I do worry for the side given Smith and Sir Graham Henry are off to retirement and that’s a lot of brilliance leaving the building. And you cannot deny that what they did transformed the team.
The performance in the northern hemisphere and the performance through this World Cup have been your classic example of what coaching and strategy can achieve.
The thing I enjoyed most about it all, was the joy the women play with, there is a lesson for everyone in it. You don't have to be tense and inward looking, the world doesn’t have to sit on your shoulders, and the pressure doesn’t have to get to you.
You can in fact, as they have shown and Smith told us about several times on the programme, be mentally free. When you are mentally free all things are possible. You can truly express yourself. And if you are doing that and you happen to be blessed with the appropriate talent, the combination of the two is unstoppable.
The lesson is applicable in all walks and forms of life, not just the sports field. In fact, it looked like it was a lesson the Brits hadn't quite learned.
They were the favourites and by some margin and that last lineout was theirs. The maul they ran would have won them the game, and yet when it counted, they didn’t cope. They weren't mentally free.
The fact all this was played at home made it what it was, it's not like we haven't won it before. But we are in an age of promoting and recognising women's sport, plus we were doing it at our place, so all the ingredients were there.
The sport has a way to go. The variation in talent is far too great.
But if you are going to play host, it behoves you to come out victorious.
And if you can arrange it by beating the previously best side in the world in a thriller, that's what makes sport magic.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings.
The thing I enjoyed most about it all, was the joy the women play with, there is a lesson for everyone in it. You don't have to be tense and inward looking, the world doesn’t have to sit on your shoulders, and the pressure doesn’t have to get to you.
You can in fact, as they have shown and Smith told us about several times on the programme, be mentally free. When you are mentally free all things are possible. You can truly express yourself. And if you are doing that and you happen to be blessed with the appropriate talent, the combination of the two is unstoppable.
The lesson is applicable in all walks and forms of life, not just the sports field. In fact, it looked like it was a lesson the Brits hadn't quite learned.
They were the favourites and by some margin and that last lineout was theirs. The maul they ran would have won them the game, and yet when it counted, they didn’t cope. They weren't mentally free.
The fact all this was played at home made it what it was, it's not like we haven't won it before. But we are in an age of promoting and recognising women's sport, plus we were doing it at our place, so all the ingredients were there.
The sport has a way to go. The variation in talent is far too great.
But if you are going to play host, it behoves you to come out victorious.
And if you can arrange it by beating the previously best side in the world in a thriller, that's what makes sport magic.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings.
1 comment:
An opinion piece on the game that somehow "overlooked" the red card that meant the favourites played for over an hour with only 14 players. Surely rather than criticise their tactics and execution how about some praise for how they managed to score 31 points and came within a whisker of winning. The English performance was remarkable. Weren't they leading 12-0 prior to the red card? Without the sending off Smith and Henry would have had a repeat of the 2007 experience rather than 2011. Just saying.....
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