SportsJuly 4, 2016

Super Rugby Power Rankings: Is this the real life?

Senior sports writer

Scotty Stevenson awakes from a long and disorientating slumber to continue the unforgiving weekly task of ranking every team in Super Rugby from best to worst.

Sweet Lord, that break was so long I had actually forgotten which team was last top of the Power Rankings. Worse, I am now reminded of how much can change in a month. The last time we posted these, the UK was in the EU, Australia had a government, and Auckland had a housing crisis. Okay, so not everything has changed…

1. Chiefs
Rd 15: 23-13 v Crusaders
Last round: 6 (up 5)
Ni Sa Bula Chiefs fans! The pride of Hamilton swapped a home game at Waikato Stadium for a home game in Suva and delivered a body blow to the Crusaders with a pull-away win in the wet which saw them deny the most cultish side in the competition a bonus point. The Chiefs are riding a Stephen Donald tsunami all the way to the playoffs and Damian McKenzie, after a couple of quiet weeks in May, is back to his electric best. No team counter attacks as well.

*Super Rugby: Tropical Downpour edition. (Photo: Getty Images)*

2. Lions
Rd 15: 37-10 v Sharks
Last round: 2 (N/C)
The only thing that can stop the Lions going real deep in the playoffs (if not winning the whole competition) is if they wake up one day and realise they are the Lions. They have been the hit of the competition and the one reason the South African conference deserves to be treated with some respect. The Sharks had no answer to the onslaught on the weekend, and the Lions have now scored the most points and most tries of any team this season. They also became the first team to qualify for the playoffs.

3. Hurricanes
Rd 15: 37-27 v Blues
Last round: 3 (N/C)
I still think Wellington Mexican food joint Flying Burrito Brothers should be running a special on the Vaea Fifita flaming Fajita this week, but I am not in the business of marketing ethnically usurped menu items so it probably won’t happen. The Hurricanes may well look at this come from behind victory as a pivotal moment in the season – they were forced to make 176 tackles against the Blues and still managed to take their own attacking chances in the second spell.

4. Crusaders
Rd 15: 13-23 v Chiefs
Last round: 1 (down 3)
If there’s one thing I know about the Crusaders it’s this: they would have been angry for the entire trip back to New Zealand, and even angrier considering they were on the same plane as the Chiefs, who beat them up in Suva. Okay, there are two things I know about the Crusaders, and the other thing is that they will come out this weekend and be much better than they were on Friday night. The Crusaders are always good when they just trust what they do, which is the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

5. Waratahs
Rd 15: 57-12 v Sunwolves
Last round: 5 (N/C)
I have long thought the Waratahs were capable of finding a way to snatch the Australian conference from the Brumbies and nothing I saw over the weekend has made me change my mind. Just as the Brumbies did before the break, the Tahs crushed the Sunwolves in Tokyo. However, they did it with more style and flair and that still goes a long way in this competition. Tatafu Polota-Nau had one of his best games of the season, and managed not to get knocked out which was a bonus. The more Folau settles in at centre, the better this team looks.

6. Highlanders
Rd 15: 48-18 v Kings
Last round: 4 (down 2)
This was once a team that struggled to cobble together enough men for a starting fifteen and now it is so confident that it can head to South Africa and leave behind three of its most important players. Moreover, the Highlanders bench was sensational value for money against the Kings in front of four spectators in Port Elizabeth. Matt Faddes is firming as captain of the 2016 Palagi All Stars team with a hat trick of tries, and Aki Seiuli may well be everyone’s new favourite front rower. There are few teams in Super Rugby who can do so much damage in such a short space of time, and the Highlanders’ final quarter blitzkrieg should have others on notice.

7. Brumbies
Rd 15: 43-24 v Reds
Last round: 7 (N/C)
Fullback Aidan Toua topped all players in the comp this week for metres run, and the Brumbies looked well balanced against a Reds team that has battled away all year. Still, I don’t know why I can’t bring myself to go all in on this team. Maybe it’s just me.

8. Stormers
Rd 15: 57-31 v Rebels
Last round: 9 (up 1)
Only a disaster could stop the Stormers clinching top spot in their conference now. They are nine points clear of the Bulls with two games to play, and those games are against the Force and the Kings. Posted their highest ever score on the weekend but who cares? I am not a fan of the red and black uniforms. If there are two colours more opposite to their traditional blue and white, it would have to be red and black. I am no fashionista, but that’s just dumb. Actually, away strips need to be banned, or all be designed by Stade Francais.

9. Blues
Rd 15: 27-37 v Blues
Last round: 10 (up 1)
I’m going to say it. The Blues deserve an enormous amount of praise for not being shit this year. So they won’t make the playoffs, and that’s not great for the franchise, but as soon as they realise they can win the games that count – namely those against other New Zealand teams – then they will be a contender. The Blues do so much right in a game of rugby, but they are guilty of wearing themselves out by running the ball from everywhere. They are still missing the crucial percentages in game management.

