You're listening to a podcast from News Talks EDB. Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio. This is Sporcefix Howard by News Talks EDB.
Hello there, and welcome into a new week and to a new edition of the Sports Fix podcast for Monday, the tenth of March. I'm Jason Pine. Good to have you listening in. Another big sporting weekend is in the books, and one of the most dramatic parts of it was the dead heat in the final of the men's fifteen hundred meters at the National Track and Field Champs in Dunedin. Sam Tanner and Sam Ruth dead heating and sharing the national title. They also share a coach. Craig Kirkwood is
the coach of both Sam's. He joins us today on the Sports Fix podcast. We're in the chamber as well with Elijah Fihu, who in the last few hours actually has been at a Warriors media session. What sort of field did he get coming out of the Warriors after their first up heavy defeat to the Raiders in Vegas As they look ahead to the next assignment on Friday night at home against the Sea Eagles. We'll talk cricket and Super Rugby as well, So lots to get into,
so let's get into it. In other news, let's get underway with the big sports stories around today. The Black Camps have lost the Champions Trophy cricket final to India by four wickets in Dubai, and that's going away to the friends. What's the Championships and it's another acco clean Lake champions Cindya chasing down two hundred and fifty two to beat New Zealand by four wickets with an over
to spare. Shane van Gisbergen's been tangled up in a multi car wreck at the latest NASCAR race in Phoenix. A twenty four car with William Byron would be a little bit better troubling the back and two cars in the wall.
Big wreck.
They're still racking the dam agenda Shane Van Gisbergen's race. He ultimately finished thirty first and keep we Stephen Elk has won for the first time this season on golf PGA Champions Tour, beating America and Jason Karen On the first playoff hole at Arizona's La Palomit Country Club.
Plays this pipe for Birdie to win the Collar guard Classic.
It do you have it?
Stephen Alker.
Dissecting the sporting agenda. It's Sportsfix with Jason Vine on.
The Sports Fix podcast. Incredible scenes at the New Zealand Track and Field Champs in Dunedin yesterday, two time Olympians Sam Tanner and fifteen year old prodigy Sam Ruth sharing gold in the men's fifteen hundred meters after a dead heat in the final. Officials unable to separate the two following a photo finish, both recording a time of three minutes forty four point three to one seconds. Craig Kirkwood coaches both runners and joins us Now. Craig in real time, who did you think had won?
To be honest, I had absolutely no Yeah. Coming down the straight of look Tanna was going to target and then Sam Ruth hit your deathity roll up on the shoulder and almost leandham. So yeah, I had no idea at the time, and even watching the footage now, I still can't think it.
How uncommon is a dead heat in I know it happens. I think it probably happens more often in the shorter distances in a fifteen hundred meter race. Have you seen a dead heat before.
No, never not down to about thousands of a second. There's really some kind of separation there. Known. I've never seen that before my last.
So presumably, yeah, so presumably the ideal scenario for you as their coach, was for the two of them to take the top two places, which they did. As it turned out, they shared top place. It looked as though Sam Tanner was looking to burn some of the others off during the race. Was that the plan?
Yeah, so we we'd talked pre rate and we'd come up with a plan for for the first five hundred just be what it will be, and then Sam Tanner to take the lead and then just increase the tempt and then try and put everyone under pressure and hopefully sam Ruth was strong enough to hold on and yeah, take first and second. And they went one step better and got two firsts. So yeah, pretty impressive that they managed to pull off the plan and actually make you better.
You said before Sam Ruth had the audacity down the home straight, did you did? What were you seeing in that last one hundred meters?
I thought Sam Tanner had done enough to hold him out, but yeah, just he folded a little bit in the last twenty and Sam Ruth just yeah, just came up on his shoulder and yeah, just tried to outlean him. So it was bloody impressive running for a fifteen year old to have the have the nouse to be able to give that, give that a track. So it's pretty cool to watch and he's an extremely talented young man.
How unusual is it for a fifteen year old to be doing what Sam Ruth is doing.
