Beefing up our sports content

Today we kick off two new features for Taranaki Daily News sports fans and herald a few changes for racing followers.

As part of our push to honour Taranaki's proud sporting history and showcase the region's incredible athletes, teams and officials, we have expanded our own sports and racing team from two to three staff, with senior reporter Glenn McLean joining sports editor Murray Hills and Tony Bird.

Glenn will be focusing on rugby, among other sports, and is also a dyed-in-the-wool Liverpool fan, which can't be helped.

But sport is not just about what happens on the field. Anyone with an interest will know that sport extends to what's on the telly, a visit to the betting shop and even the books we buy.

Which is why every Saturday we will publish a special feature called The Whole Nine Yards. In this new spread, which you will find on page 27, our sports team will help you find the best sport on the box, the best tips and even test your knowledge of your favourite codes. Also, there will be a longer read in which we bring you the upcoming stars and stories behind the scenes.

Of course, sport is nothing without opinion and we have plenty of that to go around, with our sports guys stirring the pot in a new column called Calling The Shots.

We want to know what you think as well, which brings us to our other new feature The Daily Muse, in which we will seek your opinions on the hot sporting topic of the day. Send us your opinions and texts and the best ones will get in the paper.

A new sports reporter, exciting new content and the pressure to deliver more local stories means something has to give. So we have decided to bite the bullet and discontinue publishing greyhound fields and results, and South Island harness fields and results.

The reason for this is because including greyhounds and harness racing has often meant cutting back on more compelling local content.

We have not taken this decision lightly. Indeed, we surveyed more than 100 readers on what they thought of this proposal and the reader panel overwhelmingly endorsed our plans.

There will be exceptions, including premier harness races such as the NZ Trotting Cup, but we hope any disappointment will be overcome by the weight of great stories and images featuring local people winning on sports fields and race tracks around the region, the country and the world.

So please, check out our new sports offerings. We hope you enjoy them and look forward to your feedback.

- © Fairfax NZ News