Editorial: Was it winter's final lash?

Surfers took full advantage of the late wintry blast at a Far North break last week.

So there he was, The Offsider, surprised by last week's wintry blast following a well moderate July which had suggested the weather would morph blandly into summer.

In similar fashion to how the vanquished Balrog of Morgot had lashed out to drag the wizard Gandalf down into the abyss at the end of Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring, winter showed she still held a decent sting in her tail.

And once forecasters conveniently forgot earlier claims that the tepid weather enjoyed throughout July was likely to continue unabated through September and October, they were all soon warning that giant swells were on the way along with southerly gales, snow to low levels and a profound chill.

"It's not going to be pleasant," they said. Certainly pulling on a cold, wet wetsuit for two days in a row and walking into a hostile, windswept seascape while your hands and feet turned purple, only to have to use your board as shelter from a vicious hailstorm - where some pellets were as large as avocado stones - required a degree of dedication.

Making The Offsider feel even more like a wuss was seeing some cat out in the line up in a sleeveless springsuit.

One high profile surfing website which had been so publicly snubbed in this neck of the woods got in a potshot by advising the Far North would be the place to be at the end of last week.

While one Old Mate had predicted that meant there'd be no shortage of flash BMW and Mercedes 4WDs pouring down the hill, it stayed uncrowed funnily enough.

The Offsider still felt like he was competing for waves on the Island of Dr Moreau against hybrids with gorilla-sized arms and hawklike visage who swanned and ducked and dived and kept their beady eyes firmly trained on a horizon from where the next wave meant to forget about why you were even out there in the first place.

Elsewhere, and plenty of attention on how far Kelly Slater N USA could go in his hunt for an unprecedented 12th world title at stop 8/11 of the men's world surfing tour which kicked off at Trestles in California last Thursday.

The veteran - who clearly still cuts the mustard in waves of consequence judging by his performance in Tahiti last month - looked sharp in the opening exchanges but could he still figure in the final equation against much younger rivals at such a high performance wave.

The three remaining legs of the tour are in France (where Slater holds good odds if the beachies there get hollow and heavy), Portugal (same as France) and Pipeline (where he's definitely the favourite).

Spring's advent also represented the start of the English Premier League season, but disappointing to see the round ball game steadily losing mainstream media coverage, including TV One no longer screening a live game from the EPL on Sunday mornings.

No need for sportsphiles to fear this trend being mirrored on The Offsider's watch thanks to Duke (channel 23) showing German Bundesliga matches live on Saturday mornings.

Football fans in Germany are as full-on as they come. Watching spectators going berserk behind 15' high railed fences by lighting flares, waving massive flags and scarves and generally behaving like yobs was more exhilarating than the match itself.

So, the team The Offsider will follow closely across the 2016/17 summer will not be EPL champions Leicester City Foxes, nor his beloved Tottenham Hotspurs or even a West Ham led by Te Rarawa son, Winston Reid. Instead, he'll be cheering on Borussia Dortmund having won an official BvD supporters scarf in an aftermatch raffle run by a local side earlier this year.

A slight window of opportunity remained open for The Offsider to enjoy his first and only run of the winter with that same side playing its final game this coming weekend. He'd already offered his services to the gaffer earlier in the year but the pause which had followed suggested things weren't quite that desperate at that point in time.

So, pleasing to understand the situation must have deteriorated.

- The Offsider is Age sportsbuster, Francis Malley. Respond at sports@northlandage.co.nz