There's only been a couple of athletes of that kind of age bracket doing what is doing at the moment. And so you're talking about Yaka Binger Britson, who's you know, world renound and you know, considered the best at the distance, and a young Australian guy eighteen, cam Myers who's done the similar similar things over the last few years and he's kind of tracking them the same way they have, So it's pretty impressive.
What is most impressive about the way he goes about his middle distance running, Uh, well.
There's a few things. So his training is is pretty low key. He's really just enjoying running with his mates and having having a good time and being part of a squad that is you know, training really hard. He's got a group of guys who he trains with, and you know, they're just all all good mates and to hang out and they just love it. So that really impressive. He's got an amazing racing brain. If you watch him
in the race, he's various duty. He knows exactly what he's doing tactically and those some of those things you can't teach. It just it's just intuition. And he kind of gets a ride every time, so you know, and he's also really humble, Like you know, he had the great send Sam a message afterwards after the racing to say, you know, thanks for the race and it was great being you know, part of what we did together. And I guess really appreciative and that that goes a long way.
Indeed it does. Most fifteen year olds are still growing. If he were to shoot up a few more inches, would that help him or hinder him?
We'll see, I guess I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. Probably help him. Yeah, though if you look at the crop of the best fifteen hundred runs in the world, they are a little bit taller these days, and holding your space on the track is very important and you know, for the bit more physical mass, you can hold your space a little bit better.
But I guess you look at a guy like Sam Tanner, who's not a big guy, is he he seems to do it. He seems to do okay.
Yeah, he's a bit of an exception to that all. But yeah, I mean most of them are. Most of them are bigger and taller and potentially a little bit kind of more physical.
You know, when you're planning his training pro pros, how careful do you have to be with his loading, recovery things like that, given that he is still just fifteen years of age.
Yeah, extremely careful. Would be really easy to get carried away and chuck him into some training that will I'll give to Samtana, but it's yeah, you just got to keep in mind that he is fifteen, and he is still growing and he's got a lot of time left in the sport, and wheth have to be careful that we nurture that load and just bring him through carefully in training. What he does in racing is kind of far exceeds where he is in training, but that's just what it is.
So you mentioned yak Ingerbritson before the Norwegian. He's currently twenty four great. Britain's Josh Kerr is twenty seven. American Cole Hawker, who sensacially one Golden Paris last year, is twenty three years of age. But one of our greats, Nick willis one Bronze at Rio in twenty sixteen when he was thirty three. So when do middle distance runners typically find their peak?
Yeah, probably somewhere in their mid twenty though, would suggest Mick was probably a little bit of an outlier and that he had a really long career and was in the sport for a a very long time. He was one of the best in the world at twenty years old as well, So it's yeah, he's got cam rous, got a long time left in the sport, that's for sure.
So given what he's doing now, could he Sam Ruth feasibly go to the Commonwealth Games next year at the age of seventeen. Could he go to the Olympics in twenty twenty eight while he's still a teenager?
Those are certainly part of the plan. So we'll see what happens in the next year and a half and whether he can get himself qualified to the Common Games and where the Olympic committee seems you decide that he's ready for that and happy to select him. We'll just have to wait and see, but.
Hopefully, hopefully, indeed exciting times for both of the SAMs. Thanks so much for joining us, Craig, I appreciate your time and congratulations on what you've done with these two athletes. Craig Kirkwood, the coach of both Sam Tanner and Sam Ruth. Really good Champions Trophy campaign for the black Caps came to an end last night with defeat by India in
the final. We shouldn't take away from the very good cricket New Zealand played for the most part in this tournament, with the semi final win over South Africa one of our best performances in fifty over cricket in recent memory. But I just wonder if we got our selection right for the final now. Matt Henry's absence was obviously a big factor. Our best bowler at the tournament, top wicket taker, able to trouble the world's best batters with his guile,
variations and pace and general all round bowling excellence. When he was ruled out, Mitt Santner and Gary Stead decided to go like for like and brought in a seema in Nathan Smith. Now, hindsight is always twenty twenty, I know that, but the scoreboard will show Nathan Smith bowled just two overs and went for eleven and over our three seamers, he Will O'Rourke and Cole Jamison combined for
just fourteen overs. In India's innings, thirty five of the forty nine overs we bowled were from spinners Mitchell Sentner, Michael Bracewell ch and Revendra Or bowling ten and Glenn Phillips chipping in with five. We didn't really need Nathan Smith, so I wonder whether taking in an extra batter Mark
Chapman would have been a better idea. Now I'm not saying it would have changed the result, but given that India have relied so much on spin bowling and the final was played in Dubai, where they've played all their games with those spinners, I reckon we could have gambled on two seamers and stiffened up the batting of it. Anyway, what's done is done, and the lost to India doesn't take away from the way we played across the tournament.
