Speaker 1: Cielda.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. From sideline
Speaker 2: squabbles to damning defeats, twenty twenty six will need to
Speaker 2: be a year of refresh when it comes to Kiwi sports.
Speaker 3: The All Blacks.
Speaker 2: Season has been shaky to say the least, and headlines
Speaker 2: have been dominated with netble New Zealand's off court chaos,
Speaker 2: but there have been some major wins on the world
Speaker 2: stage for some of our best athletes. Liam Lawson has
Speaker 2: become a household name and Ryan Fox has seen some
Speaker 2: career bests this year. So to wrap it all up
Speaker 2: today on the front Page, we have the New Zealand
Speaker 2: Heralds Christopher Reeve and Nathan Limb to take us through
Speaker 2: some of twenty twenty five's highs and lows. So first off, guys,
Speaker 2: let's get this out of the way, because I know
Speaker 2: how much it pains people to talk about it, the
Speaker 2: All Blacks, Right, Nathan.
Speaker 4: I'm looking at you. I'm looking at you.
Speaker 2: Well, people love to talk about it, but when they lose,
Speaker 2: and there's been a few big losses this year, hey
Speaker 2: tell me about it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so three big losses I suppose have lowlighted the
Speaker 5: All Blacks year.
Speaker 4: We're used to this sort of relentless standard of dominance.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I suppose the nature of those losses is
Speaker 5: more the issue rather than the losses themselves. So they
Speaker 5: had losses to Argentina, South Africa and England, and that
Speaker 5: South Africa one in particular in Wellington where they were
Speaker 5: handed their biggest.
Speaker 4: Test defeat in history.
Speaker 5: Really started the alarm bells ringing, and it put a
Speaker 5: heap of pressure on Scott raisor Robertson the coach and
Speaker 5: Scott Barrett the captain. People questioning the direction of the team.
Speaker 5: There are a few issues that I guess have played
Speaker 5: the All Blacks this year. Discipline, the yellow cards and
Speaker 5: have continued in irregular feature. They work under the high ball,
Speaker 5: their line out and their defense on the edges, and
Speaker 5: to their credit, the lineout seems to have sort of
Speaker 5: itself out through the Northern tour that definitely improved. They
Speaker 5: had a few new players, Josh Lord came in and
Speaker 5: seemed to really make an impact. But I suppose there's
Speaker 5: still a few question marks over the All Blacks and
Speaker 5: now they're progressing in those other areas with the World
Speaker 5: Cup a couple of years away.
Speaker 3: Chris, have other teams just gotten better? Have we just
Speaker 3: been used to the All Blacks being.
Speaker 2: The best in the world for like the past few
Speaker 2: decades and other teams have just caught up.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think there's a little bit of that. My
Speaker 6: thing with rugby has always been there's essentially been ten
Speaker 6: countries in the world who take rugby seriously, and as
Speaker 6: more start to take it seriously, you know, they're starting
Speaker 6: to catch up, starting to get to the All Blacks level.
Speaker 6: I was looking at this the other day because the
Speaker 6: All Blacks can meet current world number one South Africa
Speaker 6: and the quarterfinals of the World Cup, and they met
Speaker 6: then world number one Ireland, and the last World Cup
Speaker 6: before that, it was just all Blacks, world number one,
Speaker 6: All Blacks, world umber, all Blacks, world number one. So
Speaker 6: now all these teams are starting to get to the
Speaker 6: All Blacks level, starting to I guess bring that level back,
Speaker 6: and All blackson else starting to be in that position
Speaker 6: where it's like, well, now we've got to match it
Speaker 6: with the other teams.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It is always fun, isn't it when your team is
Speaker 2: the best team in the world. But I mean there's
Speaker 2: some few nail biting games, Nathan.
Speaker 3: Over the course of this year.
Speaker 2: One of the main criticism actually I've seen is about
Speaker 2: the team's identity. They've got an identity issue. And does
Speaker 2: that just mean basically, when you think of a team
Speaker 2: and you can't immediately think of maybe three describing words
Speaker 2: to describe them with, would you be at a loss
Speaker 2: to describe this team in three words?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: And I suppose in a really positive way of you're
Speaker 5: wanting to look at the team's characteristics in their biggest strengths.