*Jerome Kaino mere seconds before scoring a try. (Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)*

10. Rebels
Rd 15: 31-57 v Stormers
Last round: 12 (up 2)
The Rebels are on a quest to make sure every game they play finishes in an AFL-level score, which is a nice gesture to the people of Melbourne but not a great idea when you are on the wrong side of that score, as they were against the Stormers. The Rebels, like the Blues, have enough talent to get results, but lack the finish. If they discover a way to convert their territorial dominance to points, they’ll be in business. Also, letting the Stormers score seven tries against you is horrible.

11. Sharks
Rd 15: 10-37 v Lions
Last round: 8 (down 3)
They have lost four first choice five eighths. And they are playing like it. A case in point: Paul Jordaan ran for no metres. How does an inside centre run for no metres? The whole job of an inside centre is to run metres. I’m afraid it’s back to the drawing board for the Sharks. Either that or time to pull Andre Joubert’s moustache out of retirement.

12. Bulls
Rd 15: 11-29 v Jaguares
Last round: 11 (down 1)
Where do I begin here? The Bulls kicking game, which was their only game, was so bad they couldn’t have hit a wall if they were standing in a lounge. Apart from that, they chased them badly and then when they got the ball they dropped it. The official stats say the Jaguares kicked the ball more than the Bulls did, which makes me feel like I was watching a different game entirely. In fact, I think the statistician gave up, went to the pub and made the rest up later.

13. Jaguares
Rd 15: 29-11 v Bulls
Last round: 18 (up 5)
Too late, their time has come.

14. Cheetahs
Rd 15: 30-29 v Force
Last round: 14 (N/C)
Sends shivers down my spine.

15. Reds
Rd 15: 24-43 v Brumbies
Last round: 13 (down 1)
Body’s aching all the time.

16. Force
Rd 15: 29-30 v Cheetahs
Last round: 16 (N/C)
Goodbye everybody, they’ve got to go.

17. Sunwolves
Rd 15: 12-57 v Waratahs
Last round: 15 (down 2)
Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth.

18. Kings
Rd 15: 18-48 v Highlanders
Last round: 17 (down 1)
Mama, ooh ooh ooh ooh…

Keep going!

MARK WATSON, RED TRUNKS, IS REMONSTRATED WITH BY A CROTCHETY ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. PHOTO / GETTY

SportsJuly 4, 2016

Holy shit, we found the worst 10 minutes of radio

Hayden Donnell

Contributing writer

MARK WATSON, RED TRUNKS, IS REMONSTRATED WITH BY A CROTCHETY ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. PHOTO / GETTY

The Press Council has upheld a complaint about the comment relating to Miles Davis and homophobia contained in this article. The full decision is available here or at www.presscouncil.org.nz

Somewhere in a darkened studio a few weeks ago, two men unleashed the world’s most powerful tsunami of terrible radio. Hayden Donnell dug up the recording.

UPDATE: Mark Watson has apologised over this segment and announced that Controversy Corner has been dropped from his show. Here’s his statement:

There’s been a lot of trash radio in New Zealand audio history: Paul Holmes calling Kofi Annan a “cheeky darkie”. Dom Harvey going “trans for a day“. Every single Mike’s Minute. Thane Kirby.

All of them are bad, if slightly one-note. Kirby is a sexist 16-year-old. Harvey is a sexist 12-year-old. Hosking is a synthetic alloy impersonating a human. Holmes had a history of maybe being drunk on radio.

Even at their worst, those hosts would take weeks to let loose as many mouth sharts as Mark Watson and Kieran Smyth did in a dizzying 10 minute spell. Between 8.33 and 8.43pm on a Monday, the Radio Sport nighttime host and his art dealer friend somehow hit the entire Big Three of offensive content – dancing through a breathtaking routine of racism, sexism, and homophobia like Satan’s ballerinas. I unearthed their risible segment in the byzantine back alleys of the internet last week. It’s called ‘Controversy Corner’, though it could equally be named ‘I’m Not Racist But…’, ‘Look, I Have Gay Friends’, or ‘Women Are Just Wired Differently’. It’s certifiably terrible, but it’s also worth listening to, if only as a whistlestop tour through the ugliest parts of New Zealand’s sickly sports media culture.

Join me on this journey through the belching swamp of bad radio, starting with this stop at racism boulevard.

Normally sports broadcasters dog whistle opinions like this one, calling white players rugby players “intelligent” and Polynesian players “physical specimens”. They emit plaintive cries for more “rugby brains” when a side’s racial balance skews brown. Lament the so-called “bro culture“.

Watson skips straight to the point, and says pairing two Fijians will inevitably cause the All Blacks midfield to implode into dust. “Yeah they’ve got that Fijian flair but they’ve also got a lot of so-called Fijian deficiencies. And they go AWOL, they go walkabout at times,” he says.

It a hark back to the old days when stereotypes were stereotypes, and you didn’t have to hide them beneath a sage call for “thinking man’s rugby”.

