Another very interesting Sport weekend thanks to Covid-19. Based on Overseas resurgence numbers etc, I personally think the correct decision was made – and quickly! I guess Sport all over is having moments, but I really feel for the small Business’s who thought the doors were open, only to have them slammed shut, as in Auckland, or partially closed in the rest of the Country. We have done it before and the Team of 5 million can do it again. Just goes to show that we as a Nation cannot take the foot of the throat (now that is very PC). There is no place for complacency!

In our Sport area, the WRFU (obviously in consultation with NZRFU) decided to have only the Premier Rugby played in the Capital. We were out at Evans Bay Park for our match played behind a largely locked, high fence. I thought the MSP Officials did a great job enforcing the Rules of the day. By my reckoning, they would have been under the maximum crowd allowed. Mind you, it also meant early phone calls from our Chairman, Banksy, working out the numbers.

Onto the game. You will recall in last week’s report I suggested that the Game could go anyway. I am not sure what we expected, but MSP came out firing on all Eight Cylinders and on Soft Compound Tyres!! (more about that later) The speed of the MSP backline caught our Boys completely by surprise. It certainly took us a little time to adjust. The Forward battle was possibly one of the toughest I have seen this Season, with more Big Hits in 80 minutes than you would see in an entire evening of Stock Car racing. MSP seemed somewhat more polished with the ability to lift as a Team whenever needed. A wakeup call for us?? We have another tough game in a fortnight against current Leaders, Petone. Four games to go!

Super Rugby had an interesting ending. Good thing the Crusaders took the Trophy last weekend. At least we had a true Winner – as against a points tally win. Listening to the Hurricanes and Highlanders Players, they all commented on the earie feeling of no crowd. That aside, I believe all the Franchises put on an awesome display every game.

Back to the Soft Compound Tyres. Watching the V8 Supercars this weekend is kind of interesting. I recall writing a year or two ago how race strategy was taking over the actual Driver input – to an extent. Sure, the Driver will always be the element that cannot be replaced, but strategy has changed the positioning of a Car. But now we have different tyres that are to be used. As mentioned, there are Soft Compound and Hard Compound tyres which sounds okay, but each Driver must use them all over a couple or more races. So, we have race strategy surpassed by tyres. As Burgo (Mark “Racer” Burgess) said the other week, this is starting to kill the door handle to door handle racing that the Public wish to see. I am sure Burgo and I are not the only ones who see this as a backward step. Get back to the same tyres for the entire Field and parity for the Drivers!

Tyres aside, Scott McLaughlin is sitting at 48 Wins in his short career, which equals the great Peter Brock’s all-time record. Race 13 was won by De Pasquale on Saturday with Scott taking Race 14 on Sunday. Whincup driving Red Bull Holden took Race 15 and the weekend win.