Hello, you either have JavaScript turned off or an old version of Adobe's Flash Player.
IF New Zealand do not care enough about Friday's Test to name their strongest team available then why should the rest of us?
Kiwi coach Steve Kearney might have legitimate reasons for leaving out the likes of Sonny Bill Williams, Shaun Kenny-Dowell and Jared Waerea-Hargreaves.
Maybe he dislikes triple barrelled names.
Or maybe there are reasons we are not being told, which might be completely legitimate but means fans are being short changed again, even while asked to pay at the gate.
Hello, you either have JavaScript turned off or an old version of Adobe's Flash Player.
Or could it be as simple as Kearney insists, that Waerea-Hargreaves' performances could not justify selection ahead of Jesse Bromwich, Martin Taupau, Sam Moa and Greg Eastwood?
But that would be to ignore Waerea-Hargreaves' influence, a man who is more than just a prop.
He is who the Kiwis look toward to bring a little iron to their game. He is the first player the Australians look for.
———————————————————————————————————————
Steve Roach and Gorden Tallis join Paul Kent and Ben Ikin to look at all the big issues having an impact on the game. Watch NRL360 on Wednesday, 7.30pm on Fox Sports 1HD
———————————————————————————————————————
Yet on the twin criteria of form and future Kearney could find no place for him for Friday's Test.
Williams made it easy for Kearney when he withdrew earlier this month, in apparent protest at being implicated in the Kiwis' Stilnox scandal at last year's World Cup.
Kearney dismissed Williams' omission by saying he would not have been picked anyway. He was picking players for the future, and given Williams was returning to Super 15 he had no future.
Which brings it back to Waerea-Hargreaves, just 25 and expected to be in his prime come the next World Cup.
He is the Kiwis' future.
Just not their present apparently.
The sniff that won't go away is last year's Stilnox scandal.
L to R: Martin Taupau, Siliva Havili, Kenny Bromwich, Ben henry, Isaac John and Peta Hiku are the debutants in the New Zealand Rugby team. Picture: John Appleyard Source: News Corp Australia
The Kiwis players, Williams and the injured Kieran Foran, several others, are upset at Kearney and the New Zealand Rugby League at first being implicated in the scandal, and secondly at their failure to defend them.
The investigation had no transparency, and in a bid smother it by refusing to discuss it the NZRU sullied a dozen reputations. Here were dull minds at work.
Now Kearney adds to it by steadfastly refusing to discuss anything about the Kiwis' selection process. So the whiff of Stilnox hangs over this Test like a dirty cloud.
The failure of the Kiwis to keep faith with the fans, hindered by a misguided management and a high rate of injured players (Foran, Issac Luke and Jeremy Smith) reinforces calls the annual mid-season representative round needs to go.
The Kiwis can't compete and the NRL competition suffers for it.
The NRL receives $200 million a season to put on a competition which, this year, got off to a poor start.
Hello, you either have JavaScript turned off or an old version of Adobe's Flash Player.
Poor crowds and disappointing television ratings in the opening rounds had many questioning the brains trust at NRL headquarters, who allowed poor scheduling and a lack of foresight to shadow the season start.
The League responded by saying don't worry, give the competition time and the crowds will return.
And it finally looked to be true when brilliant Easter weekend crowds rolled straight into Anzac Day games that had the competition humming.
And then the handbrake went on for representative round.
Instead of rolling forward again this weekend the NRL teams all get the week off and viewers get a chance to break the habit they had just found themselves in because half the main event this weekend can't be bothered to pick a full-strength team.
It's not like they can afford it, either. The Kiwis haven't won this Test, played annually, since 1998.
L to R: Siliva Havili, Martin Taupau, Kenny Bromwich, Isaac John, Ben Henry, and Peta Hiku are the debutants in the New Zealand team. Picture: John Appleyard Source: News Corp Australia
Then on Saturday it's the Fiji-Samoa Test, where anybody who cares about that will be getting in for free, their names on the list at the gate that contains friends and family.
Sunday's City-Country game should remain, but should be played on a Thursday before a normal home-and-away round.
It is about time fans are treated as the most important commodity, and not just another income source.
Hello, you either have JavaScript turned off or an old version of Adobe's Flash Player.
THE WARRIORS NEED HENRY, NOT TITANS
JOHN Cartwright walked into the post-match press conference last Sunday wearing his usual costume: a Titans shirt and a slight frown.
Gold Coast remain at the top of the ladder, for anyone who cares to look, and yet Cartwright has been through too much in recent years to get ahead of himself.
After an initial burst of optimism some years back that resulted in then club boss Michael Searle declaring Cartwright would be Titans coach for life, failures to reach the finals in the past few years have seen some question whether Cartwright is the man for the job.
Now competing with a healthy roster, Cartwright is proving his worth as a coach.
Yet while assistant Neil Henry has been a terrific addition to the coaching staff, he isn't the man to take Cartwright's job.
No, Cartwright is the man for the Titans.
Henry is the man for New Zealand Warriors, and the sooner they act on that, the more confidence everybody can have that the club isn't completely rudderless.
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Kent: Kiwi’s side a debutants bore
Dengan url
http://sportfoxer.blogspot.com/2014/04/kent-kiwias-side-debutants-bore.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Kent: Kiwi’s side a debutants bore
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Kent: Kiwi’s side a debutants bore
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar