Team NZ have so much stacked against them in the America's Cup. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Team NZ have so much stacked against them in the America's Cup. Photo / Brett Phibbs
The greatest comeback in sport, they called Oracle's victory from 8-1 down in the America's Cup in 2013. But it will pale into insignificance if Emirates Team New Zealand survive Barkergate and come back to win the 2017 version.
Far-fetched? Well, all right, maybe.
At a glance, they have so much stacked against them that even getting to the start line will be something of a triumph.
Billionaire-funded rivals Oracle and Artemis already have their development boats in the water, Team NZ don't. Instead they have an alarmingly poisonous employment dispute which has boiled over into the public domain.
They cannot even guarantee the team will survive, no matter who drives the boat. An announcement is expected this week on Auckland hosting a leg of the qualifying series, a vital element in taxpayer support from the Government and the team's continued existence.
It's understood the event is on - and that Oracle syndicate head Sir Russell Coutts has been instrumental in arranging it knowing Team NZ are essential for a credible regatta in Bermuda in 2017.
There is by no means a guarantee Auckland will be well attended by competing teams. The Europeans are apparently dark about the cost of travelling to and staying in New Zealand.
Hear the interview with Dean Barker here:
Some may even decide to pay the US$1 million fine for skipping the event as it may work out cheaper.
That would be bad enough, although the team may by then have received their reduced government allotment.
Their announcement they are $20m down on their last Cup budget and subsequent cost-cutting underlines what was written in this column last week - money is a telling factor, Barker was expensive and was resisting being kicked upstairs, apparently with a smaller salary even though other team members had taken cuts.
Forget the fanciful semantics and convenient positioning coming from both sides; there is a lot of PR at play here.
Focus on the reality. What we have, folks, is a contract dispute, an employment wrangle which has blown the concrete lid of confidentiality off the Team NZ bunker.
Barker and his advisers have consistently played the sympathy card, and why not? The situation is tailor-made for it. We don't know if this was just a sailing decision, board decision or political decision. It isn't hard to imagine the Key administration telling team boss Grant Dalton that, if he is to receive taxpayer funding, some changes need to be made at the top to avoid the perception money is being tipped into the same, old pot that lost last time.
All the while, Oracle are sailing their 45-foot development cat like a rocket round San Francisco.
Small wonder some are saying Team NZ ought to sit this America's Cup out - Bermuda is a lousy destination for sponsors, public opinion after Barkergate seems seriously against Dalton, taxpayer contributions and the team itself. One call for Dalton's scalp even dredged up an hoary, old off-the-water rumour with no basis other than the credibility such urban legends gain by being constantly re-told as if they were fact.
But that'd be the end. The sponsors would go (Barker himself has said, no Dalton, no team) and with that goes their ability to raise funds. Money yet to be raised would be unraised. Someone else could do it in the future but starting a new Team NZ from scratch is an Everest of a task.
So the team needs to get past the contract dispute being played out in shrieking headlines. Money, whether a redundancy agreement or a sweetener to get Barker to reconsider the Team NZ job he has been offered but doesn't want, could fix that. It wouldn't be the first time in professional sport irrevocable split becomes smiling reconciliation.
However, given Barker's obvious upset and emotional language, plus Team NZ's naming of Glenn Ashby and Peter Burling as helmsmen, this wound looks too big for the sticking plaster of compromise.
Team NZ will be banking on Blacks Caps Syndrome. Back in 2012, Brendon McCullum replaced Ross Taylor as skipper in the middle of a series. Cue outrage, controversy and widespread condemnation - not necessarily of the act but the method of execution. New Zealand Cricket tried to tell us Taylor turned down the test captaincy rather than being sacked and replaced; the same kind of employers' language Dalton has used in saying Barker has been offered another job.
Taylor stayed on board and accepted lesser status. Two years on, look at the Black Caps. Regardless of the result of last night's match, this is the best, most unified and effective national cricket team - and we're talking about them as a unit - these eyes have seen. Not even the Hadlee-Crowe-Coney golden era had a team of such depth, unity and purpose.
The bloodletting has now largely been done. Team NZ will be setting their sights on winning back their reputation in the best possible way - winning. What a comeback that'd be ... if they ever get there.
