Sporting reality defies expectations - we really should have known better

All Blacks Sonny Bill Williams is shown the red card during the second test match between the All Blacks and the British & Irish Lions. Photo/Brett Phibbs

If we ever needed reminding, the past week has provided ample evidence of the dangers of making sporting assumptions.

At times like these, I always hark back to the 2003 America's Cup, where defenders Team NZ were supposed to have easily the fastest boat on the water ... and then couldn't stay above it.

History abounds with such fearless prophecies, but one thing sport (and life) teaches time and time again is that anything can happen and probably will.

Not long ago, New Zealand was collectively dismissing this British & Irish Lions team as duds and their coach as a circus performer.

In fact, only a few weeks ago, a colleague was bemoaning the fact that these tourists had managed to squeak past the Provincial Barbarians in the tour opener, thereby ruining our chances of sending the British home winless.

Seriously?

All it took was one moment of ill-discipline and a red card to turn this test series on its head, making us know-it-all couch jockeys look silly and the Lions coach look more like a magician by comparison.

Which reinforces another key point about sport - everything that's said or done outside the white lines and those 80 minutes is largely irrelevant.

That's why these one-hour TV build-up shows are so tedious - beyond up-to-date team lists, they provide little more than meaningless rhetoric. None of the gathered experts seemed to cover the prospect of THIS happening - why not?

Then, even as the nation pinched itself the next day, we got another example of reality defying expectation, when Australia's Rocky Balboa, Jeff Horn, defeated boxing legend Manny "Apollo Creed" Pacquiao in the "Battle of Brisbane".

In boxing, of all sports, the result often bears little resemblance to what you see playing out before you, so making assumptions from ringside is especially fraught.

It presents a strong case for bringing back a fight-to-the-death rule - at least there can be no disputing the outcome.

Then again, this is boxing.

I blame sports betting and, in the case of boxing especially, this may be closer to the truth than we'd like to imagine.

Being forced to put money where your mouth is makes desperate clairvoyants of all of us. It's probably safer to just to keep your mouth shut, your wallet in your pocket and enjoy the spectacle for all it offers.

And it's not as if there haven't been plenty of other recent examples of outsiders making good. Heck, 2016 was the year of the underdog, with Leicester winning the English Premier League at odds of 5000-1, Chicago Cubs breaking an historic World Series jinx and Cleveland Cavaliers rallying from the brink of defeat to take their first NBA crown.

Haven't we Kiwis only just buried the ghosts of one of history's greatest switcheroos? For the past two months, we've waited for the penny to drop on our beloved America's Cup challengers, whether that takes the form of a broken boat, sailors overboard or even a rival somehow winning eight races in a row.

What made us think our All Blacks were any less vulnerable? Didn't we already experience one of these wake-up calls against the Irish last November?

But moments like these teach us humility, which is a quality we Kiwis like to embrace, until it comes to our national rugby team.

Remember, "assume" makes an "ass" out of "you" and "me".

Or, as Hugh Laurie's House character would say, "Speculation" makes a 'speck' out of 'you' ... and some guy named 'Lation'."

- Grant Chapman