KEY POINTS:
Release the hounds and let netball start tearing a few shreds off itself.
Enough of this sweet-as-pie fluff which is still being dangled before the masses.
Okay, I exaggerate a little but not totally.
What started out as a Fijian political coup has turned into a coup for
New Zealand netball, with the world champs relocating to west Auckland. Lady luck has landed in New Zealand netball's lap.
The tournament should be a giant boost for the game and a rare chance for a national sports side to win a world title on home turf or anywhere for that matter.
The world championships are also the perfect platform from which to launch the new transtasman league. And boy, does netball need something because the great new era is being organised with all the fanfare you'd find at a rest home head count.
Nothing beats New Zealand rugby when it comes to running a sport like a masonic lodge, where the media and public are regarded as agents of destruction who must be prevented at all costs from tunnelling their way into the empire.
Absolutely everything in rugby appears to be an attempt at stage managing.
Let there be light, like there is in every other professional sport in the world which thrives on the media and fans getting involved in the debates, issues and controversies.
For that to happen, New Zealand rugby needs to stop muzzling all of its employees including the Super 14 coaches. Who knows? Healthy debate and dissension in the camp might have done the All Blacks and their mad scientist bosses a world of good. Instead, those who knew or should have known better toed a line all the way to utter disaster against a useless French side in Cardiff.
But back to netball. My distinct impression is that the netball fraternity has kept an overly-respectful distance from issues surrounding the Silver Ferns in the lead up to these championships at Waitakere.
"Oh no, we can't say that, it might upset the Ferns," they say, while the public nods off to sleep.
There should be real concerns about the make-up and preparation of this squad, particularly the omission of Anna Scarlett and the bizarre dance involving Laura Langman and Temepara George.
Scarlett has a lot of fans in high places. She's a non-stop kit bag of telescopic arms and legs, with an unorthodox and aggressive game which might be the very thing that is needed to set a cat among the Australian, English and Jamaican pigeons.
In fact, I've had trouble finding anyone in the know who doesn't quietly opine that she should have been picked, with a proviso that work needs to be done on limiting Scarlett's "contact" - which is netball speak for biffo.
The whole Temepara George business is as mysterious as a New Zealand Rugby Union board meeting.
Centre George was the star of the World Cup win against Australia in 2003 and there is no doubt at all she would have been a key weapon in the Silver Ferns' plans.
Quite franky, she got away with murder in scarpering off to Australia. Can you imagine the outcry if Carl Hayman had decided he was off to Oz in the year of the rugby World Cup?
As much as George is a great player, you wouldn't have her anywhere near a world championship squad with that kind of attitude, nor loitering in the background like Jane Superstar, ready to take the place of players putting it all on the line.
But, of course, you don't really say these things in the goody-goody netball world.
From this distance, it appears clear that the Silver Ferns wanted to sneak George back in, which also suggests a certain nervousness about their prospects. The question now is what effect George's role in the shadows will have on the morale of the squad.
If a few informed observers whisper that the Silver Ferns tried to find a way back in for George, then at least a few of the players will be thinking the same thing, which might not help confidence and cohesion.
If this was American basketball, or Australian rugby league or English football, you'd have the full story and a raft of opinions on these matters and plenty more by now. In this country, you are left guessing a lot of the time and there is only so much the media can do in this regard if the good ship netball and all who sail on her refuse to play ball.
Netball is hoping for a grand new era and I wish it all the best. It is increasingly exciting to watch and has come a long way from the days when it argued in vain with the white middle-class TV men who said no one was interested in the sport.
Netball, though, is in desperate need of larger-than-life figures, on and off the court, to spur the new era on. I'm eagerly awaiting the netball world champs. Without wanting to pre-judge the issue (because England and Jamaica are definite threats), the thought of a New Zealand v Australia final sends shivers up the spine. It's a duel that winds up the sporting tension to maximum levels.
But if netball wants to take full advantage of the publicity the tournament will bring, it needs to put down its cup of tea and provide a bit more colour, controversy and insight.