Sadly, this was the high point of the conversation.

LMAO women playing professional sport! What a hoot! The Sea Shells! Playing the Lollipop Wonderlands! In the Barbie Palace! With their Lady Brains! If you’re looking for evidence of why women’s sport is underfunded and unappreciated in New Zealand, this is Exhibit A.

Meanwhile, Smyth bizarrely starts referring to the imaginary white-shorted men haunting his dreams as “homos”, ignoring Watson’s half-hearted chiding. He doesn’t stop there. After a weird three-minute intermission where Watson recounts dropping a glove into a huge trough of urine, Smyth descends further into the mire.

Since 1884, rugby selectors have appointed 1151 All Blacks. Not one has come out as gay. NZRU chairman Steve Tew spoke about that statistically improbable dearth of sexual diversity in May, after a study showed gay Kiwi men are likely to either hide their sexual identity or give up on sport entirely.

“No one has yet said they’re an All Black and gay, one day that will happen and I would hope that New Zealand is more than ready, in fact is welcoming of it,” Tew told NewsHub.

He’s obviously never read the work of footballing columnist Miles Davis.

@Dale_Warburton @josephmoore1 This guy must have set a record for ‘public homophobia without getting fired’ pic.twitter.com/hvCImf8sQc

— Hayden Donnell (@HaydenDonnell) June 23, 2016

Or read a Facebook comment thread on Veitchy on Sport…

RadioSportVeitch860

Or listened to Controversy Corner.

At the end of this segment, Watson does something revealing. He asks Smyth to stop using “homo” as an insult, but only to “appease the 1% of people who control society”. It’s a telling behind-the-scenes glance at the grimy basement of New Zealand’s sports media, where it’s fine to make gay jokes so long as they’re off-the-record; alright to mock or objectify women so long as there’s no-one taking notes. Though things are changing, and we no longer have people like Doug Golightly writing his detractors off as “lesbian tree-huggers” in primetime, that ancient river of dung is still bubbling away somewhere in the background of the culture.

So it’s great that Tew wants to see an openly gay All Black. But he should keep reflecting on why there hasn’t been one already. It’s a tough ask for one of our black-clad demi-gods to come out as gay when so much of our sports media is still the domain of testosterone-encased straight men, when people like Tew, Grant ‘Foxy’ Fox and Steve Hansen still appear on ‘Veitchy on Sport‘, and when someone like Smyth can repeatedly use ‘homo’ as an insult on a nationally syndicated radio show – and only get admonished for not leaving it until the mics are switched off.

The show ended like this.

SEE OTHER STORIES FROM THE SPINOFF’S ‘BAD RADIO’ FILES:

FULL TRANSCRIPTS

On Fijian rugby players

Kieran Smyth: “Fekitoa doesn’t do it for you anymore?”

Mark Watson: “Fekitoa to me just doesn’t have rugby nous. He doesn’t have the brains. He doesn’t have rugby brains. And then it’s scary, if he gets injured, suddenly you bring Seta Tamanivalu on and you’ve got two Fijians. And what Steve said is great. Yeah they’ve got that Fijian flair but they’ve also got a lot of so-called Fijian deficiencies. And they go AWOL, they go walkabout at times.”

On netball

KS: When you were in Fiji, can you answer me this, could you find netball. I mean I know you would have been really looking for it. Could you find it over there? Cause you missed the Vixens playing the Sea Shells or the Tooth Fairies playing the Magic or whatever it was.”

MW: “What is netball?”

KS: “Ah, that’s a good point. There’s no net involved. There is a ball… and a lot of funny men in white pants blowing the whistle every nought point one second under the goal. *Impression of a high-voiced ref* Man on man on man on *indecipherable*”

MW: “And then they’re giggling at their friends saying ‘I thought the girls played really well tonight hurhurhurhur. Even though we lost by 20 points hurhurhurhur. I think we should be really proud of ourselves hurhurhurhur. We trained really hard this week. We did shuttle runs hurhurhurhurhur.”

KS: “I was going to say they’re all homos but that’s not fair on homos. I love homos.”

MW: “You shouldn’t use that. It’s a derogatory term.

KS: “I say it with affection mate. Mate, I’ve got an art gallery.”

On the AFL

KS: “We’re watching the All Blacks on Saturday night and he says: ‘Who dis granddad?’

“And I say ‘It’s the All Blacks. And he says ‘Collingwood’. And, mate, how do you think I felt? My only grandson says to me ‘Is this Collingwood’.”

MW: “Did you disown him?”

KS: “Well I turned to my daughter and said: ‘Are you telling me that you really are going to have him play for that tight pants, weird singlet, bloody gay, homo sport?’”

MW: “Kieran, let’s not be derogatory….

KS: “Okay I’m saying it in a sort of a controversy corner sort of a way… you know how much us boring heterosexuals sometimes…”

MW: “I know, but we have to appease the 1% of people who control society.”

KS: “I’ve told you how much I love gays.”