I know what you did on the Gold Coast
The long awaited Netball NZ Review (the summary of findings is here) into What Happened on the Gold Coast came out in the time-honoured Friday afternoon bad news slot.
Janine Southby, who came through the same High Performance Sport NZ elite coaching course as Steve Hansen and Mike Hesson, was a brave appointment at the time. It's a shame her approach of giving the team leadership responsibility didn't work, not helped by a several senior player retirements, but there was no way back from the Commonwealth Games results, with her team or the public. It's very tough for Southby, and puts the spotlight on the players to see how they come back, with a coaching change they evidently wanted on the bench.
The ANZ Premiership has been a welcome relief, with some entertaining close netball, but a quad series against England, South Africa and Australia is coming up fast. The role of Silver Ferns coach sounds as attractive as US President Spray Tan Technician at the moment, but someone will need to step up.
Getting safe pair of hands Wai Taumaunu back would be one option - alternatively, you could shoot for a wave of emotion approach (Laura Langman player coach anyone?), but Noeline Taurua seems to be the obvious and best long term option. Let's hope we can extract her back from Australian domestic netball.
The Review was damning reading if you were a coach, player, administrator or fan, but the most heartening thing for me was this is just part one of the reviews. Next, the panel is going to review selection, high performance and competitions.
The signal is that Netball NZ is determined to get things right, and hopefully they'll be given time to do it. If the Silver Ferns can get some results in the quad series to buy some time from the ever-demanding netball public, that will be a great start to building something better for the long term. The challenge is for everyone to take advantage of a clean-ish slate.
Thanks for reading - Richard
The week's best NZ sport writing
Dana Johannsen brought a Blues season ticket, and tried hard to get the Stockholm syndrome - a broad look at just what's wrong with NZ's most frustrating team, this Blues theory from Scotty Stevenson is also worth a read if you missed it [stuff.co.nz / Rugby Pass]
Madeleine Chapman on writing Steven Adams' biography - this write up features an impressive amount of day drinking [The Spinoff]
Dylan Cleaver's controversial take that Super Rugby's format is controversially quite good, especially if you take your partisan eye patch off [NZ Herald]
It's all on the line for Joseph Parker this weekend writes Mike Angrove, with his career potentially stalling before it's really got underway [Newsroom]
Video nasty
Pro golfers have a crack with hickory clubs from last century. They're a leveller.
Long read
The LA Times packed up its newsroom and moved - The Ringer were there for the last days in the sport department, for some determinedly unsentimental goodbyes.
Selected weekend fixtures
Hopefully some people show up to see The Crusaders and Hurricanes face off at 7.35pm on Saturday night in Christchurch, it's on SKY
This Tour de France has been a shambles with more sideshows than a creepy fair from a Steven King novel - it finishes this weekend with a mountain finish, the time trial and the Champs Elysee finish - the last two hours is replayed each day on SKY at 6am
The Warriors take on the Titans on Sunday afternoon at 4pm, it's on SKY
Bring back the gif
When you're being told off but having too much fun to stop.
