Sports Insider: Kiwis captain to make Warriors debut in Las Vegas against former club, Eden Park’s Origin play

Eden Park, James Fisher-Harris, Maia Ramsden and Corey Anderson.

Star recruit James Fisher-Harris is poised to wear Warriors colours for the first time in taking on his old teammates Penrith in Sin City; Eden Park steps up its bid to host a State of Origin match; Sky’s three-part Scott Robertson interview hits the mark but New Zealand Rugby’s All Blacks doco comes up short.

Renewed efforts across the ditch to get a State of Origin match to Auckland in 2027 are butting up against Eden Park’s noise restrictions.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the NRL is in negotiations with the New Zealand Government in a bid to circumvent the one major obstacle that could scuttle the whole thing.

Yep, it’s that old hoary chestnut of how late Eden Park can stay open.

The NRL understandably wants a 7.30pm live television timeslot in their plum two Origin eastern seaboard states. But with kickoff two hours later NZT, the match would finish well after a 10.30pm curfew for any events with 40-decibel-plus noise levels.

The noise prohibition policy has only ever been relaxed for the 2011 Rugby World Cup and 2015 Cricket World Cup and the NRL is seeking a similar exemption for its midweek showpiece Origin game.

Need I bang my drum again?

Okay, go on then... this would not even be an issue if we had a downtown waterfront stadium. It’s no surprise that Eden Park is trying to get around its dilemma by applying for relaxed prohibitions via the Government’s proposed new fast-track legislation.

But, seriously, how did we even find ourselves in this ridiculous situation?

Kiwis skipper to get Vegas chance

The stage is set for Kiwis captain and prize 2025 recruit James Fisher-Harris to make his Warriors debut against his old club and NRL premiers Penrith in Las Vegas in March next year.

The Warriors, the Panthers, Cronulla Sharks and the Canberra Raiders are the front-runners for the four NRL teams to feature in the Stateside double-header set to open next season’s NRL competition.

Penrith’s home base is out of action early next year due to renovations and the Panthers have earned the right to headline the March 1 Sin City extravaganza at the spectacular Allegiant Stadium, after having won the past three grand finals.

The Warriors were among eight of the NRL’s 17 clubs to officially signal their interest alongside Penrith, Canberra, Cronulla, the Brisbane-based Redcliffe Dolphins, the Melbourne Storm, the Parramatta Eels and the St George-Illawarra Dragons.

The Dolphins and St George withdrew after reading the NRL’s participation agreement, followed by the Storm, while Parramatta will have a new coach and also decided to pull out.

That gave CEO Cameron George the leverage to secure a start without having to give up a prized home match. The Warriors wanted in only if it was an “away” match for them. NRL bosses have apparently agreed and will pitch Andrew Webster’s line-up against the Ivan Cleary-led Panthers.

The Warriors will receive A$50,000 ($53,800) from the NRL to play in Vegas with the “home teams” of Penrith and either Cronulla or Canberra in the other match receiving A$350,000.

It means Fisher-Harris is almost certainly set to wear Warriors colours for the first time in Vegas against his old club, who wooed him from Northland as a raw-boned teenager. The prop is now one of the most respected and feared front-rowers in the game.

Confirmation of the Warriors’ berth at the season-opener is apparently imminent, surely propelling a weekend in Vegas to the head of the 2025 bucket list for a certain demographic of Kiwi sports fans.

James Fisher-Harris against his old club in his first match for the Warriors would likely lure a few punters to Vegas. Photo / Photosport

Razor all class in searching Sky Sports three-part feature

The Scott “Razor” Robertson All Blacks coaching era is almost upon us.

So a three-part series produced by Sky Sport is timely, with the first episode dropping on Sunday night after The Breakdown show.

The pressure to create content for broadcasters, and in rugby’s case for its own app in NZR+, has led to sports bodies applying the blowtorch to ensure co-operation from coaches and players.

But after viewing a preview of the first episode, Connections, supplied by Sky, I can safely say Robertson would have played ball regardless.

Sports Insider has had several people who know Robertson well insist that one of his key attributes is a genuine interest in people and a willingness to engage. From there, he builds trust – which then drives finer motivational ambition.

That is evident in the interactions producer Sam Harris captures with the public while Robertson strolls along Mount Maunganui’s beach boardwalk (it’s easy to forget he was from the Bay of Plenty surf town before he became a Canterbury icon).

The surfer-style “flow” persona Robertson appears to wear so well appeals as a likely asset for the new national coach. It’s difficult to envision Baby Boomer coaches moving so easily and confidently among wide-ranging demographics.

