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We should thank netball for reminding us that world championships don't have to be monuments to vanity, that sport doesn't have to travel far from the playpens of our youth to touch the heart and invigorate the soul.
The netball tournament finished in dramatic and glorious style on
Saturday night when the Silver Ferns made a contest out of a game that looked, at one point, to be slipping beyond their control.
Australia were, as ever, a magnificent sporting competitor, finding victory as their teams often do through fierce determination and confidence in each other. It was a final to behold because it was a gripping contest and because whatever netball's inherent weaknesses might be, the game was played in the way netball is supposed to be played.
But the tournament had already reached heights beyond most predictions the previous night, when the telescopic arms of the Jamaican shooter Romelda Aiken found such magical form that the Silver Ferns defender Casey Williams, who appears at times to be able to fly, was consigned to a period of crash landings.
It seemed the Ferns would never find a way to overhaul a small deficit while Aiken's cherrypickers were producing so much fruit.
Williams and co. held their nerve, though, and saved what would have been blushes of a rich-red hue.
Williams is a superstar in the making, and one day she might look back at this game and the lessons learned as the pivotal moment of her career.
There was a long period in that semifinal when Jamaica were poised to confirm, one match earlier than expected, that this was New Zealand sport's annus horribilis. But the Ferns overcame adversity by keeping their composure in a wonderfully stirring atmosphere thankfully devoid of those horrendous thundersticks whose only home should be North Korean political rallies.
As it turned out, the Australians ensured that we will simply have to chuckle at ourselves when reviewing 2007.
We do have world champions, but they are people such as a young West Coast inline skater whose sport has to battle so hard for publicity that she once shed her clothes for the camera.
Cricket, yachting, rugby union and league, netball ... we are nought for five.
Netball as a sport can hold its head high, however. It has been a vibrant and at times thrilling week, even if netball lacks a variety which would make it sustained viewing for some of us.
As New Zealand mounted its semifinal fightback, my phone rang to relay the alleged news that a surprise, outstanding All Black coaching candidate was about to be unveiled by a television network.
Where this information came from I do not know, because no such candidate emerged, and there simply isn't the scope for one to appear.
There is one brilliant candidate, Robbie Deans, and there is daylight between him and the rest plus, it has to be said, between the rugby union's ears.
There is something almost grotesque about the rugby dealings where a very simple task is being turned into an exercise of overwhelming self-importance, as if the hunt for a new national coach is up there with debates over democratic ideals and global warming.
It's as if rugby finds itself so important that it is beneath the sport to do anything without a commission of inquiry.
While the rugby muppets puff out their chests and get ready to emit the puff of smoke, netball was carrying on its business in surroundings so humble that many of us were taken back to our schooldays.
This atmosphere was strongest around the Waitakere Trusts Stadium's number two court. After watching a game there, a Pavlovian reaction had you looking for a satchel with which to begin the dreary trudge towards a classroom.
One Herald representative bumped up against a couple of netball people so obstructive it raised images of those over-zealous troops who patrolled rugby venues as if they were a thin white-coated line facing enemies at every gate. Belated attempts were made to put this netball matter right, it must be said.
It was more the atmosphere at the stadium - whether through accident or design - that was so enchanting.
Such surroundings are not possible for the high-finance world of yachting, rugby etc, but they sure as hell make a nice antidote to them.
As a small world championships, netball was a reminder about what sport was like when many of us were first attracted to it.
These championships were sponsored by a grocer and at halftime they held - what else - grocery races. Parent and kid teams raced shopping trolleys full of goods which were then used to build towers. One of the major lessons learned was that balancing the bog rolls on top of the Tim Tams is a recipe for disaster.
Netball is off on a new adventure now via the transtasman league, and who knows what may emerge in terms of the way the game is played and the issues surrounding it.
There were even suggestions the New Zealand franchise coaches weren't exactly cheering for Samoa, believing if Linda Vagana's team were too successful that the Samoans would attract more interest from players. That, in turn, could put league team prospects outside each New Zealand franchise's import quota limit.
A familiar sounding quandary?
Another problem ... netball is too small because the Australia-New Zealand dominance needs to be broken.
The everlasting memory of these championships, however, will be that great sport is made by great sport.
Tear-stained anthems, hakas, wild patriotism, hemispheric battles, wars of words ... they not only count for little if the contest is no good, but may well contribute to the stalemate that World Cup contests become.
It was a terrific netball final because it was a thrilling battle. The match which stole my heart, however, came the night before, when the contrasting styles of Jamaica and New Zealand sent the nerves dancing and jangling in a cauldron-like arena that had cost little more than lunch money to tart up.
This was the highlight in a never-to-be-forgotten sporting year, and it was an absolute privilege to have been there.
