Sportstalk with D'Arcy Waldegrave

The Warriors have named three of their new recruits in their starting 13, with another on the interchange for Saturday's NRL opener against Gold Coast. Euan Aitken starts at centre, with prop Addin Fonua-Blake and Bayley Sironen in the second row also starting. Ben Murdoch-Masila has been named on the interchange. Wayde Egan and Eliesa Katoa have both been cleared from injuries to start at hooker...

Yet another event has been cancelled. The McEvedy Shield, which is said to light up the Wellington school calendar, is the latest to be canned, after the Surf Life Saving Nationals set down for next weekend in the Bay of Plenty were also given the flick. Event organisers are left with no choice but to cancel because the gaps between alert levels three to two to one are so vast. Alert level 2 - no...

Eloise Blackwell was among the Black Ferns blindsided on Wednesday morning by the revelation their World Cup, scheduled to be held in New Zealand from September, is likely to be postponed by a year. Auckland-based Blackwell, the Black Ferns captain, was out running with flatmate and teammate Aleisha-Pearl Nelson when the pair paused at the top of a hill to read a message from team management that...

The Black Caps have sent the old cliche of "just an innings away" out to bat for Martin Guptill. The out-of-form opener has managed just 155 runs in his last 11 Twenty20 international innings, including a duck in the opening match against Australia in Hamilton earlier this week. He also scored just 46 runs in four games for Auckland in this summer's Super Smash. But batting coach Luke Ronchi told...

Caleb Clarke admits his first rugby of 2021 came as a bit of a shock to the system. The Blues winger and his fellow All Blacks turned out for 40 minutes in the game of three halves against the Crusaders and Chiefs over the weekend. Clarke says he was relieved to come through injury-free, although he felt it afterwards. The Blues open their Super Rugby Aotearoa season against the Hurricanes in Well...

David Nyika will make his professional boxing debut in the undercard of the Joseph Parker-Junior Fa heavyweight showdown later this month in a cruiserweight bout against 3-0 Jesse Maio. The dual Commonwealth Games gold medallist and qualified Olympian said turning professional was a long time coming. "I've been thinking of turning professional since the day I stepped into a boxing ring," he said....

The Blues' Super Rugby Aotearoa campaign is back on track after having to cancel a pre-season game against the Crusaders set for Eden Park on Saturday. With Auckland moving to alert level 2, the Blues have arranged a game of three halves against the Chiefs and Crusaders in Cambridge. The fixture will take place on Saturday but is closed to the public. The Blues have been isolated at home with indi...

The national Canoe Sprint Championships - due to start on Friday - have been postponed due to the escalated Covid-19 alert levels. Competition was due to run over three days at Lake Karapiro. The decision was made after advice that Auckland is extremely unlikely to move to alert level one by Friday and an emerging case may extend or escalate the lockdown. A statement from Canoe Racing NZ says they...

The Blues players are having to train from their homes under level three restrictions as they face the prospect of heading into the Super Rugby Aotearoa season next week without a recent hit-out. Yesterday the Blues made the decision to cancel their pre-season match against the Crusaders this Saturday with Auckland placed under level three until midnight Wednesday. The match was scheduled to take...

Are New Zealand Rugby switching codes? Goal-line drop-outs and captain's challenges will feature in Super Rugby Aotearoa this season, adding to last season's golden-point extra-time. All three feature in the NRL and NZR's head of high performance Mike Anthony has doffed the cap to their 13-a-side cousins. "We haven't quite got the ball rolling under the foot yet, but we've looked at other sports,...

Facing a break point late in the third set, Rafael Nadal sprinted to his left and hit a running, around-the-post forehand that landed just inside the line. Laslo Djere, ranked 56th, shrugged, his head dropped and he no doubt wondered what more he needed to do to win a point against the 20-time major champion. He'd had three break points when Nadal was serving for the second set, and didn't get clo...

Building elaborate venues for Beijing's 2022 Winter Olympics is the easy part for China, just as it was for the city's Summer Olympics in 2008. The competition venues are ready, and non-competition sites will be completed this summer with the Games set to open one year from Thursday on Feb. 4, 2022. But these Olympics are already scarred by accusations of rights abuses including genocide against m...

