In Eben we trust

Otago already has an Australian coach - now it's got a South African captain.

And because the once-mighty rugby province had an historically hopeless season last year, nobody will utter a peep.

Phil Mooney - now labelled a co-coach with Andy Hunter - helped unveil the Otago squad yesterday. It's big, at 30 players, and there are an incredible 14 new faces. That reflects (a) the high turnover in professional rugby and (b) the aforementioned fact that Otago was complete shit last year.

Replacing the Japan-bound Alando Soakai as captain is another flanker, tough and popular South African Eben Joubert.

Tough? Er, yes. Just look at this photo:

Joubert's is quite a story. As revealed in the Otago Daily Times recently, he went through a botched shoulder operation and subsequently became addicted to painkillers.

The Otago squad includes Adam Thomson and Ben Smith, but fingers crossed both will be on All Black duty during the ITM Cup.

A massive clear-out has seen no fewer than 19 of last year's players miss the cut (or run out of town). This won't necessarily mean Otago will beat all comers this season, but it at least signals something has been done in an attempt to stamp out the rot.

There are four first fives (youngster Hayden Parker, oldster Tony Brown, the under-rated Glenn Dickson and English rookie Tony Fenner), but only four players to cover fullback and wing. That seems a little strange.

New faces include former Hawkes Bay midfielder Sam Giddens, former Chiefs prop James McGougan, former All Black Ben Atiga and a couple of young signings from Wellywood, Buxton Popoali'i and Hanipale Galo.

I wouldn't expect miracles. Otago has too much rebuilding to do to expect much more than a handful of wins and perhaps fourth or fifth place in the second tier of the ruined NPC.

Birthday boy - Vince Lombardi

An occasional series in which the blogger celebrates the birthday of a great - or, at least, interesting - person.

Vince Lombardi
American football coach
June 11, 1913 - September 3, 1970

"What the hell's going ON out here?"

Whenever I think of Vince Lombardi, I see that famous clip of him ranting on the sidelines and uttering that quote.

Lombardi is regarded, by many, as the greatest coach of all time. He was the heart and soul of the unique, community-owned Green Bay Packers franchise, winning five championships, including the first two Super Bowls, in the 1960s. And that was after inheriting a run-down team.

He was an angry Italian (plenty of those around) who flogged the shit out of his players and expected rigid disciplinary standards to be followed.

A nice description of his status came from the great Shirley Povich in the Washington Post after Lombardi's death:

"Football was his power base but beyond his coaching skills he could qualify as one of the remarkable men of his time. The thickset figure of the latter-day Lombardi may have bespoken the rugged product of the football field, but there was vastly more. He was football coach, lecturer, philosopher, tough guy, moralist and practicing patriot who without blush put his voice atop that of the crowd in singing The Star-Spangled Banner.

"Football writers, in noting the scope of Lombardi's coaching triumphs and his complete command of his players' loyalties, dwelled often on the Lombardi mystique. At this he scoffed, ascribing all spiritual powers only to the divine, in which his own belief was complete. But others persisted in the belief in his special powers of accomplishment."

Lombardi was also a master motivator, and his legacy includes some great quotes:

- Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence.
- Fatigue makes cowards of us all.
- It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get back up.
And finally, for all those who think scores in junior sport should be capped:
- If winning isn't everything, then why do they keep score?

My World Cup XV - Right wing

In which the blogger picks the team he wants to represent the All Blacks when they choke compete in the Rugby World Cup in September-October.

14 - Hosea Gear

The real question here isn't: why should Hosea Gear be in the All Blacks?

It's: what were Ma and Pa Gear thinking when they named their bouncing baby boys?

When Maori boys are born in Poverty Bay, they tend to have names like Wiremu or Warren, Hone or Harold. You would have had long odds on a family producing anything as exotic as Rico - the elder brother, who was a decent All Black winger between 2004 and 2007 - and Hosea.

Seriously, Rico and Hosea. They sound like Colombian drug dealers, or Hispanic Los Angeles cops.

I haven't yet read anything explaining why the Gear boys got their fancy handles. The Baby Name Facts website lists seven "celebrities" with the Rico name - and five of them are baseballers. There is only one Hosea, another baseballer.

Anyway, the most famous Hosea in New Zealand is one of my World Cup wings. He's more of a leftie, but I slot him on the right as my other pick is also better on the left.