Special mentions to a couple of players, Rich and Ravendra player of the tournament, a couple of hundreds in his fore innings, continuing to provide evidence that he is absolutely and totally the real deal and will undoubtedly be one of our best ever cricketers by the time he ends his career, which is hopefully a long way down the track.
And Michael Bracewell, who only really started bowling spin seriously a few years ago, forming a key part of our attack with wickets and economy, while also being going to hit the ball pretty well with the bat in any situation and unbeaten fifty in the final the latest evidence of that there's a lot to like about our white ball side right now, with Mitchell Santnap adding his own unique leadership style into the mix as well. They may not have won the silverware, but a silver medal ain't too bad.
The Chamber is now in session on SPORTSFX.
On the SPORTSFX podcast. Time for us to pop inside the Chamber on Monday, The People's Chamber featuring Elijah who joins us. Now, Elijah, you're just back from a Warriors media session, so without any further ado, I want to go straight there. What sort of what sort of mood did you find them in upon their return from Vegas, with that lost to the Raiders probably still fresh.
Yeah, it seems like a while since we last heard from the Warriors, given they played a while ago and they've had this long time and around heading into their second week game against Manly on Friday. In terms of the mood around camp, I think they understand what went wrong in that opening defeats by the Raiders. Andrew Roopster pointed out it was really the first twenty minutes where the team was rushing out of the line, they were
trying to be aggressive. The team wasn't really coordinated, and I don't know if that was due to I guess over excitement or being too eager by the occasion of starting of kicking off the NRL season, or being in Las Vegas, but the Andrew roops are pointed to the start there and then much Barnett's the co captain, brought up a lot of the tries scored by the Raiders were more individual moments and that if they you know, sort of counted those individual moments in the Warriors definitely
would have been a lot more competitive in camera. So those was probably some of the key takeaways. But hopefully that they're back and mount smart this week, they can that the fans can get behind them and they can get a lot more motivated and hopefully get this season on track.
It's a tough hush though, isn't it against the Sea Eagles, who on Saturday put forty two on the Cowboys looked really really impressive. And then following that it's another home game for the Warriors against the Roosters, who themselves actually were beaten fairly soundly by the Broncos on Thursday night. Let's not worry about that, but manly, that's a big That's a big game on Friday, isn't it.
Oh very much. So.
They've got a very physical forward pack and that's going to be a huge test for the likes of James Fisher, Harris and Mitch Barnett's. But you've also got guys like Dynan Walker and Aaron Clark and their impact is going to be important to this forward pack some I'm very excited to see how they cope with that. And then of course Dally Cherry Evans the experience and the halves.
With Cherry Evans going up against Luke Medcalf, who I guess is still settling into the half back role since the retirements of Seawan Johnson, so I mean Andrew Rister, he's fully behind or backing and Luke Medcalf to adjust to the half back role. Obviously preaching a little bit of patients from fans that you know he might not get things right straight away, but it's going to build as the season goes on. But a big test going up against the Daly chair Evans.
Much more to come on the Warriors across the weak as we had towards their game on Friday night against the Sea Eagles. Super Rugby Pacific. We're now four rounds in. Most teams have played four games, some of it the bye of course, and have only played three. Apart from the fact you have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the table to find my Hurricanes and the Blues. Has this been one of the better first months of a Super Rugby season that you can remember?
