spoiler alert: no.

And here we have the money shot – an honest to goodness crying fan, with bonus head-clasping. What is going through this mostly grown man’s mind as he sheds tears in public? The thought of facing his paper round mates on Monday without a championship trophy? The pain from his freshly-inked Man City Champions 2012 tattoo? The realisation that his cape won’t actually allow him to fly? Relief from years of hurt dangled within reach about to slip away in a hilarious-for-everyone-else scenario? I hope he went out and got very drunk, if he was able to sneak into a pub.

Still, for all the sniping by a barely-read, poorly written sports blog from New Zealand, at least City, even after spending all that money, sealed the deal and won a premiership, and avoiding adding the 2011/12 title challenge to the Man City pantheon of comedy gold. That is some pressure to cope with, fair play to them.

All screen captures from this BBC report – recommended viewing.

Appointing rugby coaches to coach the Blues has been done before – they’ve had no joy with this rag tag bunch of talented players, who’ve promised much every pre-season and inevitably underperformed, apart from when they won it and that. But that was ages ago. JK hasn’t signed a contract for next year yet; sportreview.net.nz reckons NZ’s biggest city should explore all its options. Like these:

Option one: Some kind of southern man

sportreview.net.nz is envisaging a weather-beaten, grizzled old man with a beard and oilskin jacket sitting quietly in the Blues dressing room, watching as the players come in, listen to dub step on massive headphones, make plans for getting shitfaced in the Viaduct that night and mess around with their hair.

When everyone quiets down, the southern-man-coach would stand up, say nothing for 35 minutes, quietly mutter “soft Auckland wankers” and walk out, never to be seen again. The Blues players would think about what he said, realise the errors of their city-living ways and go on to win every game and the championship. Somehow.

Option two: Kim Dot Com

sportreview.net.nz was unaware of its obligation, like all NZ media or websites, to link the Megaupload supremo to every story or issue, ever, but is putting this right now.

Pros:
Offers a wide variety of transport options to games and that. Has international experience. Could probably record some kind of awesome rap track to get the public on side if results start to go against him.

Cons:
May be jail-based for the 2013 season. Mates with Banksy. Unable to use the internet (arguably a pro, considering how upset Pat Lam got about it).

Option three: Twitter

Watching any sporting event in New Zealand in modern times is an exercise in juggling your remote control, beer and smartphone and keeping up with the witty online repartee while managing your life partner / wife asking what the hell you’re doing on your phone all the time situation.

New Zealand’s ‘online’ ‘community’ is CHOCK A BLOCK with highly developed rugby expertise, that happens on the fly, in real time. The only reason these guys aren’t coaching the Blues or the All Blacks RIGHT NOW is simply a combination of having to do stupid day jobs and bad luck.

So – to harness this rugby hive mind, call plays and decide who gets subbed off, all we need to do is set up a hashtag and let the magic happen. Tweet #bluescoach to have your very own instructions carried out by a guy with a headpiece and an iPad, be it “smash him!” or “get that winger to pull his finger out of his arse!” or “give up, just walk off right now!”. Opposition players will be banned from tweeting instructions during matches.

Option four: A mime

Yes, the situation at the Blues is bad, and needs a serious overhaul, fast. I feel for Pat Lam, a capable coach that fronts when things are going wrong, but let’s call a spade a spade – the Blues’ 2012 season has been a delight for the neutral. With that hoary old myth that when Auckland rugby is strong, New Zealand rugby is strong out of the way, we’ve all felt pretty comfortable laughing at the Blues, and had a great time. The only I can think of to improve on this season’s comedy factor is to put a mime in charge. On the face of it, they couldn’t do much worse.

Wright, part of NZ’s successful 80s side and most recently coach of the champion Indian team, was a popular choice to coach the side, but his working relationship with goggle-eyed freak Buchanan was marked by tension. “I need to be careful what I say here, but the guy’s a wanker,” said Wright. “KPI this and brain-map that. In my day, players played, coaches coached, and director of cricket was only something Paddles Hadlee went on about when he was drunk. We all thought he was hallucinating and dead-armed him on the bowling arm until he shut up.”

NZ’s recent coaching regime has been marked with turmoil, with Andy Moles, Mark Greatbach and Daniel Vettori all taking turns in the hot seat in recent years, and South African legend Allan Donald joining, then leaving the Black Caps coaching staff. “I think we had a good fifteen minutes there when everything was going great – admittedly, bringing in a Australian control freak with cold, dead eyes during the ‘going great’ window may have lead to a negative value spiral output, but I’m confident that feedback will be raised in our yearly review cycle. We’ve got robust systems in place,” said White.

