We were Christmas
The bubble in the pop
The jam on the bread
We were the place smiles come from."
They left as the New Zealand football team and returned as the All Blacks, a team whose athletic exploits are etched into folklore.
Rowers Hamish Bond and Eric Murray, undefeated across consecutive Olympic cycles, generate similar fanfare. They've been "the stuff of the shop window" in New Zealand high-performance sport for years.
They began their respective elite careers as two sausages in Rowing New Zealand's gourmet factory and, like the men of 1905, emerged as a household name - The Kiwi Pair.
Their extraordinary performances became so routine that they are awarded the Herald's 2016 achievement of the year by virtue of the complacency generated among fans. Audiences tuned in to watch, listen and read of the pair's "victory" in Rio rather than their "result".
They faced formidable opposition among peers.
Peter Burling and Blair Tuke won sailing's 49er class in Rio before the medal race; kayaker Lisa Carrington became the first New Zealand woman to win two medals at a single Games; Mahe Drysdale became the country's oldest Olympic champion at 37 years, eight months and 25 days; Lydia Ko held the No.1 women's golf ranking all year, won a major, and earned Rio silver; Steven Adams captivated with the Oklahoma City Thunder and signed a monster four-year deal ; and the All Blacks set a new Tier 1 mark with 18 consecutive wins
Even against that wall of sporting overachievement, the NZME sports team gave Bond and Murray the nod.
It's not so much whether they are the best sportspeople in the country this year; it's whether they are the best of all time.
That's a question for perpetual debate rather than a definitive solution.
Irrespective, when it comes to being O for oarsome, Bond and Murray's undefeated portfolio is among the blue-chip stocks.
The pair triumphed on Rio's Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon by 2.8s to stay unbeaten in 69 races at 24 international regattas across eight seasons.
No one has completed more consecutive wins in rowing's history. In a discipline of such technical nous, they have overcome every conceivable doubt in every heat, semifinal and final on every visit to a race course.
They underlined their names in the New Zealand sporting pantheon.
Among Kiwi Olympians they joined fellow rowers Dick Joyce, Caroline Meyer and Georgina Earl (nee Evers-Swindell), Drysdale, coxswain Simon Dickie, shot putter Valerie Adams, runner Peter Snell, kayakers Ian Ferguson, Paul MacDonald and Carrington, and equestrian rider Mark Todd as athletes to win golds at consecutive Games.
Bond and Murray's record even rivals American Edwin Moses' 122-race dominance across nine years, nine months and nine days in the 400m hurdles. They've challenged Moses' biblical namesake for parting water, too. The Rio win was the most defining of their careers.
If anyone invents a "Bond and Murray" cocktail, publicans will reach for the top shelf.
With the clinical analysis of Lovelock at Berlin, the raw talent of Loader at Atlanta and the relentless determination of Ulmer in Athens, the pair dismantled the field.
Their London Games performance under coach Dick Tonks seemed like a race of men versus buoys as they blitzed the Dorney Lake course to win by 4.46s.
The defence of their title under mentor Noel Donaldson was no different, clearing out to win from 1000m.
With an additional six world championships, you would need the services of a Madison Avenue advertising creative to convince people they are not the greatest pair to race the class.
British immortals Sir Matthew Pinsent and Sir Steven Redgrave won consecutive Olympic golds at Barcelona and Atlanta and four world championships from 1991-95, and East German twins Joerg and Bernd Landvoigt won at the Montreal and Moscow Games in addition to four world titles.
Historians, psychologists and physiologists will ponder why the Bond-Murray phenomenon worked with such aplomb.
They're not the biggest crew, and don't spend much time together off the course, but the common determination to row myriad kilometres on Lake Karapiro was relentless and rewarding.
Murray embodies joie de vivre, exemplified by his keenness to don lederhosen at Munich's Hofbrauhaus when the coxless four, including himself and Bond, won at the 2007 world championships; or discovering old Kiwi 50c pieces were the same size as five Swiss francs (the currency conversion would pique Warren Buffett's attention) for use in Lucerne vending machines. He is the crew's creative director.
Bond is head of operations. He needs any ingenuity to have a practical application and it's no accident he has tended to assume the stroke seat in crews he represents.
Bond has the composure of an astronaut at T minus zero on Cape Canaveral when the going gets tough.
In March 2009, Bond was asked whether he had any trepidation about joining Murray. They faced daunting opposition, including British Olympic coxless four gold medallists Andrew Triggs Hodge and Peter Reed.
Unblinking, Bond responded: "Hopefully we can give them a nudge ... I'd be disappointed if we weren't pushing them."
So it has proved.
The question now turns to "what next?"
The pair take sabbaticals next year, which means pressing pause (or possibly stop) in their partnership.
After minor surgery on his knee, Murray will resume training but won't compete; Bond will pursue cycling after organising a team for the Tour of Southland and coming eighth in the general classification.
"As far as finishing up goes, I don't think so," Murray said in September.
"We'll see how the break goes. We've done everything in the pair. The only thing left to do in New Zealand rowing is the eight. It's about asking whether we feel we could make it go well, or would it be better without us?
Bond was more circumspect. "The eight has an appeal as a blue riband event, but it depends on a lot of factors and needs a buy-in from so many different areas.
Moving into the single sculls, a discipline in which Bond has beaten Drysdale at national championship level, is another option.
"I'm under no illusion about what a challenge that would be. Mahe has done incredibly well internationally for years," Bond said.
"Whatever it is, I've got to be motivated and excited by the challenge. I won't do it justice otherwise."
When the Tokyo Games arrive, Bond will be 34 and Murray 38. The prospect of further pioneering sporting history remains tantalising to see how much bubble is left in the pop.
