They were both game changers that captured the audience and the aftermatch silverware.
If we could watch a replay of the magic moments in life where we have been rescued I am sure many of us would have our mums featuring in the highlights.
Sure there would be the good mates, the coach, the team and the water boy, as well as teachers, inspirational leaders and backyard neighbours who have all contributed to our rescues in life, be they emotional, physical or spiritual.
But for me my Mum has always been my Ben Smith.
As a young fulla selling papers outside the Oceanside pub, back in the day when a shiny shilling for a four-penny paper was equivalent to winning Lotto, I would use the tip to telephone my Mum to come and rescue me from my Doctor Who fears.
Almost weekly, it would be my Mum who would crank up the old putter-bomb Mark One Zephyr and come to my rescue when I was too scared to bike home in the cold winter's night, especially if I had watched the freaky and frightening Doctor Who the night before.
I would play out the same old charade of ringing Mum from the Doctor Who-like phone box across the road from the pub, to tell her the same old story that my push bike had a flat tyre (courtesy of me undoing the valve).
And like the Lone Ranger on her bright green Zephyr Mum would come around the corner and I would be standing there with a sixpence worth of hot Del Monte chips, for us to warm up our pukus on the way home.
The next day I would pump up my tyre after school and zoom off to the Oceanside pub to sell my papers again for sixpence a shot.
Sometimes it is good to crouch, hold and engage in those magic moments of being saved by the bell in times of need, especially when our rescuers need a helping hand themselves.
For us as a family now is a good time to give thanks when we have been rescued - and the challenge of coming to our mother's rescue in her time of need leaves us in the words of a Neil Young song feeling Helpless.
If I could pump up Mum's tyres and get her up and running again I would do it in a heartbeat.
However, her warrant of fitness suggests she may need more than a new tyre.
Thankfully there is always the power of prayer when one feels helpless in times of saving a situation even if it is to will on Ben Smith to save our nation or our mums who are not well.
Tonight at 7pm we will light the candle I brought back from the church where Mary Magdalene is buried and say a prayer for Mum and give thanks for all those times she saved me.
Ben Smith will get a big blessing as well.
As will The Waipuna Hospice whanau and my own sisters of mercy who are driving Mum's Mark One while she takes the passenger seat.
Merci, Mum.
broblack@xtra.co.nz
Tommy Kapai is a Tauranga author and writer.