In a series of increasingly comedic outbursts, Henry told a Hawke’s Bay dinner audience how close he’d come to drinking wine and smoking marijuana in the south of France, described English rugby officials as ‘fucking arseholes’ at a corporate engagement and gave a powerpoint presentation on new All Black coach Steve Hansen’s farting and early morning ablutions to a South Canterbury high school rugby prizegiving.

Asked for comment, Henry said: “Tremendous. Just marvellous. Tremendous. Marvellous,” and laughed for five or six minutes before the line went dead.

All Blacks Doctor Deb Robinson said “Letting off steam when you’ve been under immense pressure is natural, and he should stop cackling when it feels right to him, even if that’s several years away. If the rugby public sees Graham wandering the streets laughing un-supervised, the best thing people can do is wrap him lightly but firmly in a blanket, put him in a Corporate Cab and send him to NZRFU HQ in Wellington.”

Asked if a tired and emotional ex-All Black coach with a microphone was a PR risk, NZRFU CEO Steve Tew said “Ted is a professional, and we trust his judgement. However, we would to see Ted transition public appearances from ‘public speaking’ and ‘interviews’ to a ‘trips to the dairy’ or ‘boat ramp’ space, but I’m sure we can come to an arrangement.”

Speaking of which, ‘they’ ‘say’ that when Auckland rugby is strong, New Zealand rugby is strong – but when Auckland rugby is a shambles worse than an unsupervised Ali Williams press conference, it is very, very funny indeed. Enhancing a team more interested in haircuts and swaggering with the Hurricanes Two may have seemed like a fantastic idea last year, but looks as smart as a broccoli milkshake now. Chief exec Andy Dalton has been merrily piling on the pressure in the media to no effect (unless he wanted them to get worse, in which case he’s a genius), while Pat Lam unfortunately can’t get his players to respond. Once again,  the city with possibly the richest rugby resources in the world is performing like a glue stick in a tournament they should be winning regularly.

Meanwhile, down south the Highlanders have looked bloody solid, mainly due to ‘Jamie Josergetics’, a brutal pre-season training regime involving head coach-administered tough love up and down Baldwin Street, contract pre-dawn ultra-violence scarfie flat inspection work for Dunedin landlords and the ‘Undie 500′, where the loser of a beep test is forced to eat 500 pairs of underpants. That kind of shit can either draw a team together or explode them apart, but under Joseph’s watchful eye, everyone is too terrified to explode. Meanwhile, the Crusaders are doing exactly what the Crusaders do, winning games in the first part of the season, before winning games in the second part of the season, with the twin boosts of a new stadium in Christchurch and a false eye gouge allegation to make them angry.

sportreview.net.nz’s biggest disappointment this season has been the Hurricanes – after last season’s high comedy both on the field and online, sportreview.net.nz was expecting fireworks, walk outs, tweet outs and dreadlocks grown in Hurricanes Two solidarity. Turns out they’re actually going pretty well under Mark Hammett, his famous Crusaders-style ‘work’ ‘ethic’ means winning games instead of picking up  the ‘best laughing stock’ gong.

In the Tron, the razzle dazzle One Direction midfield paring of Kahui and Williams are only part of the story, with the young up and comners like Robinson, Nanai-Williams and Kerr-Barlow providing more excitement than the General Lee turning up on Hood Street on a Friday night. Every mum’s favorite man child Aaron Cruden is looking more man than child, assuredly guiding the Chiefs to the top of the table. Pre-season, the Chiefs’ biggest question mark was their forward pack, which they’ve answered with a fuckin’ awesome forward pack, who out-Crusader-ed the Crusaders in Napier. We Chiefs fans have long wondered how we’d go with a decent coach, the answer is ‘pretty bloody well’, ta very much.

Vettori’s team mates were relaxed, saying Vettori has a history of attempted retirements. The former captain reportedly goes missing for extended periods in airports if left unsupervised and even tried to rapidly retire from a team bus en route to the Basin Reserve during the third test. “The guy that rings Tony Veitch going on about Dan retiring? That’s Dan,” said Doug Bracewell.

Another team mate who did not wish to be named said: “That time he read Chris Rattue and found himself agreeing… I mean, that had put him over the edge eh. Agreeing with Rattue would be pretty rough on anyone.”

“I’m looking at my mates in the commentary box bagging the Black Caps and thinking it’d be bloody easier just to join them. I’m not trying to be funny, but if you ask Dan to take a long look at Dan, I’m sure Dan will come to the right decision. For Dan,” said Vettori.

I’m a bit young to remember Jock the player, but I love how he, yinnow, saved rugby and the All Blacks from that bloody cowboy outfit in the 90s. Or, yinnow, got us the world cup.

It’s very Kiwi to be the behind the scenes guy, just getting stuff done and quietly being a bloody legend. Of course, we are poorer without him – I hope our current administrators listened carefully when Jock spoke, because that was how you’re meant to do it.

Video – Jock hands Richie McCaw his 100th cap