Former All Blacks selector and North Harbour coach Peter Thorburn has passed away following a short illness. He was 81. Thorburn was the inaugural coach of North Harbour when the union formed in 1985 as a breakaway from Auckland. He also led the New Zealand Sevens team before Gordon Tietjens took over in 1994. He had two stints as an All Black selector, first in the early 1990s and then between 20...

Christchurch will host a major international sailing event set to attract hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide. In a New Zealand first, it has been confirmed that Christchurch will host the SailGP second season penultimate event in Lyttelton Harbour on January 29-30, 2022. SailGP CEO Sir Russell Coutts said: "Christchurch is one of New Zealand's most exciting venues. The positioning of the ra...

The new schedule for the upcoming third and fourth round robin for the Prada Cup has been announced, confirming reports that teams will be forced to 'race' on their own following American Magic's capsize on Sunday. American Magic were forced to withdraw from racing to make urgent repairs to their boat Patriot after the New York syndicate's dramatic capsize and near sinking during their race agains...

The NRL's salary cap will be reduced to AUD$9.02 million in 2021 as part of a deal struck between the league and its players, in the wake of the financial impact caused by Covid-19.The NRL's confirmed a six percent drop in player payments for 2021 and 2022, with State of Origin match payments slashed to $15,000 per game. The revised CBA deal ensures job security for players with every club to reta...

Hagley Oval remains the host of the final for women's Cricket's showpiece event, as part of the revised draw of the delayed 2022 one-day World Cup in New Zealand. The Christchurch ground will host the decider in a day-night game on Sunday April 3, as well as a semifinal and three pool matches. The six lighting towers at Hagley Oval were turned on for the first time today by Deputy Prime Minister a...

The future format of domestic rugby may not be confirmed until next year. Whether the Mitre 10 Cup's two-tiered Championship and Premiership format should be retained, or the 14 unions instead split into North and South pools with four crossover games was discussed at this week's New Zealand Rugby board meeting. CEO Mark Robinson says they'll go back with a range of information to provincial union...

Bar a setback, the Black Caps will welcome back their wicketkeeper for the second cricket test against the West Indies in Wellington. BJ Watling missed the opening test win in Hamilton with a hamstring injury, and said earlier this week he was at about 95 percent with his recovery. At that stage, he still had to do full batting, wicketkeeping and sprint sessions to be cleared to return. He gave El...

Richie McCaw has been fan-voted the men's 15s player of the decade, while Black Ferns flyer Portia Woodman has won two individual awards at World Rugby's decade-ending event. Woodman has been named women's sevens player of the decade on fan vote, while her 2017 World Cup try against the USA has got nod for women's 15s try of the year. Woodman has also been named to the women's 15s rugby team of th...

Team Wellington chairman Peter Chote has grave concerns the domestic game will become diluted. New Zealand Football yesterday announced an overhaul of the country's national leagues to prioritise youth development and sustainability. From 2021, the ISPS Handa Men's Premiership will disband, replaced by three regional club-based conferences (Northern, Central and Southern) with four teams from the...

Devon Conway has found himself in the Black Caps test squad after a stunning international debut last week. But not purely because of his form, however, as the South African-born batsman provides injury cover for BJ Watling who sustained a hamstring niggle in the opening round of the Ford Trophy. Conway has been given the nod, nonetheless, and has travelled to Hamilton to join the squad at trainin...

Eden Park turf manager Blair Christiansen has a plan locked in, now he just needs the weather to play ball. The ground will host the first Twenty20 cricket match between the Black Caps and the West Indies on Friday night, before having to transform it into a rugby field for the Mitre 10 Cup premiership final between Auckland and Tasman on Saturday evening. Christiansen says they'll be straight int...

The colours of Pacific nations Fiji, Samoa and Tonga will come together under the first ever Moana Pasifika squad named by head coach and former All Black Tana Umaga for their historic clash against the Māori All Blacks next month. One-test All Black and Highlanders first-five Josh Ioane was among the star-studded squad for the team set to join Super Rugby in 2022. The backline includes Super Rugb...

New Warriors coach Nathan Brown has his feet under the desk at Mount Smart Stadium. Brown got out of his two weeks managed quarantine over the weekend before beginning his tenure at the club on Monday. He says there's a handful of new coaches across the competition like him, who have set out with the same goal. "The one common goal that we would all have is that we want to be at the club for an ex...