SPORTRITE - Up North, we punch above our weight

Sometime midweek the phone rang at headquarters.
This might not seem like a particularly momentous event, especially when you consider the business of creating daily supplies of fish and chip wrapping is otherwise part of "the communications industry" where the phone is meant to ring often.
If it isn't ringing in there is probably a clause in the fine print of your employment contract that says you should be ringing out.
Anyhow, this particular phone call was unusual.
After being rudely awoken by the shrill tone, and turning the television down, carefully shifting the cup of coffee, surreptitiously hiding Anne Judkins' new book that is currently half read and finally discovering the headset underneath the copy of Five Ways To Get Rich Without Lifting A Finger, I find a radio host from Auckland on the line.
He wanted an interview live on his new sports show to talk about Northland sport.
Righto, was the reply, in BBC radio tone.
The conversation started with the host announcing the title of his new show: B-Sport. This didn't seem a particularly promising start, but at least it wasn't C-Sport or (heaven forbid) D-Sport. But it got better.
The selection of Justin Collins and Bronson Murray to the Blues got things off to a relatively good tempo. Then came a brief discussion about five Northlanders getting picked for the Black Sticks New Zealand women's hockey team. All good so far.
Then he asked this one: Who is Northland's most successful international sportsperson right now?
Herewith was committed the ultimate radio crime: Deathly silence.
It wasn't that the mind went blank, it was just there were too many names to choose from.
In the end the name Michael Sanderson came blurting out. You know, round-the-world yachtsman, International Sailor of the Year, now team leader for the British America's Cup campaign, Team Origin.
But there were quite a few candidates: Shelley Kitchen, Charlotte Harrison, Sam Warriner, Jason Wynyard, James Marshall. There were more, of course, but the discussion then took a left turn.
What about the Goings, what are they up to these days? How many Goings have played rugby for Northland anyway?
That got me thinking, and proved a point as well.
When it comes to Northland sport, other New Zealanders still look north and think rugby.
More particularly they think the Goings, and to be precise Sidney Milton Going, otherwise known as Supa-Sid.
His feats, and his rugby achievements alongside his brothers, Ken and Brian, put Northland on the map. The tradition for rugby achievement was created and everyone has measured success against their crowd-pleasing, Ranfurly Shield-winning efforts ever since.
For sure, their success is far removed from the performances of the current Northland rugby team, in too many ways to mention here, but in light of news that the Northland Rugby Union (NRU) is down the financial gurgler to the tune of $350,000, it also is worth pondering some sporting questions.
There are quite a few rugby diehards who believe the NRU should abandon this disastrous financial path, opt out of the top provincial rugby scene (in its current form called the Air NZ Cup) and go for the more monetarily prudent route of (sh)amateur rugby in the lower divisions.
At least, they argue, the team would be filled with locals and we wouldn't be spending $1.2 million on running a professional team.
You won't find much sympathy for that argument here.
That would be kissing goodbye to a tradition that much of the sporting history of Northland is built on, and make the province something of a laughing stock.
If that happens, bags not answer the next phone call from random radio stations.
Cue radio jock: "Gidday, this is B-Sport."
Reply from sports central: "Yeah, we know."