Black Caps round off unbeaten tour of Ireland, so close once again at a major for Lydia Ko and Liam Lawson scores second F2 win. Video / Sky Sport / Spark Sport
OPINION:
LOSERS: New Zealand Rugby
The national sport's hierarchy is looking sillier by the day.
A needle pointing to incompetence is now veering towards negligence as NZR desperately props up Ian Foster's hopeless All Blacks coaching regime.
If selector Joe Schmidt - who hasbeen given a bigger role - and new assistant Jason Ryan are the answers, great.
But don't shackle them to Foster, who is out of his depth just as his old boss Steve Hansen was at the end of his mainly glorious reign.
NZR has no dynamic plans or vibrant leadership, anywhere.
It gets so many decisions wrong, and to that can be added - by their own actions - the appointment of Foster's recently sacked assistants, who became the fall guys.
All Blacks head coach Ian Foster. Photo / Photosport
Kiwi rugby is a great big useless mess that is falling in on itself.
And it is so unpopular that some people I know and meet say they want the All Blacks to lose, hoping it brings change.
Whether they still feel that way when the test matches actually start may be another matter. But the sentiment is clear.
The institution propping rugby up in this country is a secondary school system that is presented with the nation's finest talent and then proceeds to showcase it for rugby (and the NRL) to snap up.
Everywhere else - from international dealings to running a proper professional competition to what happens on the field - rugby is failing to stay with the times, let alone get ahead of the game.
Some of the problems rugby faces are difficult.
New Zealand's isolation and small economy have turned into significant hurdles.
The game itself is also struggling to deliver because professionalism has turned it into a sort of dangerous bull rush interrupted by annoying and sometimes incomprehensible rulings and delays.
But the All Black coaching situation was - and still is - dead easy to sort out.
The rugby bosses can't even get that right.
New Zealand rugby is an old dog with no new tricks, let alone a glorious vision.
LOSERS: The Warriors
A dejected looking Stacey Jones after the Warriors' loss to the Raiders. Photo / Photosport
The Auckland NRL club threw Stacey Jones in at the deep end, getting the club legend to coach the team after Nathan Brown's mid-season departure.
Instead, they should have chased a recognised coach to at least hold the fort for the rest of the year, as is now clear.
To be fair, promoted assistant Jones has done a bit better than I thought he would. It's not quite the disaster I predicted.
But ultimately the Warriors are still a losing outfit under Jones. He never had the coaching chops to engineer a miraculous turnaround, which should have been the aim.
One of Jones' jobs had to be getting the best out of the brilliant teen Reece Walsh, not benching him.
The Warriors lost a winning position against Canberra, with an obviously frustrated Walsh stuck to the bench for most of the game.
By appointing Jones, the Warriors effectively gave up on the season, which is criminal.
LOSER: The NRL
The mad player-go-round continues in league's little playground, with the new Dolphins franchise doing its best to tear a team like mighty Melbourne apart. The champion Panthers may even lose brilliant young centre Stephen Crichton, according to a report this week. Team identities are being washed away in the money scramble. Very sad.
WINNER: Sky Sport
Yes, I'm a big fan of the one-stop sports shop because it supports the idea that variety is the spice of life.
I watched a bit of OFC Women's Nations Cup football over the weekend, which would not be a port of call if it had to be searched out.
This was mixed in with motor racing, women's and senior men's golf majors, highlights of last year's EPL, and the NRL.
Sky's support programming - and particularly an inability to break free of New Zealand's claustrophobic rugby group think - remains the weakness.
But when it comes to live sports coverage, it provides an amazing range and value.
And the return of English football's fantastic EPL to Sky is great news for a lazy couch potato/sports surfer.
LOSER: Upcoming Commonwealth Games
The Birmingham Commonwealth Games medals. Photo / Supplied
Sorry, it hasn't got the juices flowing for a long time. The concept is also an iconic reminder of appalling empire practices, like racism and slavery.
WINNER: For the (middle) ages
Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who turns 41 in October, has signed a new one-year contract with AC Milan, even though he is months away from fully recovering after knee surgery. Kids, ask your parents how significant this is.
LOSER: Robots' reputation
Talk about a bad move… A chess robot broke a seven-year-old player's finger in Moscow. The kid was too quick for the machine, which then got its timing all wrong. And they want us to trust driverless cars?
LOSERS: Climate change deniers
New weather events are so alarming they will alter sports schedules. World Athletics president Sebastian Coe says concerns over athlete safety mean endurance events such as the marathon will be separated from the main championships and put in a "more benign environment".
Coe also criticised the poor greenhouse gas targets set by many nations, although he didn't mention all the galavanting that sport does around the world.
