Rugby, but in potpourri format
Biggest win
The All Blacks. Saturday night's match was an arm wrestle in the best way, and George Bridge's was one of the greatest team tries you'll see. Winning against the Boks was the difference between a tricky and slightly less tricky route through the knockout stages so it was pleasing to be both put to the test and come out successfully.
Biggest brouhaha
Spark. Disclaimer - I worked for previous incarnation Telecom for ten years and helped with a number of Snafus from the tragic (2011 earthquakes) to the technical (XT network outage) to the self-inflicted (Sean Fitzpatrick and his pink fist car).
Yes the streaming messed up for some, but it worked pretty well for quite a few too. Any stumble was always going to be seized on, but the Spark of 2019 had a really good backup plan, put it in place quickly and communicated about it to the point of exhaustion. I'm not sure the old Telecom would have tried in the first place.
Most predictable
Battling rugby writer had a crack at the haka on an Irish aggregate site, and our Nation devotes days of coverage to hitting back. Sure, criticising the haka is a tired angle and culturally insensitive, but can we stop playing into these guys' hands by being so thin-skinned?
Biggest test
With games so few and far between, the world's content creation pros have been put to the test to keep audiences engaged and clicking things. Biggest winners for me have been that amazing Canon animation that turned the All Blacks' tries into video game graphics, and Richie Mo'unga and Atu Moli on the hotel lobby piano.
Thanks for reading - Richard
The week's best NZ sport content
Spark's meltdown (for some) probably got more coverage than the games early this week - here's Duncan Greive on the winners and losers, Peter Griffen on what went wrong, technically, and Vaughn Davis on why we shouldn't write them off [The Spinoff, Noted, Stuff]
Meanwhile, former SKY CEO John Fellet is earning $1 a year, and loving life - fascinating profile on his background and what he's up to now [Newsroom]
The story of the 1014 guys, the fans who started doing their own stories, then show, and have now worked with SKY, Stuff and Spark Sport thanks to their razor sharp analysis [Stuff]
Ian Anderson lays out the case for playing within the rules [Stuff]
How amazing is it to see Te Aihe up on its foils? [TVNZ]
Latest video in superb Scratched series on under-recognised NZ sporting folk is Olympic and Commonwealth Games table tennis player Chunli Li [The Spinoff]
Sir Richard Hadlee has been watching the Ashes, and has some ideas on bowling to Steve Smith, but even he's not sure they'd work [Stuff]
Video nasty
London Alley Cat race, where bike messengers obey even less rules than usual.
Long read
What's it like to be the 556th ranked tennis player in the world? Sweden's Maria Yudanov talks you through a world where you're just trying to win enough cash for the plane fare home [BBC]
Recommend media
I'm loving the Off Menu podcast, where comedians Ed Gamble and James Acaster's guests choose their dream starter, main, drink etc and talk it all over. Try starting with the Observer restaurant critic Jay Rayner's episode.
Selected weekend fixtures
RWC picks are probably Japan v Ireland at 7.15pm tomorrow night, and Wales v Australia at 8.45pm on Sunday. We don't play until 11.15pm Wednesday v Canada, this is all on Spark Sport
Bring back the gif
Looking through the schedule for the All Blacks' next decent game.
