We asked 12 Rugby World Cup winning All Blacks for their Kiwi sporting hero of 2015. Six of them – Liam Messam, Victor Vito, Jerome Kaino, Beauden Barrett, Dane Coles and TJ Perenara – picked heavyweight boxer Joseph Parker. So, in the first of our All Blacks’ Kiwi Sporting Hero selections for 2015, Scotty Stevenson takes a look … Read more
Club rugby was once an essential part of New Zealand’s rural life, but in the professional age its prominence has been in sharp decline. So what happens when one of the smallest and most remarkable clubs in the country watches its old hall burn down? It rediscovers its importance, and its people. Scotty Stevenson writes about … Read more
His paper broke the story which led to the Cairns trial, and Jared Savage has covered it brilliantly throughout. Scotty Stevenson spoke with him after the verdict. Jared Savage spent nine weeks in London covering the Chris Cairns perjury trial for the New Zealand Herald. After the verdict was read, I talked to Savage over the phone about … Read more
Sir Gordon Tietjens picks his first New Zealand Sevens squad for the 2015/16 season today with the ultimate prize an Olympic Gold Medal. We look at the coach and his team and ask why didn’t more big name players commit to his cause? The story, apocryphal maybe, goes that when Sir Gordon Tietjens first became … Read more
It may have been the worst kept secret in rugby, but Richie McCaw’s retirement announcement finally came. And went. Scotty Stevenson watched it all unfold. He walked into the room in jeans and a sky blue shirt and told the world that the time had come. Richie McCaw, the highest capped test rugby player in … Read more
One of the true legends of Rugby died today in Auckland. Scotty Stevenson reflects on the passing of the one and only Jonah Lomu. The most unstoppable man in the history of rugby was finally stopped today. He was just 40. Jonah Tali Lomu died unexpectedly in Auckland this morning after returning from the Rugby … Read more
There have been false dawns before but American Rugby is about to take its first steps into the pro leagues with the announcement of the PRO Rugby competition. Scotty Stevenson talks to the men behind the league and assesses its challenges and potential. At Travers Island last weekend the Old Blue of New York defeated … Read more
This Friday the Wellington Phoenix play their first home game since Football Federation Australia’s refusal to grant them a ten-year license extension to play in football’s A-League. Right now, Wellington is trying to pull the wool over their eyes. It was a remarkable press conference. Two weeks ago A-League CEO David Gallop sat a desk … Read more
A game of rugby union was played in London today, during which the greatest first five eighth in the history of the game finally got his World Cup moment. Dan Carter, a man who cried in the stands at Millennium Stadium in 2007, and who watched Stephen Donald win a World Cup in 2011, lined … Read more
You can’t get rid of the Phoenix. They’re named the Phoenix, for goodness’ sake. Is the Phoenix not the ultimate symbol of regeneration and rebirth and renewal? How can the Wellington club that rose from the ashes of Auckland’s attempts on dodgy property developer cash be handed a death sentence by the FFA? Do they … Read more
The All Blacks kicked themselves to the Rugby World Cup Final with a masterclass of tactics and the effectiveness of the clever kick. In the end, it was a matter of control – but in the middle this was less a test match than an organised and carelessly sanctioned game of chicken in which the combatants, blinded by … Read more
The All Blacks quarterfinal victory over the French was the most dominant in Rugby World Cup finals history, a 62-13 hammering that left the world in awe. All it took, says Scotty Stevenson, was a re-imagining of rugby’s geometric boundaries. The Springboks need only to watch the opening ninety seconds of the All Blacks in their quarterfinal against … Read more
Getting ready for the Quarterfinals of the Rugby World Cup? Feeling a little anxious about your team’s chances? Never let it be said that the team at The Spinoff Sports aren’t here to help heighten the tension or assuage the anxiety. Here we present a factual analysis of the quarterfinals, so you don’t have to bother. Firstly, Here … Read more
When time was called on Corey Flynn’s Crusaders career, you could have forgiven him for hanging up the boots. Flynn had bridged two generations in red and black, taking over from Mark Hammett and handing over to Codie Taylor and Ben Funnell. Today, he is still in red and black, and has travelled from rugby … Read more
