Kiwis go ga-ga over football and cricket

BY MARC HINTON

OPINION: Two sports are captivating New Zealand at the end of our golden summer, and it's fair to say that neither of them is rugby.

That's no dig at our national game, but right now the early rounds of the Super 14 just can't compete with a compelling and controversial international cricket series between the Black Caps and Australia and a fabulous post-season run by the Wellington Phoenix in Australian football's A-League.

For the moment rugby is a distant third to these two on the Kiwi sporting landscape.

That's not to say that the rugby hasn't been interesting or entertaining in the new Super 14 season. It has, at times. It's just that the cricket and football have been better.

And the numbers game backs that up. The Phoenix draw a sellout 33,000-plus crowd for their pulsating extra-time victory over the Newcastle Jets at the Cake Tin on Sunday. The Black Caps get 26,000 to a T20 international against the Aussies at AMI Stadium, and have Napier's McLean Park and Auckland's Eden Park bulging at the seams for the first two 50-over matches.

Rugby's early-season crowds have been solid, but not that good.

And then there's the interest factor.

Right now in New Zealand the No 1 and 2 sporting topics around the office water cooler are, in no particular order: a trans-Tasman cricketing war in the Chappell-Hadlee series; and the 'Nix continuing to make this the fairytale year of football in New Zealand.

Somewhere at the end of the conversation an eyebrow might be raised about the Chiefs or the Hurricanes coming undone, or the Blues giving it up once again to the Crusaders in Christchurch. But they're comparative after-thoughts.

A weekend where New Zealand's Super 14 sides didn't exactly cover themselves in glory probably didn't help. But regardless of the Chiefs, Blues, Highlanders and Hurricanes all hitting the proverbial speedbumps, they can't compete with the vibrancy of cricket and football at the moment.

And from a neutral's viewpoint, I reckon that's a good thing. Great even.

The Black Caps against Australia is as good as it gets from an international cricket perspective, and it's only right that this series is getting top billing. It's quality cricket with an edge, burning with competitiveness and big-time performers stepping up to the plate. For good measure, the first two one-dayers have gone a long way to helping revive the ailing 50-over game.

And the Phoenix are following up on the fabulous achievements of the All Whites by not only making a run at an historic Australian national league title, but showing once and for all that the Beautiful Game - the world's game - can captivate New Zealand.

It's not only a treat to see a well-organised, well-supported franchise get in amongst the Aussies in their own competition, but it's just great to be able to appreciate high quality football being produced on the fields of New Zealand.

Let's deal with the cricket first. The T20 split a win apiece and now the one-day series deliciously poised at 1-1 heading into Hamilton on Tuesday, this is the contest that we've waited all summer long for. Forget the sideshow of domestic T20 or the irrelevance of the Bangladeshis, this, finally, is the real deal.

And from the heroics of Brendon McCullum, who produced one of the great limited-overs innings from a New Zealand batsman in Christchurch's T20, to the brilliance of Ross Taylor, Scott Styris and Daniel Vettori, the opening skirmishes of the Black Caps against those awesome Aussies have been sport of the very highest quality.

Plus the drama. Styris and Mitchell Johnson going at it mid-pitch, nose-to-helmet, with neither holding back. Some said it overstepped the mark. I thought it was great.

Even in defeat on Saturday at Eden Park, the Black Caps offered plenty, with Daniel Vettori coming within a whisker of summoning an unlikely victory from his box of tricks.

But what I've really liked about the cricket so far has been the competitiveness. The Black Caps have been decimated by injury, but no matter. People, key people, are fronting and finding ways to either get them up, or get them close. That makes for compelling, captivating sport.

The Aussies are playing their part, too. Johnson may be a villain in the eyes of Black Caps fans after his tete-a-tete with Styris, but he's a magnificent competitor and his bowling at Eden Park proved the difference in the end.

The Black Caps have succeeded mightily so far in unsettling this quality Aussie outfit. Let's hope they can continue in that vein as the rest of the series plays out, for while they are standing up and giving as good as they're getting, this is sport at its very, very best.

So too the Nix in a different sort of way.

Let's face it the football ain't a patch on the professional leagues of England and Europe.

But who cares? It's our competition - or the Aussies' at least - and right about now the Wellington club is right in the thick of it, just one match from the Grand Final and in with a sniff of becoming the first Kiwi club to win an Australian league.

As someone who suffered through the embarrassing attempts to get football up and running in Auckland, I can only applaud the efforts of Terry Serepisos in not only establishing the Phoenix as a quality club in Wellington, but building the sort of support that made Sunday's A-League playoff match against the Jets a truly special occasion.

The 'Nix have rather flown under the radar - unlike their under-achieving hoop cousins the Breakers - but, like the All Whites, they're on the verge of something special. The good thing is that they're taking a fair slice of their country along for the ride with them.

- © Fairfax NZ News