Scotty Stevenson spent the weekend in the company of rugby players who’d just been on the receiving end of heartbreaking losses, and he loved every minute of it. I sat and drank with losers all weekend. Absolute losers. They had given their all for their teams, and their provinces and they had come up short … Read more
As the goalposts are taken down and cricket pitches mowed across the country, Scotty Stevenson reflects on the continued importance of provincial rugby in New Zealand. A lad had a question for me this morning. He asked: “How do we make provincial rugby important again?” I looked at it and sighed. I sighed for two … Read more
The weather at North Harbour Stadium on Wednesday afternoon was almost as bleak as the Wallaroos’ first performance against the Black Ferns at Eden Park – a 67-3 hammering that would have sent a lesser team packing. But a four-day break makes a massive difference it seems, and the home side were made to work … Read more
What really made the pugnacious Wallabies coach lose his rag after the Bledisloe Cup loss to the All Blacks on Saturday? Surely it can’t have just been that cartoon. Guy Montgomery investigates. It has now been four sleeps since the All Blacks set a new world record for consecutive test match wins by beating the … Read more
When rugby players make catastrophic screw ups, their bosses like to smooth things over with the public by taking away key learnings. We stole their method and took some of our own lessons out of the Aaron Smith sex toilet scandal engulfing New Zealand. 1. Having sex in a toilet is a romantic experience Nothing … Read more
The new breakdown laws currently being trialled in the Mitre 10 Cup have found little favour with World Rugby’s law committee, according to sources close to the latest meeting. Scotty Stevenson assesses their impact on the numbers after six weeks of competition. First trialled in club rugby competitions earlier this year, new breakdown law interpretations … Read more
Wellington Rugby seems determined to say the bare minimum about Losi Filipo’s assault case. Jamie Wall says it’s time for rugby to stop looking the other way. It was somewhat telling that the Wellington Rugby Football Union’s official statement regarding the Losi Filipo assault case and subsequent discharge without conviction was released at 10pm Monday night. … Read more
The 2017 Super Rugby draw is out today. To mark the occasion Scotty Stevenson has power ranked every round of the upcoming season, from 1 to 16(B). Click here to see the full 2017 Super Rugby season schedule 1. Round 14 I like this round. All 18 teams are playing and it is the Pascall … Read more
Australian rugby teams have been mostly awful this year, but there’s a plan to turn things around, and it starts with a Super Rugby overhaul. Tim Murphy reports. Don’t feel sorry for Australian rugby. Don’t feel pity for its pitiful season. Don’t give the buggers a break. Because they’re already plotting their comeback. Root, branch and Aussie ruthlessness. Having … Read more
“Chris, all we can hope really is that you die in a car accident or in some other similar way. Regards, Dave Smith.” This is an email that arrived in the inbox of New Zealand Herald sports critic Chris Rattue a few days ago. Dave’s oddly polite “regards” aside, it’s nothing out of the ordinary. … Read more
Rugby is getting a new festival event next year to kick-off the season in style – in the scorching hot league paradise of Brisbane. But what’s it all about, and why do we need it? Tim Murphy spent 48 hours among the tatts, T-shirts and thongs to find out. They don’t do things by halves … Read more
Mark Watson’s radio segment Controversy Corner aka I’m Not Racist But… has been cancelled, but is he a changed man? Let’s briefly check in to Radio Sport’s most un-PC disc jockey. Last time I checked in on Mark Watson, he was recording a “Worst-Of New Zealand Homophobia, Sexism and Racism” compilation with his friend Kieran Smyth. … Read more
Madeleine Chapman tunes into DUKE to watch their new sport chat show Short & Wide, and amazingly doesn’t find a particularly comfortable place for women. When TVNZ announced their new male-skewed channel, DUKE, at the start of this year, it was unsurprisingly met with disdain. But programmers were quick to note that it wasn’t a channel for … Read more
NZ Rugby hoped this week to draw a line under the scandal around the Chiefs behaviour at an end-of-season function. Fine, but we just have a few nagging, planet-sized questions, writes Hayden Donnell. Where is the report? Does it exist? Where is it? Just about all we’ve heard about this extensive report is from a … Read more
The opening ceremony for the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games is today. Kirsten McKenzie was there for the Olympic Games and argues that Rio was not only safer than expected, it was far more inclusive than most major cities. The countdown is on for the 2016 Rio Paralympics. There’s little fanfare in the traditional media. There’s … Read more