It’s quarterfinal time at the Rugby World Cup so who will be in charge of the first of the knock out matches at the 2015 edition? The Spinoff Sports reveals the likely contenders for this weekend’s whistling action. 1. Wayne Barnes, England Undoubtedly one of the world’s leading referees, though Barnes remains less than popular … Read more
It’s official! After all the doubt swirling around Super Rugby’s latest expansion team, Japan’s entry into the southern hemisphere competition now has a name and arguably the greatest logo in rugby history. 1. They’re the Sunwolves. These ain’t no ordinary wolves. That would be far too easy. In Japan things are always better when two … Read more
It came down to the final tournament of the season for Tim Wilkinson, as he tried to keep his career alive on the Dye’s Valley course at TPC Sawgrass. No one talks about Dye’s Valley, usually. It plays second fiddle to the Stadium Course, with its famous Island green and its status as the venue … Read more
Georgian captain Mamuka Gorgodze was named man of the match today against the All Blacks. His side lost the game by 33 points. That says everything you need to know about how the defending world champions played in Cardiff. It could have been different. Waisake Naholo’s first touch of the ball in a Rugby World … Read more
Just two rounds remain in the ITM Cup and it’s all on the line in the penultimate weekend as spots still remain in both divisional playoff equations, and the relegation battle looms as a three-horse race. And so, with so much to look forward to, we look back into week eight, dipping our toes in … Read more
Scotty Stevenson on Danny Lee’s rise from naive battler to the cusp of greatness on the PGA Tour. Danny Lee finished tied for second yesterday at the PGA Tour Championship at the East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia, but maybe it is more correct to say that Danny Lee was the biggest winner of … Read more
What is it about the words ‘Ranfurly Shield Challenge’ that continues to inspire such fervour? Scotty Stevenson was at McLean Park in Napier to see Hawkes Bay get up to defend the log of wood against Auckland. It has haunted men, the quest for the Ranfurly Shield. Maybe because of that, because of the ghosts, … Read more
With just three rounds left in the regular season, and with no guarantees on final placings, the time has come for the latest installment in our weekly ITM Cup Power Rankings. From corporatised sea life to coaching rodents, it was another week that gave plenty and – in true Provincial fashion – expected nothing in … Read more
In the end the All Blacks defeated Argentina with eight men. Whether you choose to believe in the rust theory – the All Blacks hadn’t played a test match since August 15 at Eden Park – or the more magnanimous approach to analysis, which is to give the Pumas at least some kudos for their … Read more
As the 2015 World Cup opens, we present an extract from Cory Jane and Scotty Stevenson’s Winging It: Random tales from the Right Wing recalling the closing stages of the last World Cup. That bus ride to Eden Park on the evening of the final was unreal. Every street we turned into there were more people. Richard Kahui … Read more
This Rugby World Cup has offered plenty of entertainment already – a daft Englishman mocking the haka in an attempt to huck shite clothes, a former All Black hating on the English, current All Blacks using their bus as a changing room for maximum sponsorship exposure, and Tonga winning ‘Blazer of the Tournament’. Alas, no … Read more
The halfway point in the ITM Cup came and went over the weekend with Canterbury playing with all the precision of the Hyundai assembly line, the Turbos getting a first win, and Tasman making it 5-0 to start the year with a second half feast against the Lions. With the Makos taking on their bogey … Read more
Levi Stadium, Santa Clara. The first Monday Night Football game at the most advanced stadium in the United States. The 49ers, in black, against the Minnesota Vikings. There were plenty of storylines here: would the Vikings defence live up to their solid rep? Would Adrian Peterson be a force again? Would Colin Kaepernick? Was Teddy … Read more
New Zealand gets off to a flyer at the Parliamentary World Cup. Scotty Stevenson says surely this needs to be a bigger deal, and imagines how the first week might have gone. It was perhaps the most dominant opening win of the World Cup yet the the four-time world champion New Zealand Parliamentary Rugby Team’s … Read more
Scotty Stevenson watches as Stephen Donald makes his triumphant return to the City of Hamilton, wearing number 22 for Waikato tim boyn the ITM Cup. The great kiwi battler-cum-hero returned to Hamilton in the rain on a Thursday. Not many people cared. At least, not many people cared enough to witness it in the flesh. … Read more