My love of American Football has been well documented.
While rugby will always have its place for me, my enjoyment of the overt tactical nature of the NFL means that from late August until February my "sports attention" is drawn to stadia in places like Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Jacksonville, Florida, and to the exploits of athletes many in New Zealand have never heard of.
As a result, I cannot tell you who won the Super 15 or the provincial rugby championship. but I can tell you who is the starting tight end for the New Orleans Saints.
Monday, February 6 (NZT) was the Super Bowl and saw a match-up including the most successful team in the history of the National Football League, the New England Patriots.
Their opponents (the Atlanta Falcons) had the best offence of the last season, while the Patriots had the best defence for the year.
Unfortunately, I didn't watch the full game due to other commitments but there was possibly another reason - I hate the New England Patriots.
I am not sure why, because in a lot of ways they embody all that is good about sport and successful endeavour. But, in other ways, theirs is a legacy tainted by accusations and proof of cheating, intimidation of referees and - new for the 2016/17 season - close ties to Donald Trump (although he would have the game investigated to dispute scoring plays by the losing team).
It is common knowledge now that the Patriots won, executing the greatest comeback of all time. Once I had gotten over a lengthy period of unhappiness over the result, I found some important lessons translatable to any field.
Firstly, even when the odds seem stacked against you, there is an opportunity to turn things around and succeed.
In this age of meaningless statistics and technology, the TV networks bombard the viewer with information about how the game is tracking. Heading into the middle of the third quarter of play, the odds of a New England victory were well south of 5 per cent - they were 25 points behind and the most anyone had ever come back was 10 points in the Super Bowl.
And of the 57 NFL matches (since 2001) where an opponent was 25 points behind, none had overcome that defecit. What the Patriots achieved was unprecedented - but they did it.
The other point is about momentum - which is a favourite topic of mine - once they had reduced the deficit to 8 points there was almost an inevitability (even with time running out) that the Patriots would overcome the gap.
The Falcons even had a chance late in the game to seal the win but bad play calling and errors meant that was squandered.
And this leads to the final point - the Patriots got into the heads of the Falcons players - such that once they had been able to affect that top few inches the match was done and dusted.
The Patriots' coach, Bill Belechick, is famous for the following statement "everybody do your job!" and their success (particularly given that many of their players do not arrive as bonafide stars) is testament to leadership and all aspects of the team functioning effectively. Indeed, this year they sealed the championship without one of their most effective attacking players.
The importance of long term strategy is also clear as the groundwork for what is extending into two decades of success was set with a simple strategy back in the early 2000s - players come and players go but the strategy remains and the foundations for their vision have been established and don't change.
Although some of their legacy is tainted and their relentless success grates with non-fans like me, their philosophy (which transfers to business) is best encapsulated in this quote from their owner Robert Kraft:
"...hard work, preparation, [recruiting and retaining] great people, keeping it together and never giving up..."
*Balance Consulting is a national strategic consultancy based in Bell Street, Whanganui, which assists in developing the direction and design of businesses - 021 2442421