Jim Hopkins: Russell's outa here and Dean will smile again

Well, they do say, "Don't count your hen and chickens before they're hatched".

And even at this late stage that would be my advice to Mr Berty Relli and his shrunken sailors. "Don't count your hen and chickens before they're hatched, Ernesto baby".

"It doesn't matter if we're four down, five down, six down or more. Cos we'll come back. We can do it. We just need a few tweaks, a lucky break, a bit of wind at the pin end and, whammo, we're in the groove, steaming up the lay line, throwing out more dirty air than a Mangere bus.

"So don't start planning your celebrations yet, sunshine. Just remember, 'It ain't over till the plump lady yodels'."

Okay, alright, I'm whistling in the dark. The Auld Mug seems destined for a Swiss bank vault - assuming it's not full of Russell's cash.

Oh, sure, as the indefatigable PJ would say, where there's life, there's soap. We could still scrub out Alinghi's winning margin.

If this were the movies, we would. We'd cream Mr Butterfat. If this were Rocky at Sea, we'd be off the canvas with the violins soaring and the crowd cheering and virtue being rewarded cos the good guys always win.

But this isn't the movies. It's real. And yesterday's heroes are turning the Hauraki Gulf into a cruel sea. That hurts. It does. Be honest. Deep down, in that little bit of you that still believes in happy endings, it bloody well hurts.

Let's face it, there's not much point holding a Knowledge Wave conference in Auckland when our knowledge is behind on the waves.

Now, certain rational dullards will insist that's irrelevant. They'll say sport is utterly meaningless, literally a pointless exercise. And they're right. Sport's a glorious nonsense, to quote Cliff Morgan. But what the rationalists ignore are the intense primal emotions it arouses.

Even in sensible Switzerland, where the President - who spends only 10 weeks a year on the job, God bless him - is wrangling with Geneva's communist mayor over who should be top dog on the red carpet when the winners come "home".

There are various theories about why sport ignites us. If it's true that we're hard-wired for aggression then maybe, in a world full of awesome weapons of mass destruction, sport's our last "safe" battlefield, a means of paying ritual homage to the ancient genes of conflict and allegiance.

Such distant tribal whispers might well explain the torrent of enthusiastic advice Dean Barker has received from a flotilla of sports psychologists, commentators and motivational gurus all desperate to share their invaluable wisdom with the skipper.

He's been told to tighten up, lighten up, go soft, go hard, defocus, refocus, stay focused; he's been urged to clear his mind, live for the moment, forget the hype, feed off the buzz, get in the zone, go it alone, keep the team, change the team, stay at the helm and walk the plank.

With this plethora of platitudes pouring in, he doesn't need more, especially not from a myopic pillock like myself, so let's take a different tack. Instead of giving advice to the team, we should give some to ourselves.

See, to date, we haven't contemplated losing. We've simply assumed we'd win. And we still might. Which would be great. Retaining the cup will provide indisputable benefits. For example:

John Banks and Trevor Mallard will see a lot more of Cindy Crawford.

Fullers will be able to organically fertilise most of the Waitemata Harbour.

Russell Coutts will leave town.

Dean Barker will look happy again.

But with the unpalatable prospect of Ernesto's success now looming, what we need is some aftermath advice, some post-mug coping strategies.

Here then, just in case, is an incomplete list of Reasons Why We Shouldn't Miss The Cup (too much):

Cindy Crawford won't have to put up with Banksy and Trev.

We can spend months arguing about who's to blame.

There'll be heaps of empty apartments around the Viaduct, which the Gummint can turn into state houses.

You'll finally be able to get a cheap beer down there.

Vast amounts of sponsorship money will become available for minority sports like synchronised swimming and president's grade hacky sack championships.

Air New Zealand will start offering fabulous el cheapo Mediterranean holiday packages.

Pete Montgomery will get a new job with the Concert Programme.

We'll be able to concentrate on simple sports like rugby, where you needn't worry about complex stuff like VMG or luffing your gybe or tacking up the grinder because the only things that matter are correctly binding, going in straight and joining the breakdown from behind the last feet.

Russell Coutts will leave town.

Dean Barker will look happy again.

No Loyalist wants to see our cup floweth over. I don't. I desperately want the ingenuity tribe to win. But if the metro-gnomes prevail, we'll all have to tighten up, lighten up, defocus, refocus etc, etc.

And, perchance, console ourselves with one irrational tribal truth - at least some of our sailors weren't for sale ...

nzherald.co.nz/americascup

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