Lethargy lets the minnows slip in

OPINION: In my youth, I must confess to having been a North Otagoite, living for a while in the wee province whose cricketers had the audacity to snatch the Hawke Cup from Manawatu on black Monday.

So there remains an ounce of affection for North Otago, a duchy no more populous than Feilding and its environs.

But I was rather disaffected during my two-year incarceration at St Kevin's College by being forced to freeze one's flippers off in dormitories that were barely windbreaks.

And at hours of the morn frequented only by a few milkers near the Waitaki, we youths were roused from our sacks to stagger to the chapel and try and avoid eye contact with the fearsome Father Spud Murphy. Not once were we celibates allowed to even cast an eye upon the reputedly nubile Teschemakers gals housed 12km to the south. So when my southern sentence was up, my brief alliance with North Otago was terminated.

A return there for second-division rugby in 2004 allowed a dash up the hill to the old Redcastle school. But that was spoiled when North Otago slam-dunked Manawatu 58-14, almost an all-time low for Manawatu.

A septic penguin emailer reminded me of it this week, so my riposte was suitably snarky: "Given that we had eight players out with CD and NZ, your lot boosted with Otago club players should have been a match for our B team!"

Well they probably should not have been, but the Manawatu guys ran out of steam and focus against what were perceived to be the season's easybeats.

It was similar to the dramas of 1994, when Manawatu smacked Bay of Plenty and South Canterbury and then dropped their lunch against Marlborough.

But losing to North Otago was preferable to coughing up the cup, in its moth-eaten box, to one of our neighbours. The Oamaru guys were a sporting, modest lot and deserved their win.

It happens in sport. Some days, lethargy can be contagious. Fortunately, our embarrassment was hidden by NZ Cricket's website live scoring being down for the three days.

An indoor cycling velodrome would be wonderful for Palmerston North, assuming that the city and Massey University can afford it.

They are pledging $3 million each, with Massey's reputed to include $500,000 as land value for the plot adjacent to the Sport & Rugby Institute.

With an indoor track in Invercargill, one in the North Island will put New Zealand equal with the United States, which has just two, as do England and Canada. South Africa has one, as does Russia, while the Aussies have seven! Whanganui has New Zealand's only other wooden track.

A pity we couldn't have had this enthusiasm 10 years ago, when we kept banging on about restoring the track at Memorial Park at a time when we had lots of track riders. About $60,000 was all that was required to fix it. The cycling fraternity sat on its hands – skating did not, and now has a top-class venue there.

Caddie Steve Williams will come into his own at the second PGA tournament Tiger Woods plays.

At the Masters, things are so tightly controlled that Stevie won't need to hurl cameras into the water, as is his wont. Miscreants will be frog-marched down Magnolia Lane if they so much as burp at Tiger. But at subsequent events, Tiger will be fair game for clowns who deem his business to be their business.

There are sporting connections with Shah Rukh Khan, the star of the Hindi film My Name is Khan, which screened at Downtown this week. He owns the Indian Premier League team the Kolkata Knight Riders, for whom Brendon McCullum and Shane Bond play. He caused a storm in India this year when he was angered that Pakistani players were not bought by IPL clubs.

- © Fairfax NZ News