The Ranfurly Shield contest between the Waikato and Manawatu men’s teams may have been a dud, but the warm-up match was a game for the ages, says Scotty Stevenson. Michelle Montague lay on the halfway line at Waikato Stadium, in the rain, in agony. Her braided hair rested on the wet grass, her leg rested in the hands … Read more
An extreme latecomer to the Richard McCaw fan club reviews his heroic new autobiographical documentary. Watching the All Blacks pull apart Wales then the Wallabies in their trademark clinical fashion this year, something hasn’t felt quite right. When the bus stop billboards started going up for the autobiographical Richie McCaw documentary Chasing Great a couple … Read more
For over 16 years one of New Zealand’s greatest trans-Tasman triumphs has been overshadowed by one of our most crushing rugby losses. Jamie Wall remembers the day TrueBliss absolutely owned Bardot in a pre-Bledisloe Cup national anthem sing-off. The dawn of the new millennium was a dark time for the All Blacks. Their final game … Read more
The Rio Olympics are over, but how can we keep up our medal run in Tokyo? Madeleine Chapman says we have to invest more into female athletes. The 2016 Rio Olympic Games were the first where New Zealand sent more female athletes than male to compete. Linked: it was also our most successful Games ever, with 18 … Read more
The 2016 Rio Olympics have been historic for any number of reasons, not least of which the sheer number of athletes joyously chomping down on the medals they just won. Whether to verify karat-count or as an homage to an inspiring medal-biter from the past, everyone seems to be having a munch on their precious … Read more
Madeleine Chapman recalls the moment she first laid eyes upon pole vaulter Eliza McCartney – a gangly kid who just capped an extraordinary rise to claim bronze in Rio. In 2013, while I was training in the javelin at the Millennium Institute in Albany, there was always a small group of athletes training in pole … Read more
Tim Murphy wonders why New Zealand rugby fans can’t have a show that’s fun and and irreverent and, well, more like rugby league’s The Footy Show*. The problem with rugby in New Zealand is that it is only a game of two halves. Two world-class halves of on-field action. The third, critical part – the TV … Read more
The New Zealand men’s sevens Olympic campaign was given a raw deal by a rugby union which still sees the seven-a-side game as a poor relation to 15s, writes Scotty Stevenson in Rio de Janeiro. It was a salty old hot take-o-rama after the New Zealand Men’s sevens team was bundled out of the Olympic … Read more
Getting upset at terrible refereeing calls is a Kiwi tradition. So why aren’t people foaming at the mouth in fury over the terrible calls in this morning’s Women’s Sevens gold medal game? I remember watching the 2007 Rugby World Cup quarterfinal between New Zealand and France. I remember the controversial calls from referee Wayne Barnes. … Read more
Lions coach Johan Ackermann watched his gamble of resting his best players for their final round trip to Buenos Aires blow up in his face on Saturday night. The fact he took that gamble in the first place highlights some major problems with the expanded Super Rugby schedule, writes Scotty Stevenson. Split Enz famously sang … Read more
The events of this week have cast a shadow across rugby, with the despicable behaviour of one of its most beloved teams shocking the nation. But, Steve Hansen aside, its most prominent voices have stayed silent. Why? In US sports they have this nickname, “America’s Team”. Initially bestowed upon the dominant Dallas Cowboys team of … Read more
The Rio Olympics are about to officially get underway and what better way to celebrate than with a drinking game during the opening ceremony. The opening ceremony for the Rio Olympics begins on Saturday at 10:50am. It’s going to be a long affair, probably even longer than Batman vs Superman, and no doubt far more entertaining. With … Read more
Sportswomen are consistently marginalised in today’s media but the Olympics are a beacon of hope for equal, quality coverage, writes Toni Bruce. For the next few weeks, I’ll be glued to the television and Internet enjoying the quadrennial Festival of Sporting Women. Even though it has another name you might know better – the Olympic … Read more
John Campbell, Kate De Goldi, Patrick Gower, Captain Hurricane and more tell us how they’re feeling in the leadup to a big night for supporters of the country’s greatest rugby side. As any enlightened person will tell you, the Hurricanes are blessed with the most insightful and elegant supporters in the world of sport, whom … Read more