Speaker 5: It is hard because it has been muddled and the
Speaker 5: performances have been so up and down this year. I
Speaker 5: think one of the concerning areas is around the All
Speaker 5: Blacks attack because for so many years they've been dynamic,
Speaker 5: they've been so accurate. The simple catch and pass has
Speaker 5: been the All Blacks identity. And I suppose there's a
Speaker 5: little bit of confusion as to the direction of how
Speaker 5: this team wants to play the game because those elegant
Speaker 5: sort of back line moves that were so used to seeing,
Speaker 5: you know, throughout the twenty twenty tens, they're not there.
Speaker 5: It doesn't seem to be part of the All Blacks game,
Speaker 5: they shift the board of the left wing to the
Speaker 5: right wing. Obviously, with the change in rules, our teams
Speaker 5: are kicking a lot more and we're putting up those
Speaker 5: those bombs and sometimes we're contesting them. But other countries
Speaker 5: seem to be doing it a hell of a lot
Speaker 5: better than us. So what is the All Blacks biggest strength?
Speaker 5: I think is the question that a few people are
Speaker 5: struggling to answer.
Speaker 4: At this point.
Speaker 3: And what about the leadership they're sticking around next year?
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the coaches will still be in charged,
Speaker 5: so I Scott back from what we've seen, will still
Speaker 5: be Then he's admitted, you know that it probably wasn't
Speaker 5: the best year and there are things he would like
Speaker 5: to improve on. So look, this coaching team, I suppose
Speaker 5: has been in charge for a couple of years now,
Speaker 5: and we would have probably liked to have seen more
Speaker 5: in terms of that direction at this point. But they've
Speaker 5: still got another year and a half until a couple
Speaker 5: of years until the next World Cup, so there is
Speaker 5: time to find some brother.
Speaker 7: It was a very good race, I know for starting
Speaker 7: third and finishing FIRSD might not sound like the best result,
Speaker 7: but given the carries, and given the drivers that are
Speaker 7: behind him, and given the way he just drove full stop,
Speaker 7: I say that was an incredible performance the other night.
Speaker 2: Let's move on to arguably one of the most talked
Speaker 2: about Ken we athletes this year. Who do you reckon?
Speaker 6: I'm going to say my guess is Liam Lawson?
Speaker 8: Yeah, exactly, Yeah, because it's been everywhere right Like I,
Speaker 8: as someone who doesn't watch sports religiously or really knew
Speaker 8: anything other than what's on Netflix about F one, this
Speaker 8: year seems to be Liam Lawson's big year.
Speaker 3: Why is that?
Speaker 4: Do you think?
Speaker 6: Formula one is a very hard stage to crack litt
Speaker 6: alone succeed and there's so many politics that go on
Speaker 6: and just getting into the position that Liam Lawson is in.
Speaker 6: And for Liam in particular, he started the ye arguably
Speaker 6: the best team in Formula one at red Bull, they
Speaker 6: only gave him two races before they said, actually, where
Speaker 6: we're going to put you back to the junior team.
Speaker 6: So just everything that has happened for Liam Lawson this
Speaker 6: year has sort of just made for quite a compelling story.
Speaker 6: And from that point it's been is he going to
Speaker 6: have a seat for this for next year? And that
Speaker 6: dragged on the entire season. They gave it until I
Speaker 6: think the week before the final race of the season
Speaker 6: to make that decision. So yeah, it's just been a
Speaker 6: very very interesting and I guess fun for a reporter's
Speaker 6: point of view story to follow, and people have really
Speaker 6: really grabbed onto it.
Speaker 3: Was it a bit too early? Do you reckon to
Speaker 3: have him sitting next to you? Max Vashtappen, Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: a good question.
Speaker 6: I think he was ready. I just don't know if
Speaker 6: they gave him enough time to get used to that car.
Speaker 6: That's my personal opinion. I think Liam Lawson's very good
Speaker 6: at what he does and I think they just need
Speaker 6: to show a little bit more patience on him.
Speaker 3: Right, So looking forward to seeing him next year.