It has to be. It's been so exciting what's been happening out on the park, the highest scores that have been put up, the free flowing rugby, and it seems like we hear the buzzword fan centric and it seems like that's finally kicking and segear in this opening month.
You see the fantasy aspect of it has really helped out post game I guess as an example, one in a PACIFICA post game with their up in North Harbor Stadium, citing autographs, taking photos for fans, and you know, doing making sure everyone there gets what they need out of meeting their favorite players. So I think, for sure, like I've never been more excited to get behind Super rugby and I'm enjoying it.
I think also what the weekend showed was that there is true jeopardy when it comes to this competition. Without wanting to labor the point, both your Blues and my Hurricanes lost games that they were probably favorites and right. The Blues were probably favorites to beat the Brumbies on Friday night they lost twenty one to twenty. The Hurricanes were probably favorites to beat more one of Pacific A
Saturday night they lost forty thirty one. Not only that, the Fiji and Dreuer beat the Chiefs, who hadn't lost all season, and the Force, who had been pretty good, were roundly sent on their way by the Warritors. The outlier actually was probably the Crusaders against the Reds. So actually you don't really know, do you, from game to game, from week to week, who's going to win? And isn't that what we've always wanted, an even competition like.
This exactly the even competition. It's the unpredictability of super rugby that's coming to play and I think if you're talking about the Australian teams, the demise of the Melbourne Rebels has definitely helped out and we've seen the quality across the board for the Australian teams and they've made their matches whenever they come up against New Zealand sides
a lot more competitive. I guess the Crusaders Reds probably isn't the best example, but in the games that they have played, it's a lot more competitive and I'm really excited for that fact. I guess the question now is can that standard hold on for the rest of the season.
Yeah? No, And that's the question that is going to be asked, but it's one I'm really interested in finding out the answer to. Like you, I'm just very I'm already looking ahead to next weekend to see, you know what the games are, which you know The only team who have at one hundred percent record are the war Retars. They've played three one three. Who would have predicted that at the start of the season. The war Tars, the Reds and the Brumbies are all in the top six.
I know it's a tight table and as I say, you know, two of last season's better teams, the champions the Blues and the regular season table toppers, came down the bottom of the pile. Like again, I don't want to labor that point too much, but there is there is a true evenness and unpredictably unpredictability about this competition this year and that can only mean good things. Just
before we exit the chamber, black Caps Overnight came close. Well, they got to the final, but they were I think probably reasonably comprehensibly beaten by India or is that you'll read on it?
Yeah, I would say so. I mean you could maybe chucking asterisk next to India winning because of you know, them playing in Dubai and them having that as their home base throughout the tournaments due to the tensions with the host nation Pakistan. But I guess New Zealand for the hand, all the cars that there were doubts managed. They played Austin throughout the tournaments and the Russian Revenger
was a standout being named player of the Tournaments. Being Philip showed that why he's the best field in the world. So they're definitely some positives. But yeah, it's a shame that they couldn't come out with the wind there against India.
Indeed, all right, well that was a busy sporting weekend wrapped up or some of it in the last six and a half minutes. Another busy week are sporting weekend or week to come with a weekend at the end of its starting with the Warriors on Friday nights, So lots to get our teeth into. Elijah, thanks for joining us in the chamber. As always, we'll do it again next Monday.
Thank you, payy.
Needing a fix, We've got just the ticket. It's Sports Fix powered by News Talks V.
And that wraps Sports Fix four today. Thank you so much for downloading and for listening, and for those of you who subscribe a fresh episode we'll drop into your podcast feed at around it but at the same time tomorrow afternoon if you want that to happen and you're not a subscriber, well, I will suggest that you subscribe and you'll get a fresh episode, as I say, every weekday
and for more from News Talks EDB. Sport, listen out to Sports Talk weeknights between seven and eight and on the weekend's Weekend Sport from midday to three Saturday and Sunday.
For more from News Talks EDB, listen live on air or online and keep our shows with you wherever you go with our podcast on iHeartRadio