Harris found the coach remarkably honest and quickly worked out Robertson’s best attributes are shown in real time.

“A lot of his interviews are heavily edited and short. I wanted to put him in an environment where there is no time pressure on answers or any limits like that. We just let the camera roll,” Harris told Sports Insider.

“As a result, we get an insight into how he thinks and communicates. By the end of episode three, my hope is we really have begun to understand him.”

The Sky crew do a good job in that respect. But ultimately Robertson will be no different to those who preceded him... he will be judged on his results.

In that respect, the considered responses he gave to several searching questions from Sky’s Jim Kayes leave optimism that Robertson is well capable of building a competitive band of All Blacks soldiers.

Scott Robertson is a big winner from a new series presented by Sky. Photo / Photosport

Why does New Zealand Rugby think it’s a media company?

Sports Insider and the good folk at NZME know better than most what a slog it is in the media industry right now.

So why does New Zealand Rugby want to join us? The Herald’s Gregor Paul beat me to the punch with his on-the-money review of the opening two episodes of the NZR-produced, behind-the-scenes All Blacks doco In Their Own Words.

Paul ably notes the contrived hand of NZR resulting in a failure to produce any real compelling content from the All Blacks’ 2023 World Cup campaign, despite it being handed to them on a plate (the Sam Cane send-off, the war of words with Irish players Peter O’Mahoney and Jonny Sexton).

The series is said to have cost $10 million to produce. If so, NZR and its new commercial arm, ComCo, have failed to get bang for their buck.

It’s the second “miss” in the content industry from NZR in recent times.

The Amazon-produced doco on the 2017 All Blacks-Lions series All or Nothing also failed to produce, relative to other fly-on-the-wall sports offerings like Drive To Survive and Welcome to Wrexham.

That was also driven by a paranoid All Blacks coaching staff and a need to control the narrative, once again underlining the obvious – a national sports body is not a natural storyteller and shouldn’t be in that business.

How much money is being squandered by such ventures, headlined notably by the overly-ambitious NZR+ content platform play?

Sky’s Scott Robertson series and other noted sports content producers such as Ric Salizzo illustrate how, left unrestrained by NZR’s editing police, to independently produce better content and superior story-telling.

Paris having a shocker as hot and sticky Olympic Games looms

Less than 50 sleeps to go now until the Paris Olympics and it seems like all hell has broken loose in the French capital.

Any hopes Emmanuel Macron had of France being awash with optimism during the Games period have evaporated in the face of the snap election he felt forced to call.

But there are other practical problems too. Last week, the Washington Post reported that Paris organisers have seen their “boldest measure” to stage the greenest Olympics ever come a cropper due to sweaty athletes.

The dormitories for the Athletes Village were not planned to have air-conditioning, with Games officials claiming they wouldn’t be needed due to other cooling systems.

Cue a backlash from visiting countries and athletes with visions of sleepless nights.

So now literally thousands of portable air-conditioning units are being shipped in, blowing the carbon footprint of the Games and its “sustainability” story out the roof.

Then there’s the ongoing state of the Seine River and the triathlon event.

Will it or won’t it go ahead?

More pertinently, have any of the Games organisers watched the surprise current hit on Netflix which features a rogue shark having penetrated the Seine perfectly in time for, yep you guessed it, the prestige triathlon event in the French capital?

Have any of the Paris Games organisers watched Netflix' latest hit?

Suffice to say that the trailer for Under Paris is unlikely to end up in any Olympics promotional material soon.

Team of the Week

Maia Ramsden: The 22-year-old Kiwi runner became the first woman in 20 years to defend the prized 1500m title at the American NCAA college championships. And in another triumph for New Zealand’s burgeoning band of track and field sensations, Kimberley May – another Kiwi – finished second. The one-two finish against America’s best as well as other international emerging stars is one of the great outstanding Kiwi sports feats so far this year.

The Giz: Shane Van Gisbergen wins his second successive road race since switching to American Nascar racing, taking out a major event in Oregon from pole position. Now for an oval event victory to really shake the Yanks up.

Warriors: Forced the Hurricanes to switch their Super Rugby Pacific semi against the Chiefs to a 4.35pm Saturday kickoff to avoid a scheduling clash with the blockbuster Mt Smart showdown with the Melbourne Storm three hours later. Plus a start in Las Vegas next year. It’s been a big week for the Wahs.

USA cricket: Howzat!! First a historic win for ex-Black Cap Corey Anderson and his rookie teammates over Pakistan on home soil in the T20 World Cup and then an announcement Australian skipper Pat Cummins will join America’s domestic T20 league next season on a four-year deal with the San Franciso Unicorns.