For over 16 years one of New Zealand’s greatest trans-Tasman triumphs has been overshadowed by one of our most crushing rugby losses. Jamie Wall remembers the day TrueBliss absolutely owned Bardot in a pre-Bledisloe Cup national anthem sing-off.

The dawn of the new millennium was a dark time for the All Blacks. Their final game pre-Y2K was a 22-18 loss to South Africa in the 3rd-place playoff of the World Cup, after being unceremoniously dumped out by France in the semifinals. The Wallabies were the champions of the world and in the middle of a five-year Bledisloe Cup reign.

While our rugby team was a bust, the Kiwi music and reality television industries were booming. Somewhere in between the demise of McDonald’s Young Entertainers and the rise of New Zealand Idol emerged a show called Popstars, which blessed us with a singing group the likes of which New Zealand had never seen before. The name of the band was TrueBliss.

These two worlds collided at Wellington’s brand new Westpac Stadium on the 5th of August, 2000. TrueBliss were to perform the national anthem ‘God Defend New Zealand’ before the Bledisloe Cup test match between the All Blacks and the Wallabies. The Popstars concept had been successfully migrated over the ditch, and the Aussie version of the show had spawned Bardot, whose first hit single attempted to rhyme the words ‘ocean’ and ‘poison’. They were to perform the Australian national anthem ‘Advance Australia Fair’.

Bardot sang first, and they were not good. For starters, two fifths of the group were wearing all black. They tried to harmonise parts of ‘Advance Australia Fair’ which should never have been harmonised, not like that. The Wallabies themselves unwittingly got picked up on the ground microphone, so the whole thing had mumbling, confused backing vocals. Head of the Australian Rugby Union John O’Neill looked clearly displeased with the performance, while commentator Murray Mexted couldn’t help but put the boot in, sarcastically describing the rendition as “delightful.”

TrueBliss struck back immediately for the home side while a patriotic troupe of marching girls held aloft a comically tiny New Zealand flag. The Te Reo verse had only just been made official, so you can put the crowd’s clear reluctance to sing it down to unfamiliarity if not good old-fashioned institutional racism.

Performing without Carly Binding, who had quit the group earlier in the year citing ‘creative differences’, the remaining quartet of Joe Cotton, Erica Takacs, Keri Harper and Megan Cassie did their nation proud. The uncultured rugby crowd may not have bothered to remove their hats or even stop drinking plastic bottles of beer, but the more discerning All Blacks players seemed to enjoy it, even if the slight tweaking of the last line clearly confused Ron Cribb.

Little did the members of TrueBliss or Bardot know as they left the stage, but their anthems would lay the platform for one of the greatest trans-Tasman rugby tests of all time, a game with a climax so tense that subbed first-five eighth Andrew Mehrtens was forced to blindfold himself with a sock.

Perhaps Bardot’s version of ‘Advance Australia Fair’ was still echoing through John Eales’ head as he teed up his iconic match winning penalty kick deep in injury time, and it was only as the ball sailed between the posts, snatching a 24-23 victory and retaining the Bledisloe Cup for Australia, that the voices fell silent.

The Rio Olympics are over, but how can we keep up our medal run in Tokyo? Madeleine Chapman says we have to invest more into female athletes.

The 2016 Rio Olympic Games were the first where New Zealand sent more female athletes than male to compete. Linked: it was also our most successful Games ever, with 18 medals in total: four gold, nine silver, and five bronze. Of our 18 medals, 11 were won by women or women’s teams. Some of the biggest moments for New Zealand were Eliza McCartney’s stunning bronze, Lisa Carrington’s gold and bronze double, and the Women’s Sevens team’s run.

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In 2008, New Zealand men won seven medals. In London 2012 they won eight. This year they won seven. As for the women? In 2008, they won two. In 2012, five. And now 11 in Rio.

These statistics are no surprise, as sportswomen have been experiencing a slow increase in funding and opportunities over the past decade. There’s still a long way to go until they’re anything like level-pegging with men, but that hasn’t stopped them surpassing their male counterparts in Olympic achievement. Women already win more medals, at a lower cost per medal, than men. Put it all together and it leads to a cold, unavoidable conclusion: women are a better Olympic investment than men.

Look at the figures. In the Herald’s ranking of each sporting body’s performance in Rio, cycling and swimming came out as the least efficient investments for our funders, while sailing and athletics exceeded expectations by bringing home four medals apiece. But what’s more telling is that the “cheapest” of the medals – those won in sports that received the least funding – were all won by women.

Luuka Jones came away with a silver in the canoe slalom, despite her sport receiving less than $1m in funding since 2012. Lydia Ko brought home a silver with golf’s $457,000 in funding, though her professional status no doubt affects funding decisions. But the greatest return on investment was Natalie Rooney, who won silver in trap shooting. Shooting received $101,000 in funding this Olympic cycle, with Rooney herself getting a campaign grant of $20,000 earlier this year. One can assume that money went to her training in Italy prior to the Games and her impressive performance represents an incredible return on a measly investment from High Performance Sport New Zealand.

Even the Women’s Sevens team received 75% of the funding that the men’s team did. Look how that turned out.

It seems New Zealand’s female athletes are able to succeed even while being underfunded. This is hardly a surprise given that women’s sport has always been underfunded in New Zealand and is often derided by the public and sports writers like Stuff’s uber-troll Mark Reason. .

And yet, while many (sadly) agreed with Reason and his claim that women’s sport rides on the coat-tails of men, nobody suggested Eliza McCartney’s bronze medal was worth less than Tomas Walsh’s. Nobody said Valerie Adams should be less happy with her silver medal because men throw a heavier shot put. And nobody told Lisa Carrington to thank the male kayakers for her success.

Of course they didn’t, because it’s the Olympics and in the Olympics, a medal is a medal. We feel great pride in each and every one that a New Zealand athlete wins, regardless of their gender or the sport. And if medals are what we love, then the cost of each one should be evaluated. Is a shooting silver ($101,000) worth $26m less than a cycling silver ($26.471m)?

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I only watch the shooting during the Olympics. But in the interim years, I don’t violently oppose trap shooting as a concept. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for those who relish women’s Olympic achievements and then leave a trail of insane bile on any article (like this one) suggesting that they might deserve more funding/coverage/anything in the years between medals.

The fact is, when assessing the 2016 Olympics through a cold, subjective, prism, medals won by women cost New Zealand a lot less money.

The real question then is this: how much do New Zealanders care about Olympic medals? Because as far as cost-benefit goes, female athletes are by far a better investment. And if they’re the better investment, maybe they should be more of a focus moving forward when it comes to funding. Who knows what might happen then? Perhaps Tokyo 2020 would surpass Rio.

That would be great. But to make it happen, New Zealanders need to value female athletes as much as we value our men. Perhaps even throw some money and encouragement their way in the years when the Olympics aren’t on TV 24/7. Let’s support women in sport for all four years of the Olympic cycle, not just the final two weeks.