Gear is the incumbent. He played well on the end-of-season tour in 2010, after having only a couple of opportunities in the previous two years.

The All Black coaches took some convincing that his try-scoring ability was backed by a solid all-round game. But I think the questions have been answered. Gear is big and strong and quick and has a nose for the tryline.

In other words, he's a winger. And a very good one.

Rewind: The Old Otagolds

This is an extract from a column that originally appeared in the Otago Daily Times on November 6, 2010.

Sorry to bang on about North Otago for another week but you will just have to indulge me.

There are elements of the fantastic in the story of how a pipsqueak province transformed from perennial doormat into the minor champion of New Zealand's two premier sports, rugby and cricket.
   
You see, North Otago - or more precisely, Oamaru - was considered a bit of a downtrodden spot a decade or more ago, a place that provided travellers no compelling reason to stop, and a town that demanded you drive at 50kmh for an unreasonably long stretch.
   
It was less multicultural than Invercargill, and it had more bogans than Gore.  

Getting a KFC was a big deal. Civic pride was limited to how we performed in Top Town, or the number of times we got mentioned on the news. They closed our port and they tried to close our hospital. We lost our only movie theatre, and our entertainment options consisted of a pie at the 24-hour Shell or parking up in the trees in the middle of town.
   
But how times have changed.
   
To be at picturesque Whitestone Contracting Stadium last Saturday, when North Otago claimed the Meads Cup by thumping Wanganui, was to be a part of a special celebration in the heartland.
   
Sport is not the only thing, of course, that has helped reinvent Oamaru and North Otago. Victorian celebrations, heritage buildings, irrigation, vineyards, penguins, a great movie complex, new pubs and restaurants, and the planned Alps to Ocean cycleway make a compelling package.  

But to think of a North Otago rugby team that spent decades in the wilderness holding the Meads Cup, at the same time as the North Otago cricket team has the Hawke Cup for the first time, really is fairytale stuff.

You know that thing people do when they compare sporting teams and ponder who would be selected if they were combined?

Just for fun, let's do that with the worst top-division team (Otago) and the best lower-division team (North Otago). Otago names first.

Fullback: Ben Smith v Billy Guyton. Guyton is a rising talent and a lovely runner of the ball. But this is an easy choice because Smith may be the best player in the Highlanders franchise. Edge: OTAGO.

Wing: Joe Hill and Fetu'u Vainikolo v Greg Zampach and Lemi Masoe. Two of these wingers can run, catch and score tries. The others are called Joe and Fetu'u. Edge: NORTH OTAGO.

Centre: Paula Kinikinilau v Faaitu Tuamoheloa. Kinikinilau has only just made his debut and, for all we know, is the next Robbie Fruean. Tuamoheloa is a top performer right now. Edge: NORTH OTAGO.

Second five: Josh Tatupu v Luke Herden. One of the close calls, but Herden makes more line breaks and gets bonus points for his leadership. Edge: NORTH OTAGO.

First five: Chris Noakes v Ben Patston. Noakes has promised some but delivered little - and we have been waiting four years. Patston might be English but he is an exciting all-round player. Edge: NORTH OTAGO.

Halfback: Sean Romans v Kilifi Fangupo. A no-contest. Fangupo is electric; "Sparky" Romans shorted out this year. Edge: NORTH OTAGO.

No 8: Paul Grant v Tevita Fifita. One of these two reminds you what a good No 8 should do. Edge: NORTH OTAGO.

Flanker: Alando Soakai and Brad Cameron v Ross Hay and Josh Collier. Four good grafters, but Soakai's class is the trump card. Edge: OTAGO.

Lock: Hayden Triggs and Hoani Matenga v Eric Duff and Dave Simpson. Matenga isn't really a lock and Triggs went missing. Plus Simpson helped win the Hawke Cup as well. Edge: NORTH OTAGO.

Prop: Sam Hibbard and Halani Aulika v Palenapa Mafi and Ralph Darling. The Old Golds front row is under-rated but Aulika was one of the few bright spots of the Otago season. Edge: OTAGO.

Hooker: Pete Mirrielees v Stu Philpott. One got suspended for two weeks for a booze-related incident. One carried his daughter on his shoulders after the final game. Edge: NORTH OTAGO.

So there you go. My combined team would have 10 North Otago players and just five Otago players, which tells you either how high North Otago has risen, or how low Otago has fallen

The Horror-Canes

Let's play a little word association game with the five New Zealand rugby franchises.