Speaker 4: Nathan, Yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 5: I mean twenty twenty five has been some big highs
Speaker 5: and some big lows, and that would have been incredibly
Speaker 5: difficult for Lawson to manage the spotlight for those two
Speaker 5: races and then to be dropped. I mean, what's that
Speaker 5: going to do to your confidence? You're a young man,
Speaker 5: you're on the world stage, You've got so much pressure
Speaker 5: and through the rest of the year. The best thing
Speaker 5: has just been he's had a consistent seat and he
Speaker 5: hasn't had to worry about that. He can just focus
Speaker 5: on performance and to know that he is going to
Speaker 5: get that again next year. He's going to head into
Speaker 5: twenty twenty six with a much wiser sort of head
Speaker 5: on his shoulders, more experienced, and he'll feel a bit
Speaker 5: more comfortable and a bit more like he belongs because
Speaker 5: he's actually had that backing of his team this time,
Speaker 5: whereas he didn't have that at the start.
Speaker 4: Of the year.
Speaker 5: And I think they've showed the probably should have stuck
Speaker 5: with him a bit longer because they've obviously dropped the
Speaker 5: guy who they.
Speaker 4: Replaced him with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's quite funny to see Kiwi's on the big
Speaker 2: stage as well. Do you feel like Kiwi's put our
Speaker 2: athletes and stuff who are who get a name and
Speaker 2: are you welld known on a bit of a pedestal
Speaker 2: because we've got the tall poppy syndrome obviously, But as
Speaker 2: soon as Liam Lawson gets into the F one and
Speaker 2: does all these amazing things at the start of the year,
Speaker 2: it was like the pressure that must have mounted on
Speaker 2: him from you know, everyone talking about it, everyone having
Speaker 2: his back, and then everyone talking about it when he
Speaker 2: didn't do so well as well.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's been surprising throughout this year just how many
Speaker 6: people have seid Liam Lawson's not good enough. Liam Lawson
Speaker 6: doesn't belong in Formula one, just sort of based on
Speaker 6: him not being on the podium every week. Formula one
Speaker 6: is a very very very hard sport to succeed in.
Speaker 6: There's really only two or three teams that can consistently
Speaker 6: put you on the podium. The rest of them are
Speaker 6: fighting for those middle positions and that's the team Liam
Speaker 6: Lawson has found himself in. Just being able to compete
Speaker 6: for top ten sort of week to week or Grand
Speaker 6: Prix to Grand Prix is quite a high achievement. So yeah,
Speaker 6: it's a strange one. I feel Aliam Lawson's succeeded with
Speaker 6: what he's been given. But yeah, you might get a
Speaker 6: different answer if you are someone else.
Speaker 5: It's a bit of a catch twenty two when you're
Speaker 5: talking about the tall poppy syndrome because another, you know,
Speaker 5: we're talking about identity before another part of New Zealand's
Speaker 5: identity in the way we view sports, we punch above
Speaker 5: our weight, So in that regard it kind of is
Speaker 5: in conflict with the whole tall poppy syndrome. But I
Speaker 5: think for the most part New Zealanders have been very
Speaker 5: supportive of Liam Lawson. Would be great to see that
Speaker 5: continue into twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: The only purpose of elite sport, if you think about it,
Speaker 1: is victory. It exists for no other reason than to
Speaker 1: let a chosen for you express themselves in a way
Speaker 1: where they went and others can piggyback on that by
Speaker 1: way of television licensing, or ticket sales or just being fans.
Speaker 1: Unless Nolan Tarua has had a personality transformation and they're
Speaker 1: all wandering around Netball New Zealand at the moment going jeez,
Speaker 1: I wonder what happened to old Knowles, Man that Knowles,
Speaker 1: that Knowles has changed, which I suspect has not happened
Speaker 1: at all. Then what we are left with is the
Speaker 1: inescapable conclusion that Tarua is the victim of soft management
Speaker 1: in a world where every cry baby needs to be heard.
Speaker 2: Something else that everyone was talking about this year was
Speaker 2: the Netbull and not what was happening on the court,
Speaker 2: but what was happening behind the scenes. You did a
Speaker 2: lot on this Nathan this year in terms of Netbulle
Speaker 2: New Zealand standing down longtime Silver Fern's coach Dame Nolane Tolua.
Speaker 3: Nathan, tell me about it? Do we even know what happened? Now?
Speaker 4: Sort of? So I heard an.
Speaker 2: Interview that she did about it, and I, you know,
Speaker 2: left that interview feeling like she didn't even know what happened.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, so what happened? Yeah?
