Author: Richard Irvine

Welcome to sportreview.net.nz - here's a bit about the site. Here I am on Twitter, or email me at richard (at) richardirvine dot com.

A year of it – one year anniversary of the Sport Review newsletter

This content was lovingly emailed to a boatload of awesome types in Sport Review newsletter #52 – get stuff like this, and loads more every Friday morning, sign up! 

52 not out – thanks for being part of the first year of the Sport Review newsletter. It’s been a bloody pleasure hitting send every Friday for you.

First, massive thanks to you, dear readers for signing up. Every bugger’s after your email address these days, I appreciate you trusting me with yours. Your enthusiasm and encouragement make rolling out of bed every Friday at sparrow’s fart with the laptop and a strong coffee very much worth it.

Thanks also to this fine nation’s sport journalists, who produce world class work every week, full of depth, passion and insight while making a living in a tough business. Get around them, support their work by paying for it, sharing it and supporting crowdfunding efforts like the brilliant LockerRoom.

And thanks for putting up with my own writing – the goal of the  sportreview.net.nz blog when it started in 2004 was putting a bit of humour into the nation’s sporting discourse. You will be the final judge of course (!) but I’ve loved writing it for you and enjoyed the discipline of doing my own thing every week.

Ultimately this newsletter’s kaupapa is ‘caring about sport’ and ‘having fun’, and I hope it’s added something to your sporting week.

Sometimes sport feels like hard work with the week in week out grind, the shit posts, sports that feel more marketing machine than actual sports, while other athletes survive on oily rags. It can be harder and harder to justify spending your valuable leisure time on actually getting out and supporting your teams when the big screen TV and pistachio nuts are RIGHT HERE IN THE HOUSE!

But there’s so much to enjoy – the big tries, wickets, goals, winning trophies or losing them in enjoyably frustrating ways, and being part of a tribe and a culture. Sport catching up with society and starting to recognise female athletes properly has been huge and a real injection of enthusiasm and fresh energy. There’s a whole lot of sport happening this year with all those world cups on, I hope you have a great one. Thanks again for reading.

Sharing makes you look intelligent and cool 
A problem shared is a problem halved – I really appreciate you sharing this on your social feeds, or forwarding it to your family, friends, workmates and enemies and then badgering the crap out of them until they subscribe at sportreview.net.nz/signup.

Plans for the year ahead? More of the same. Maybe some T-shirts. Would love your feedback at richard@sportreview.net.nz, let me know what you’d like to see more of and less of. Cheers!

Top three most popular newsletters

  1. Best of 2018 – year in review
  2. Ric Sallizzo’s Instagram is New Zealand sporting Taonga
  3. All Blacks end of season questions edition

My owns favs, in no order: 

You can enjoy all the old editions again at the newsletter crypt.

Chipping in for Kane on The Spinoff

sportreview.net.nz was lucky enough to contribute to top website The Spinoff, plumping for Kane Williamson as our greatest ever batsman, despite him only being mid-career. Have a read.

Then, come back and watch this video of Kane in the IPL – I love seeing what he can do in games like this, when he’s given a bit more license to improvise. With arguably less pressure on him, he can be as inventive and outlandish as anyone. And as always, matching his approach to what’s required for his team.

Announcing the sportreview.net.nz newsletter

Here’s the elevator pitch – you get an email packed with the very best New Zealand sport writing and content every week. Ideally, you’ll be informed and entertained.

Our country produces oodles of great writing and video – the Sport Review New Zealand newsletter will help make sure you see it.

It’ll be in your inbox at 8am every Friday, just in time for the weekend.

Sign up here: sportreview.net.nz/newsletter

…and read the first edition here.

Support the site! If you enjoy what you read, you get massive bonus points if you forward it on (Please. I’m actually deadly serious).

Expect a bit of experimentation and tweaking as we go – I’d love to hear your feedback if you get a chance.

Thanks, happy reading.

Things David Warner should have been fined for

Everyone’s favourite angry gnome is sick of just playing cricket and that, and is once more focused on verbals and being held back from fights he’d definitely win.