Crusaders - Champions (good angel); evil (bad angel).

Blues - Dynamic (good); under-achieving (bad).

Chiefs - Consistent (good); irrelevant (bad).

Highlanders - Resurgent (good); hopeless (bad).

Hurricanes - Entertaining (good); fragile (bad).

It's the very last description on this not-at-all-hastily-assembled list that is behind the dramatic goings-on at Hurricanes HQ over the last week.

Rumours of player discontent with new coach Mark Hammett have boiled away all season, and the handy dismissal of "it's just a media beat-up" finally became redundant when the franchise confirmed it was setting free All Black regulars Ma'a Nonu and Andrew Hore.

What's ensued has been a frenzy of coverage and speculation, the sort of brouhaha that could only accompany a story emanating from the Hurricanes, Blues or Crusaders camps. Sorry Chiefs/Highlanders, but your internal strife just doesn't captivate so many people on a national scale.

The reaction has been interesting. Most Hurricanes fans seem bewildered by the decision to jettison a hooker who is still comfortably one of the two best in the country, and a midfielder who has been one of the All Blacks' best players in recent years.

But plenty have also sided with Hammett, reasoning the Hurricanes' performances this season are proof there is something wrong with the team.

I was shocked when Hammett got the job last year. It seemed one of the more blatant cases of someone getting an extremely important position in New Zealand rugby simply because he had (a) been an All Black and (b) been a Crusader. Oh, and (c) because the NZRU panicked when it looked like Robbie Deans was going to entice Hammett across the ditch.

They questioned Greg Cooper's credentials when he became Highlanders coach in 2004, but to be fair to Cooper, he had at least coached an NPC team, and he was a much-needed fresh face after the 2003 Oliver-Mains meltdown.

Hammett had only been an assistant when he was announced as the successor to long-serving Canes coach Colin Cooper.

You look at the talent at Hammett's disposal and it is genuinely alarming the Hurricanes could finish with the New Zealand wooden spoon.

In saying that, I don't have a huge problem with Nonu and Hore being shown the door. You wouldn't say either has his best years ahead of him, and both have defiencies in their game (Hore lacks dynamism, Nonu is susceptible to brain farts).

Above all, Hammett - rightly or wrongly - is the man in charge, and he needs to make his own decisions. If he wants to rebuild the team, it has to start now.

Some feel that Hammett will fail by trying to introduce Crusaders ideas into the less-structured Hurricanes franchise. Please. As if bringing proven strategies from arguably the most successful New Zealand sports organisation in history is a recipe for failure.

Others with narrow minds have suggested the Hurricanes have failed by "never appointing a coach from their home union". But that argument holds little weight, principally because the franchise only had three coaches (Frank Oliver, Graham Mourie and Cooper) before Hammett.

Nothing changes if nothing changes. And I'm prepared to give Hammett some slack as he tries to turn the Hurricanes from fragile to fantastic.

Game Time: LA Noire

This review ran in the Otago Daily Times' Signal supplement on June 7.

LA Noire

From: Rockstar
For: Xbox 360, PS3  

LA Noire didn't so much arrive on a wave of hype as it was propelled to shore on a flood tide.
   
Rockstar's success with the Grand Theft Auto series has created a situation where each of the company's new releases is greeted with early and loud shouts of "game of the year".

It happened with Red Dead Redemption ("Grand Theft Horse") last year, and that did actually turn out to be the most interesting and absorbing gaming experience of 2010.

Hot on the horse's heels comes LA Noire, Rockstar's take on a classic 1940s crime-solving drama.

The build-up to the game has been long and intense. A drip-feed of information built anticipation to the point it seemed Noire had earned game-of-the-year honours without having been played.

The thing with pre-release hype is that a game really can't win. It either fails to live up to the hype, or merely matches it.  

LA Noire slots into a sort of grey area: it's an extremely impressive game, but I don't see it knocking too many socks off. 

The game has you playing detective Cole Phelps, an ex-soldier battling a few demons but generally an arrow-straight lawman determined to clean up Los Angeles.
 
Starting at the lower ranks, you work on a few traffic cases and aim for promotion to join the big boys in homicide.

There are a stack of main cases, each of which unfold with swags of cutscenes, as well as dozens of one-off minor street crimes to halt.

Like Grand Theft, a part of the game is jumping in a vehicle, consulting a map and driving around a massive open-world city.