Speaker 5: So she was stood down days out from the Tiny
Speaker 5: Jamison series sort of sensationally and through everything sort of
Speaker 5: it was like chaos for a couple of months because
Speaker 5: no one seemed to know what was going on, and
Speaker 5: there was not really any communication from Netball New Zealand
Speaker 5: to the public or otherwise about why total had been
Speaker 5: stood down under the cloud of it's an employment matter,
Speaker 5: everything has to be private. But the problem was that
Speaker 5: silence extended for months and because of that, the New
Speaker 5: Zealand public, who have an understandable loyalty to their coach
Speaker 5: at Totaler, wanted to find someone to hold accountable for this,
Speaker 5: and because she was stood down apparently due to player complaints,
Speaker 5: that turned to trying to hold the Silver Ferns players
Speaker 5: accountable for it without actually knowing who complained or what
Speaker 5: the complaints were, and that led to players who weren't
Speaker 5: involved at all getting dragged under the bus. And so
Speaker 5: the handling of the situation by Netball New zeal And,
Speaker 5: that lack of communication created an environment that was highly
Speaker 5: it was sort of a bit toxic in terms of
Speaker 5: the public and what the players had to deal with
Speaker 5: in terms of that criticism and that scrutiny because there
Speaker 5: just would seem to be no reason or no accountability
Speaker 5: for why this has happened. Since then, parts of the
Speaker 5: stronic report the investigation have come out, and so, yeah,
Speaker 5: the player complaints around inconsistency of Total implementing her standards,
Speaker 5: you know, potentially treating some players differently to others, and
Speaker 5: then also the way the environment is compared to after
Speaker 5: losses versus wins. So people can read into those complaints
Speaker 5: what they will for me. I mean, looking at the report,
Speaker 5: I felt it. You know, from that it was you
Speaker 5: do get an idea of what the complaints were. No,
Speaker 5: not the specifics of who exactly complained, but totally can
Speaker 5: she was in the environment, she can read between the lines.
Speaker 4: So you know, I.
Speaker 5: Suppose the key issue here is this still doesn't result
Speaker 5: because total effectively was reinstated as coach.
Speaker 4: But then wasn't reinstated as coach for this.
Speaker 5: She'll only come back next year, and given the dates
Speaker 5: and how everything works with the ains in Premiership, she's
Speaker 5: only going to get the Silver Ferns back together in July,
Speaker 5: a few weeks out from the Commonwealth game, So she's
Speaker 5: going to go almost two years without having overseen the team.
Speaker 5: All of this dramas happened in the interim and she's
Speaker 5: not got much time to sort it out and we'll
Speaker 5: just have to see what happens. But it's a really
Speaker 5: really difficult situation.
Speaker 4: For the Ferns.
Speaker 5: But I also think it's worth pointing out that the
Speaker 5: Ferns had a really successful year despite all of this
Speaker 5: off the court. They won nine out of twelve games,
Speaker 5: clean swept South Africa, clean swept Scotland, beat England away
Speaker 5: from home, and drew their Constellation Cup series with Australia
Speaker 5: lost an extra time. But despite all of this, they
Speaker 5: performed really really well on the court and I think
Speaker 5: the Ferns themselves deserve.
Speaker 4: A lot of credit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so sorry.
Speaker 3: Is that July next year, twenty twenty six?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: What does she do between now and then.
Speaker 5: Unclear planning, planning, you know, during the ains of premiership
Speaker 5: normally she'd be going around the franchise and talking to
Speaker 5: the players and giving them feedback and goal setting and
Speaker 5: that sort of thing. There has you know, she's she's
Speaker 5: talking to Super Netball clubs as well though, so if
Speaker 5: she were to take on a role the Mavericks have
Speaker 5: been you know, she's talking to them. If she were
Speaker 5: to take up a role with them, that would surely
Speaker 5: impact whether or not she can go around the aims
Speaker 5: of premiership teams. But again there's a complete lack of
Speaker 5: clarity because we haven't heard from her in weeks. We
Speaker 5: haven't heard from Netball New Zealand on this, so it's
Speaker 5: very still up in the air and.
Speaker 2: So okay, so it's still really nice continue.