His encounter with de Kock has had more close examination of camera angles than the JFK assassination, with none of them showing much that you’d write home about. Any more discipline demerit points for Warner in the next couple of years will draw a suspension, and free him up to spend more time with his family he’s gotten so angry defending.

In fairness, his coach and CEO seem pretty relaxed about losing their world class opening bat for brain-explosion reasons. Maybe the board should have a view.

Anyway, sportreview.net.nz can exclusively reveal the first Test sideshow is just the tip of the iceberg for fine-worthy infringements. Behold:

David-Warner-fines2-090318

You can click it to make it bigger.

Bay City Ovalers

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BLACKCAPS v England, Bay Oval, Mount Maunganui 28 February 2018

‘It’s great these lights are *finally* up,’ said Neil Craig, NZC board member and a driving force behind developing Bay Oval, while being interviewed on the big screen mid way through England’s innings.

The ‘finally’ indicates the ambition for this ground. Competition is getting fierce among the new breed of boutique grounds that includes University Oval, Hagley Park and  Saxton Oval (not to mention Queenstown, Whangarei, New Plymouth and arguably the Basin, now it’s been opened up to white ball cricket). But the Bay’s oval has moved fastest to get those all-important lights, and was rewarded with the popular holiday period T20s, along with Napier’s only scheduled international game thrown in.

It’s not hard to see more ODIs against the big guns coming here after 8000 or so punters packed in on a Wednesday night, and day / night Tests were mentioned more than once in conversations on the grass banks. It’s an easy ground for punters to get around and find a spot that suits on the banks, and the food on offer is top class, including sportreview.net.nz-endorsed Tag Burger. The Mount looks bloody fantastic on SKY’s  drone shots too.

I’m certain the building won’t stop there either, this ground has built up a serious head of steam. A new stand next?

As for the cricket, it was pretty enjoyable. For England. They fielded like the Kray Twins chasing down a debt, and their batsmen did to us what Ross Taylor and Tom Latham did to them in Hamilton, finding gaps and play it risk-free. It was classy stuff, and this series looks like a tough  assignment for both teams, and an intriguing one for the fans.

Not even Pakistan hipster cable knit could save us #cricket

A post shared by Richard Irvine (@richirvine) on

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Previously

 

Links on Friday

Mesmerising Russian Ice Hockey player Nikita Kucherov gets right inside this goalie’s head and makes himself at home with a fumble-shot, faking to lose the puck but actually sending it smugly goalward. He’s done it before, to the same poor keeper.

 

Long read: a profile of ex-Philidelphia 76ers’ General Manager Sam Hinkie, the Stanford geek who took Moneyball to the extreme by selling his all team’s decent players, with the aim of finishing last and rebuilding from scratch with high draft picks. The fans were split into ‘WTF is going on’ and ‘Trust the process’ camps, and Hinkie, who was fond of appalling corporate-speak like ‘you don’t get to the moon by climbing a tree’, was out after three years. In a shocking plot twist, the team is actually coming right, lead by Joel Embiid, who nicknamed himself ‘The Process’. Read more. And even more.

Nike’s London campaign video is genius:

This (presumably Canadian) God is coming to save the world.

Links on Friday

The beautiful game used to bring out the best in designers, keen to push the boundaries on the biggest stage of all. These Days, football shirts are basically designed to look good with a pair of jeans – The Art of the Football Shirt is a hipper-than-thou exhibition of when shirts were less marketing-department-orientated – some great photos here.

If you missed Carlton Cole’s epic Twitter thread on West Ham United’s ‘banter era’, it’s time well spent and basically War and Peace written by Del Boy Trotter.

Skater Christian Flores tries to land a laser flip down a triple set of stairs. For two years. Surprisingly affecting stuff!

Radio New Zealand’s Eyewitness show looks at the 1992 bomb blast outside the NZ Men’s Cricket Team’s hotel – it packs a lot into 13 minutes and confirms fall out from this incident is still ongoing in 2017.