Breather for struggling stars

Two of New Zealand's sporting icons got a taste of reality last weekend.
Crusaders skipper Richie McCaw was obviously still short a gallop after what had been a lengthy injury break in his team's Super 15 rugby final with the Reds in Brisbane, and Silver Ferns captain Casey Williams was seriously troubled by a calf injury in her team's world netball championship loss to the Aussies.
I know hindsight is wonderful, but you have to question whether they did their respective teams any favours by being part of the starting line-ups or even being on the reserve bench for that matter.
Wouldn't the Crusaders have been better, for instance, to place their faith in the highly promising flanker Matt Todd as a replacement for McCaw, and the Silver Ferns likewise with either Anna Scarlett (who did come on late in the piece) or Katrina Grant for Williams?
In the case of McCaw, the Crusaders had been without him for several of their earlier Super 15 games and seldom failed to come up trumps.
At his peak, he is without doubt the best No 7 on the planet but, in the hotbed of top level rugby, even he cannot expect to dominate when the fitness is not up to scratch. Against the Reds, McCaw was nowhere near the threat he invariably is at the breakdowns simply because he was laboured in his movements and, as a result, was seldom first there.
His opposite number, Beau Robinson, had it all over him in that crucial aspect of loose forward play on the night.
To hear Williams say after the Silver Ferns defeat that sore as her calf problem was she was never going to leave the court, was typical of this hard-nosed competitor.
But how was any player who was clearly limping for most of the match ever going to make her usual huge impact against an Aussie side who, like Williams herself, don't know how to take a backward step.
If ever there was a match where the Silver Ferns needed a handful of those brilliant intercepts for which Williams has become famous this was it, but she didn't have the spring or the acceleration to make that possible.
I'm not suggesting for a minute, however, that even with a totally fit McCaw and Williams either side would have come up with a better result.
The Crusaders, by their own high standards, simply had an off day. The Reds weren't anything special either but they did protect possession better and were surer on the tackle; two areas of the game in which the Crusaders invariably reign supreme.
There was basically nothing between the Silver Ferns and the Aussies as proved by the fact there was only one goal separating the two sides at the end of 14 minutes of extra time. Plenty of chatter was heard about the goals the Silver Ferns missed and the turnovers which all too often came when they looked to be getting on top, but had the Aussies lost, the critics would have been saying exactly the same things about them.
On any occasion as important as a world championship final, joint winners should be declared if the protagonists are locked together at the end of ordinary time. In my book, justice wasn't done by denying the Silver Ferns a share of the spoils in Singapore.