Speaker 6: Yeah, credit to the Silver Ferns. They played pretty well
Speaker 6: throughout the year. Once they sort of came to terms
Speaker 6: with everything that was going on, they turned things around
Speaker 6: very quickly, played very well against Australia, played very well
Speaker 6: when they went to the Northern tourst So like they've
Speaker 6: come out of this looking quite good.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Well somebody else who has had a good year
Speaker 2: this year, Ryan Fox. I'm not sure if you know him,
Speaker 2: he's won a couple of times.
Speaker 3: Tell me about that Grose.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so breakout.
Speaker 6: Yeah, for Ryan Fox, it's always been a case of
Speaker 6: he's good enough. It's just a matter of putting four
Speaker 6: good rounds of golf together to win a tournament on
Speaker 6: the PGA Tour. And yeah, he was able to do
Speaker 6: that twice within the space of a month this year,
Speaker 6: which is pretty unreal. The first one at Myrtle Beach
Speaker 6: was what they call opposite field event, so all the
Speaker 6: best players are off playing a signature event. You've got
Speaker 6: to be ranked in the top seventy players to get
Speaker 6: in that. The rest of the field go to this
Speaker 6: other one. So Fox was at the other one and
Speaker 6: one that needed to chip in from just off the green,
Speaker 6: which was a pretty unreal way to win a tournament.
Speaker 6: And then two weeks later he goes to the Canadian Open,
Speaker 6: where most of the best players in the world were playing.
Speaker 6: Scottish Effler wasn't there, but yeah, he went out and
Speaker 6: won that one in a playoff as well. So very
Speaker 6: very good month for Ryan Fox, and he continued that
Speaker 6: throughout the year. He finished well the top fifty. So
Speaker 6: now the next year, he basically gets to take his
Speaker 6: pick of what tournaments he wants to play in.
Speaker 2: This is something that I wanted to ask you guys
Speaker 2: in terms of sporting moments of the year. Obviously we've
Speaker 2: spoken about the All Blacks, Leam Laws and Ryan Fox,
Speaker 2: netwle dramas, etc. Is there something quite niche that comes
Speaker 2: to mind that that really is in your top moments
Speaker 2: of the year. It can be something really specific, if
Speaker 2: it can be funny, or it can be outstanding achievement.
Speaker 2: What have you got?
Speaker 5: My one that immediately comes to mind is Lekahalasimas scoring
Speaker 5: after full time for the Warriors against Newcastle Knights off
Speaker 5: a kick deflection. He ran forty meters, got past six
Speaker 5: defenders and stole the game right at the death and
Speaker 5: I remember watching it live going absolutely nuts in my
Speaker 5: living room. My landlords on the other side of the
Speaker 5: wall must have been wondering what the hell was going on.
Speaker 5: So that one really set the season alight for the Warriors.
Speaker 5: And obviously they made the first round of the playoffs
Speaker 5: and it fitted. But overall, you know, the season for
Speaker 5: them has been good in terms of those younger players
Speaker 5: coming to the Forum for me, that moment really typified that.
Speaker 6: It's funny you mentioned that as the first one that
Speaker 6: came to my mid was I remember going and watching
Speaker 6: after that, going online and finding all these Newcastle kind
Speaker 6: of reaction videos to it. It was just great seeing
Speaker 6: another fan base deflated by a moment like that.
Speaker 2: Well, because it's that's that's what sports about, right those
Speaker 2: moments where you actually jump off off the couch and
Speaker 2: scream at the TV or hug each other or something
Speaker 2: when when somebody kicks a goal or does something like that.
Speaker 2: That's what happens right.
Speaker 4: Into two sides to those moments.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean I mentioned Ryan Fox's chipping before. We
Speaker 6: had people in the office yelling and cheering at the
Speaker 6: TV when that happened.
Speaker 2: That is genuinely why I know about that is because
Speaker 2: I was watching the whole group of people next to
Speaker 2: the TV screaming at the TV.
Speaker 3: I just assumed that it was Rugby or something. I
Speaker 3: walk walk past its goals. Oh, thank you guys so
Speaker 3: much for joining us.
Speaker 4: Thanks Jos, You're welcome.
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
Speaker 2: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 2: at ENZIDHERLD dot co dot NZ.
Speaker 3: The Front Page is produced by Jane Ye.
Speaker 2: And Richard Martin, who is also our editor. I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2: Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
Speaker 2: get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look
Speaker 2: behind the headlines.