Ash Dixon celebrates victory with the Ranfurly Shield. Photo / Photosport
ASH DIXON
The 32-year-old has an uncanny sense of occasion, marking his 100th game for Hawke's Bay by leading them to a convincing Ranfurly Shield victory over Otago. Seven years ago, Dixon was part of a Hawke's Bay team that snuck home against Otago on his 25th birthday to win the Shield.
The hooker is one of those guys who don't get the appreciation they deserve. He's plugged away in the upper echelons of New Zealand rugby without ever cracking the Big Team. You can never have enough Ash Dixons staying and playing footy here if you want the code to remain robust beneath test level.
(It was, as a side note, a crying shame only 4500 Dunedinites had any respect for the Shield).
TRENT BOULT
That's bragging rights sorted for the next year or so - Williamson c de Kock b Boult 3.
Given that they play for the same first-class and international teams, it's unlikely Trent Boult has often bowled to Williamson in competitive adult cricket. He'll remember this one, outfoxing his skipper with a slower bouncer.
Boult has been superb for the Mumbai Indians in the IPL and this man-of-the-match performance goes a long way to justifying his $650,000 price tag.
It has been a slow start for New Zealanders at the IPL, but not Boult.
NZ RUGBY
Hammered from pillar to pillar, another pillar and finally the post.
The semi-crazed antics of this board and administration have left the august organisation friendless, bobbing along hopelessly in a sea of hostility.
Here's a shortlist of people, countries and organisations that hate New Zealand Rugby at the moment: Australia, South Africa, Bill Beaumont, Bryan Williams, the Players' Association, Pacific Nations, Sanzaar, the Home Nations and Derek.
They still have a good friend at Sky but even they must be wondering if this game of alienating everyone is a sound long-term content strategy.
THE NRL
First week of the NRL finals and many people are not talking about the footy but a cover-up culture that enabled the allegedly horrific behaviour of one of its superstar players to go unchecked. The accusations against Sam Burgess are manifold but include spousal abuse and frequent drug use. Evidently, this was no great secret at the South Sydney Rabbitohs, yet he was recently rewarded with a position on the staff.
NRL acolytes often claim the competition is unfairly singled out for scandal and to be fair there's bad behaviour in most walks of life, but the sort of toxic masculinity that pockmarks this sport has to change.
ENGLISH FOOTBALL GIANTS
Manchester United bled six goals at home to Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool leaked seven – seven! – to Aston Villa. It's been a crazy start to the Premier League season and compulsive viewing.
Even the sterility of crowd-less stadia can't mask what is a bonkers start to the season. If you said a team from Merseyside would be top of the table in October, nobody would have batted an eyelid. But, Everton?
Following The Last Dance, which athlete or sports team would be top of your list for a similar fly-on-the-wall series (pretending here the footage actually exists)? - Darrin Bride, Melbourne, Australia
A few immediately come to mind but none as persuasively as the 1972-73 All Blacks tour of Great Britain, Ireland, France and North America. The reasons are both obvious and more subtle.
It was an epic tour in scale, fell just short of being an epic tour in terms of results, and contained arguably the most notorious incident in All Black history – the expulsion of wayward prop Keith Murdoch.
As it stands, We Beat the All Blacks remains the most potent document from this tour. It does an effective job of romanticising the hard men of Llanelli and does little to hide the unappealing parts of All Black culture, but it is unashamedly focused on the 15 men of a small Welsh town.
A mini-industry developed around the Murdoch "mystery", right up to his death in remote Carnarvon, Western Australia, in 2018. I was always intrigued and a little discomfited by his portrayal as the unwitting victim of Home Nations rugby politics.
According to more reliable reports, he was one of a number of self-styled Mafiosi All Blacks who behaved like complete a***holes on that tour. Imagine if you could retroactively position cameras to record it all.
What's the most annoying overused sporting cliché? It bugs when commentators say "it doesn't get any better than this", even though it always gets better than that - Brent, Tauranga
Good question Brent, but to your point, surely every now and then the commentator's right? He and she would have been justified saying that, for example, when Usain Bolt ran 9.58s for the 100m in 2009. But I digress.
I have a couple of pet dislikes.
"That is just a great cricket shot," would be right up there. I'm well aware of what sport I'm watching thanks and it adds nothing to my understanding of what happened other than the fact it was most likely played with a cricket bat and not, say, a squash racquet.
I also hate the lazy cliché, "defence wins championships", without any evidence or rigorous statistical analysis to back it up. It is often applied at Rugby World Cups, for example. Defence is important, yes, but few teams that cannot score points with relative efficiency win championships.
If you have any questions or correspondence, or clichés you hate that need pointing out, write to sportrac@nzherald.co.nz.
It's hard to do a long career justice in less than two minutes but for younger fans not sure what the fuss was about Dean Jones, this is a nice little entrée.
Bob Gibson (1935-2020)
St Louis Cardinals pitcher Bob Gibson was so mean he was the only player who hated the All-Star game. He had no interest in socialising or playing nice with batters he would spend the rest of the season trying to mow down at the plate.
He was so mean that he saw a batter he once had an on-field confrontation get into his elevator so he went for him… it was three years later.
Gibson was also good, so good that Major League Baseball changed the rules after he conceded an ERA of 1.12 during the 1968 season (that's an average of 1.12 runs scored for every nine innings he threw). They did so by reducing the strike zone and lowering the pitcher's mound by 13cm.
He died after a short battle with pancreatic cancer.
Midweek can't misses
Wednesday, 1.10pm: Rose Bowl, Game 3, Australia v New Zealand.
The White Ferns were woeful during Saturday's insipid seven-wicket loss. They're playing today and Wednesday to try to stop this Australian juggernaut.
Wednesday, 2pm: NBA Finals, Game 4, Lakers v Heat.
Can LeBron James add another title to his burgeoning legacy? After Miami's win today, he and the Lakers have a chance to go 3-1 up.
Ashlee Strawbridge guided her first winner at Cambridge on Wednesday.