The Silver Fern

The best story out of this squad naming is Fabian Holland. He took a punt as a 16-year-old back in 2019 to leave his family and all he knew behind to come down to New Zealand because of his love for rugby and the All Blacks and six years later is named in the All Blacks. Love that his mother coincidently is currently in NZ visiting him and got to share in his joy of being named.

What's the point in Christie's selection?? Would have been better off giving Roigard the start to get some more international experience.

A pleasing sight to see for All Blacks fans

Wild stat - the test in Dunedin last weekend was Cam Roigard's first test match in NZ despite having played 10 test matches before that.

Stoked for Fabian Holland. Hopefully his Mum who had been in NZ visiting him has extended her stay to watch her son make his debut

How good!! Way to go Foxy! Huge win for him.
Becomes the 2nd kiwi to win the Men's Canadian Open after Sir Bob Charles in 1968.
He earns himself almost $NZ 3 Million, 500 Fedex Cup points, a spot in next week's US Open, starts at the 2026 Masters, Players Championship, and PGA Championship as well as a PGA Tour exemption through till the end of 2027.

@sparky said in Olympics Thread:

GB get the Gold. NZ the Silver.

Silver medal a huge result for the ladies. It's NZ's first women's team sprint medal in Olympic history so pretty big deal.

From Stuff:
Overlooked as a contender in the team sprint by many pundits, who instead were tipping world champions Germany, China and the Netherlands to challenge Great Britain, the Kiwis were electric.

I think Caleb Clarke can count himself lucky to be there. He didn't score a try for the Blues this season.

Well there you have it Jon Rahm came from behind to win the green jacket, his second career major title and a nice paycheck of $3.2 million.
3 LIV golfers finishing in the top 5 who would have predicted that? Mickelson turned back the clock shooting a 7 under 65 to put himself into contention.

Ryan Fox finished T-26 at Even par taking home $147,000 for his efforts.

Great final round of 6 under 69 from Jordan Speith to rocket himself up the leaderboard and finish T-4

@Bovidae said in NZ Cricket:

Wags made his debut for Otago in 2008 against ND in Dunedin, and finished his first class career in NZ today for ND against Otago in Dunedin.

Even better for us ND fans (the first in 13 years).

Stoked that he gets to hang up his boots on a high with a title.
Had a bit to do with him through my job over the years and he's one of the nicest blokes you could meet.

Brodie McAlister you would have to say his decision to move north to the Chiefs has paid dividends.

French were rubbish for the majority of the second half.

Is this the NZ sporting moment of the weekend??
Way to go Foxy!!

I agree with Smith & Coney's comments on Sport Nation radio coverage. They needed to pick the best players right now for these test matches and Will Young needed to be in the side and that Blundell needs time away from the international area and go back to domestic cricket. Smith also said he finds it ridiculous that they picked a squad for the full series rather than just for each match given that we are playing at home.

@Daffy-Jaffy said in SF Crusaders v Blues:

CRUSADERS (1-15): George Bower, Codie Taylor, Fletcher Newell, Scott Barrett, Antonio Shalfoon, Ethan Blackadder, Tom Christie, Christian Lio-Willie, Noah Hotham, Rivez Reihana, Sevu Reece, David Havili (c), Braydon Ennor, Chay Fihaki, Will Jordan

Replacements: George Bell, Kershawl Sykes-Martin, Seb Calder, Jamie Hannah, Cullen Grace, Kyle Preston, James O'Connor, Dallas McLeod

BLUES (1-15): Joshua Fusitu'a, Ricky Riccitelli, Marcel Renata, Patrick Tuipulotu (c), Laghlan McWhannell, Adrian Choat, Dalton Papali'i, Hoskins Sotutu, Finlay Christie, Beauden Barrett, Caleb Clarke, AJ Lam, Rieko Ioane, Mark Tele'a, Zarn Sullivan

Replacements: Kurt Eklund, Jordan Lay, Angus Ta'avao, Josh Beehre, Anton Segner, Sam Nock, Harry Plummer, Cole Forbes

Referee: James Doleman

Assistant Referees: Paul Williams, Fraser Hannon

TMO: Richard Kelly

No Tamaiti Williams is a big loss for the Cantabs

Won a few bucks with Dan Hillier finishing inside the Top 20 so pretty happy with that. Also had Swede Alex Noren to finish inside the Top 20 as well.
What a year it's been for Xander. Started the year with no majors, now has two. He's had 12 Top 10 finishes in the 17 tournaments he has played this year including the majors.

So this will again stir up the debate about who is the greatest male tennis player of all time

Novak Djokovic wins the US Open for his 24th Grand Slam title

Some perks that Lulu gets just for making the quarter-finals. Free tickets for life. She gains entry to Wimbledon's exclusive Last 8 Club. All members get free tickets to the event and access to hospitality suites at the All England Club once their playing days are over.

Lulu Sun v Donna Vekic Wimbledon quarter-final: The perk Kiwi tennis star gets for reaching last eight

@Chris-B said in Wimbledon 2024:

That was a bit unfortunate for Lulu - she was looking good through to 3-3 in the second and then she ran out of gas pretty much at the same time that Vekic started choking (she served 4 or 5 double faults at 5-3 to let Lulu back into the set). Lulu's level dropped a few percent and suddenly it was pretty easy for Vekic and she stormed away without a noose in the third set.

In hindsight, the fourth game of set 1 was pretty costly - more than 10 deuces on Lulu's serve before she held - that was like four service games. A quicker hold there and she would have had gas at the end of the second.

Not all is lost. Venus and Skupski and Routliffe and Dabrowski are both through to respective doubles QFs - and Venus and Routliffe through to the third round in Mixed.

Lulu had run out of gas. A huge 2 weeks for her since she had to go through qualifying so she has played seven games on the trot, something that Vekic hasn't had to do since her ranking is alot higher than Lulu's. You have to win 7 games just to win a Grand Slam even if you don't go through qualifying so if Lulu had of made it to the final that would have been 10 games on the bounce. With her making the quarters at Wimbledon her ranking will move herup to 55 in the WTA rankings meaning she automatically qualifies for the next four Grand Slams main draw plus other WTA tournaments so doesn't have to worry about going through qualifying. She'll now be a regular on the WTA level.

Anyone watch the medal ceremony for the Men's Four? One of the American guys couldn't keep it together while his national anthem was playing. Winning that Olympic Gold Medal means so much to these athletes after four years of hard yakka.