By STEVE MASCORD
I WAS once in New Zealand the morning the All Blacks were eliminated from the World Cup. I don’t know which one because I don’t follow rugby union.
The time was 4.30am on a Sunday morning, dashing from one NRL game to another, yet every sentient being in sight had been affected by this apparent tragedy. It was as if the South Island had fallen into the sea overnight.
Words were only used when strictly necessary. Any window seats left? ‘No’. Good morning ‘silence’. Newspaper? ‘two-twenty’. No smiles, just a mass hypnotic daze.
When the Kiwis were eliminated from the Rugby League World Cup by Fiji, having lost to a tier two country for the second time in eight days, there was not shock, dismay or sadness.
There was anger. Raw, red hot anger.
Once again I was in a cab. I had left AMI Stadium after the Tonga-Lebanon epic following the second game on Twitter. Two minutes to go, the Bati up by two.
I forgot I had been on stadium wifi. Now I had nothing, walking a completely deserted Christchurch street. Despite the exorbitant cost of turning on my data roaming overseas, the suspense was too much.
Into a shopping mall bar, with a few lingering Tonga fans throwing back their last couple of pints, dropping glasses, trying not to fall over on the sodden floor.
On the TV screen, former Kiwis coach Brian McLennan looks distraught. “I shed a tear just then,” he says. “They played dumb game. This is a poor Kiwi team.”
He couldn’t believe Adam Blair had said the country that invented international rugby league losing to Tonga and Fiji on consecutive weeks was “not a negative for us”. “He got it wrong,” says ‘Bluey’.
Host Steve McIvor gives him the chance to recant, offering that this is an emotional time. McClennan won’t. “I’m a proud Kiwi, I’m proud of that jumper.”
It’s like CNN coverage of a natural disaster. I want to have a second beer but they turn it down and turn up Fleetwood Mac.
In the cab, on call-in, radio, it’s worse. “Adam Blair is chewing gum, he doesn’t give a rats,” says one caller.
“I wonder if this means anything to them at all,” the host says. It gets worse from there.
The next day, Kidwell gives an interview talking about culture. But sporting teams aren’t a tub of yoghurt, they are primarily there to win – all the buzzwords are supposed to fall into line behind winning.
The Kiwis drew with Scotland and lost to Tonga and Fiji. Kidwell’s contract is up anyway. In what sort of bizarro world are we even discussing whether he will continue as coach? Am I, as an England fan put it on Twitter on Sunday about a completely different subject, “on glue”?
It had been quite a day. The plane from Darwin, temperature 35 degrees Celsius, had left at 1am – not long after Cooper Cronk, Mal Meninga, Matt Parish, Frank Pritchard and Valentine Holmes had done their media at TIO Stadium – walking distance from the airport.
Five hours to Sydney, two hours to connect, and another four hours to Christchurch. The only sleep was on the flights and I got a lot of it, especially with three seats to myself on the first sector.
The biggest concern in New Zealand was that my bag would go missing. I arrived from flying across the snow-covered Southern Alps still wearing shorts and a short-sleeved shirt from tropical Darwin.
Thankyou Qantas and Emirates. It was so cold in the press tribune at AMI Stadium that I needed to buy a crappy RLWC polo for NZ$60 to provide a third layer for the second half. There are actually two AMI Stadiums. The main one was so badly damaged in the earthquake that it hasn’t been used since. So the town’s rugby league ground, Lancaster Park, has been turned into a temporary-but-permanent replacement.
“You’ve created a beautiful monster,” is the text I sent RLWC CEO Andrew Hill as I mull over the implications of the Fiji result.
Wake-up on Sunday was at 1.30am Australian time, to the terrible news AC/DC founder Malcolm Young had died at age of 64, after battling dementia. Did Fiji really win last night? Was one a dream, the other nightmare?
The walk to Christchurch Airport is half an hour. It’s nine degrees. Another long day ahead – but I’m excited about England-PNG, I sense they can trouble England.
The Sydney Morning Herald Set of Six is bashed out in arrivals at Tullamarine. “Still filing?” Hill has just arrived from Christchurch himself. A driver is waiting. Damn, should have grabbed a lift.
The next stop is hosting a corporate function at the Ludlow Bar on South Bank for England supports. I don’t host corporate functions normally but I’m an 11th hour replacement for someone else.
The guest: Garry Scofield.
“I don’t care if we win the World Cup, I don’t want Bennett there!” he tells the travelling fans, wearing England and club shirts and shorts on a simply stunning Melbourne Monday, a vibrant city pulsing around us and all the windows of the bar open.
“I’d put Daryl Powell in there!”
It’s a long, hot walk to AAMI Park, the same pedestrian diversion in place as before the opening game of the World Cup. Across the road at the indoor arena, thousands are filing into a basketball match.
The game? PNG could have got much closer had they played remotely OK. England don’t look ready for Tonga.
But afterwards it was surreal. Did Wayne Bennett, so often compared to Clint Eastwood, really say the game was “Good, Bad and Ugly”?
Did he really offer up the story of Kevin Brown being replaced on the evidence of a Tweet?
The press conference finished at 6.36pm. My ‘replace’ story for the Sydney Morning Herald with quotes was due at 6.45pm.
At 6.38pm, Clint Eastwood sidles over in the company of John Goodman – Nigel Wood – and Matt Damon – Andrew Hill. Bennett puts a foot up on the seat next to me, like he’s settling in for a chat.
“You’d be happy with everything happening in international rugby league,” Clint says.
“Er, yes. I feel like several Christmases have come at once…. But I’m seven minutes to deadline.”
Bennett frowns. “So you’re telling me to piss off?”
Yes, it was a surreal weekend, the like of which we may not see again.
