All Black Captain Kieran Read during the rugby test match between the All Blacks and Tonga played at FMG Stadium, Hamilton. Photo / Dean Purcell.
All Black Captain Kieran Read during the rugby test match between the All Blacks and Tonga played at FMG Stadium, Hamilton. Photo / Dean Purcell.
ANY GIVEN MONDAY
As coach of the most consistently successful rugby team on the planet, Steve Hansen is under pressure to bring back the Webb Ellis Cup.
Will anything less than victory tarnish his legacy? Probably not.
For a start, the word is problematic. Where legacy used to be aconcept, it's now a commercial vehicle used for selling anything from questionable books to monogrammed jerseys.
Cynicism aside, if you believe legacies are forged in the fire of competitive sport, then Hansen's is surely cast. He's already a World Cup-winning coach (and World Cup-winning assistant coach) with a win-loss record that's bonkers in an age where the bulk of rugby's wealth and influence sits north of the equator.
Hansen's legacy will survive an early sayonara in Japan as long as it doesn't involve a towelling by Italy in pool play, or something similarly ludicrous. It might be bruised, but it will last.
It's his captain whose "legacy" is far more interesting.
By any measure, Kieran Read should be a legend. His face should feature on the Mt Rushmore of modern greats alongside Richie McCaw, Dan Carter and Marty Banks.
Kieran Read of the All Blacks looks on ahead of the rugby Test Match between the New Zealand All Blacks and Tonga at FMG Stadium. Photo / Getty Images.
He's going to end his career with more than 125 test caps and close to 30 tries. He's been involved in at least two successful World Cup tilts. For a while there he was not just the best No 8 in the world but the best player in the world.
Read's game has evolved. It's less sexy than the days when he was a devastating edge runner, a player with offloading and handling skills the envy of any league second-rower, but it's still mighty effective.
Following a flat patch of form, there have been recent signs that he's back close to the peak of his considerable powers.
He's a punishing defender, still has the ability to make things happen on offence, wins his lineout ball and sometimes offers more than just the appropriate banalities in press conferences.
So where's the movie?
His impact on the national game is comparable to McCaw but only one has been canonised.
In many ways he's more interesting than his long-time teammate.
If McCaw hadn't bled so much during a career of sticking his nose into other team's businesses, then we would have every right to question whether he was human. The movie, Chasing Great, left viewers wondering if the openside flanker was a near-unbreakable, carefully maintained piece of machinery.
Read's back story might not have a writes-"G.A.B."-on-McDonald's-napkin moment like McCaw's but it is more fascinating.
He's a South Auckland boy who still holds the record for 8-year-old boys' long jump at Papakura Athletics Club.
He was a stroke-making top order batsman.
Kieran Read of the All Blacks performs the haka ahead of the rugby Test Match between the New Zealand All Blacks and Tonga. Photo / Hannah Peters.
Like many talented kids from his part of the world he was tempted by the apparent riches at a private school but quickly returned to his local Rosehill College when he discovered the grass is just as green on the school fields of state education.
He left Auckland to pursue a rugby career in Canterbury.
He married Bridget, his high school sweetheart.
His is a story that should appeal to every New Zealander and yet it feels like this final chapter of his All Black career needs a happy ending to cement his place in the pantheon.
It's not really fair, but that's your lot when you follow in the footsteps of an icon.
The coach is going to end up with three letters in front of his name. We're probably a long way for any such conferment on Read.
He'd be happier walking away with a gold medallion around his neck after his final game as an All Black.
If that's what's in his script, who'd begrudge him that?
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Monday mornings just aren't the same without NFL RedZone, the most brilliantly executed six-hour block of sports television ever conceived.
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The V8 Supercars coverage remains the sports broadcasting gold standard in this part of the world – not sure there's even a close second.
Their experts have the rare ability to breakdown complicated engineering technology into easily decipherable language and graphics. What elevates the likes of Mark Skaife, Riana Crehan, Murph and the undoubted star of the show, Mark Larkham, above other broadcast teams is their ability to inject humour, often at the expense of themselves, into the show.
THE MONDAY LONG READ ...
If you love a good oral history and love a good meme, this Yahoo piece provides the perfect confluence.
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