My knowledge of post-war LA is not flash, but the city certainly lives and breathes and seems appropriate for the era.

There are also regular chases on foot and a few gunfights as part of the action.

But the real heart of the game is in searching for clues at crime scenes and in interrogation, solving mysteries through reading people's reactions and using evidence to decide whether they are lying or telling the truth.

The hunt for clues is very simple: you wander around a bit and tap a button when the controller vibrates.

Interrogation can take a bit more of a deft touch. As conversations evolve, you are given button options for "truth", "doubt" or "lie", and the subject's helpfulness (or willingness to confess) will rely on your accuracy.

The strength of the interrogation segments is in LA Noire's graphics. Much has been made of the revolutionary face-scanning technology developed for the game, and it is no idle boast. The characters must be the most realistic yet seen in a game.

Many have been captured by real actors Phelps, for example, is the bloke who plays Ken Cosgrove on the outstanding Mad Men and the likenesses are extraordinary.

I do wonder, though, if all the attention lavished on every last facial tic and grimace might have affected other areas of the game.

It's quite glitchy. More than once I have checked out a crime scene with a colleague, and I have turned a corner to find him standing, completely frozen, on top of a hedge or a wall. And occasionally I have jumped in a car with an NPC, given him our destination and been dropped off at a random spot.
   
Things also get a little repetitive. Even with the one-off minor crimes thrown in, the game is basically a series of similar body searches, house hunts and interrogations. Occasionally it's all a little slow-paced.   

For all that, LA Noire is a very good game. It might yet turn out to be the game of the year.

And with plenty of extra material to be added on, it's going to be around for a while.

My World Cup XV - Fullback

In which the blogger picks the team he wants to represent the All Blacks when they choke, er, compete in the Rugby World Cup in September-October.

15 - Ben Smith

Local bias already!

Yes, I happen to live in the same city as Highlanders fullback Ben Smith.

Yes, I saw him play at school (well, I think I remember him at King's), and for his Green Island club, and for the Otago sevens team, and for Otago.

Yes, I am unashamed to admit I am a fan of the kid.

But he gets his place in my World Cup XV on merit. He's a bloody good player and his form dictates he must be picked. And more, that he must start.

We have a running joke in the ODT sports department. The doyen of club rugby, Alistair McMurran, has a habit of picking out a promising player in the Dunedin premier ranks and predicting they are good enough for the All Blacks. He liked a young Ben Smith so much he wrote a profile comparing him to Stephen Larkham (Smith wore headgear and was a first five at the time) and said if Smith was an Australian, he would be known as Ben Larkham-Smith and would already be in a Wallabies squad.

Looks like the bearded master might have been on to something.

I became convinced Smith was something special when I covered the national sevens one year in Queenstown. The fastest, most exciting athletes were in Auckland and Counties and North Harbour and Wellington.

But Otago had this skinny white boy who looked like John Leslie and ran like Christian Cullen. A Joe Average name with Joe Millionaire skills.

Smith joined the other Ben Smith - later, famously, to play a couple of seasons as Billy Elusiv - in the Otago NPC team and duly graduated to the Highlanders. With Israel Dagg drafted south and locking up the fullback jersey, Smith was placed on the wing, and looked right at home.

In 2009, the Highlanders were pretty rubbish but Smith was superb, and Otago was really rubbish but Smith was excellent, leading to his first (and, so far, only) call-up to the All Blacks.

He went on the end-of-year tour, playing one test (against Italy) and one tour match (against the Barbarians).

Smith did not exactly make a fantastic debut but it's not like he failed dismally. Oh no, he dropped the first ball kicked to him. Oh dear, he's the worst All Black since Shayne Philpott.

That one mistake contributed to the ludicrous inclusion of Smith in a "Worst XV of the Henry Era" feature (by a man who, by his own admission, doesn't watch the Highlanders or Otago), and a theme of "Smith blew his opportunity" has been built into every story on him since.

Now, with Smith in sublime form for the resurgent - er, that word seemed appropriate a couple of weeks ago - Highlanders, the media is feeling the love for our boy.

But would he really be a bolter for the World Cup squad? No, he wouldn't.

He runs with pace and grace, he can kick (for goal, for touch and for position), he's intelligent, he's a superb support player and he is defensively sound.

Mils Muliaina is the popular (and, let's face it, the coaches') pick to play fullback at the World Cup. Love Mils. He's a great player with fine all-round skills. But I wonder if his time has passed.