It has been nearly four weeks of swings and roundabouts of emotions, working in isolation from the living room in this Covid-19 world.
My heart has gone out to the Kiwi families who have lost their elderly loved ones to the virus, but on the other side of the coin, also to those of us heading into an uncertain future for our careers, as companies cut costs due to the economic downturn deemed necessary by this lockdown which protects as many of the vulnerable as possible.
It's made for a pretty barren landscape in the sports world, notably in 'Big Sport', as pay TV shows us endless replays of bygone glory days, while in the present, hundreds of athletes and administrators have no end in sight to the delay of their pay-reduced professions.
Missing Heartland Championship rugby this year will be especially tough to take – one of Whanganui's near annual claims to fame on the national stage.
But clouds have silver linings, and with Super Rugby in recess while the Mitre 10 Cup and Farah Palmer Cup remain in limbo, a retooling, or perhaps, redistribution of resources could be most welcome on the cards.
A conversation with one of our local referees, out on his bicycle while I made my daily stroll around the neighbourhood block, rekindled an interest in seeing National Provincial Championship (NPC) rugby be moved back to the forefront in this country, ahead of the at times unwieldy five-nation Super Rugby club competition.
Imagine, the official enthused, a fulltime domestic comp where 5-10 current or former All Blacks return to play for Manawatu, or a Taranaki squad with all three Barrett brothers?
Lifting NPC out of its fourth-tier status in this country (All Blacks, Super Rugby, and now elite College 1st XV rugby) could be a welcome tonic for the fans - especially those who will be travelling a lot less outside their regions for the foreseeable future.
How much would I give to again feel the magic I had in the goal line grandstand at Lancaster Park on October 21, 2000, watching Wellington and Canterbury play out what was, in my mind, the last great stand of NPC rugby in this country.
Wellington claimed the First Division crown 34-29 to deny the Cantabrians a title three-peat in front of a packed house, with some 30 former, current, or future All Blacks spread across both lineups.
You could just about select a worthy all-time All Blacks XV from this one game alone – imagine a backline with Wellington's Jonah Lomu, Christian Cullen, and Tana Umaga, joining Canterbury's Andrew Mehrtens, Justin Marshall and Leon McDonald?
There were two stalwart All Black captains in Canterbury's starting forward pack in Todd Blackadder and Reuben Thorne, while a youngster by the name of Jerry Collins was getting his chance on the Wellington flank, and was no doubt inspired by his own indomitable skipper Norm Hewitt, who played on with a broken arm.
My abiding memory, as a Canterbury supporter in my student days, was the moment of certain dread when the home side lost possession on the attacking 40m and Wellington fired the long pass to a ranging Lomu.
Two things struck me in that moment – first, other than his marker Marika Vunibaka, no-one was quick enough to catch Lomu with that much head start, and second, Vunibaka didn't have a hope of tackling Jonah by himself.
I was right on both counts as Lomu palmed the Fijian away and just kept running towards me to crash over for his second try of the match and surely an impenetrable 32-15 lead with 17 minutes left (unsung hero David Holwell's goal kicking would prove crucial for Wellington).
Jonah Lomu scored two tries for Wellington in the 2000 1st Division NPC final. One of the last great all-star games played at NPC level.
But given the quality of the names I've mention above, Canterbury didn't have it in them to lie down – Marshall and Mehrtens probing on the fringes of their suddenly possessed forward pack to lay on two converted tries, leading to chants of "One more! One more!" from our grandstand section.
A desperate Wellington stayed camped inside their own 30m for the rest of the match, doing everything both legal and otherwise to hold out the red 'n black tide, which they finally managed with a fateful turnover nearly five minutes into stoppage time.
Disappointment with the outcome aside, it had been a magnificent provincial clash, starring the best of the best, so could the old school become new school again?
In recollecting my memories from 20 years ago, I found the entire match on Youtube, interestingly enough, being called by British commentators – obviously someone thought the New Zealand domestic game was worth a few shekels for international broadcast rights.
So would there be enough TV money generated, along with the crowds returning from a hibernation which started long before Covid-19, to fill New Zealand's 14 major union stadiums, if we knew all the stars of the game would be available in Mitre 10 Cup?
It's something to think about, because Lord knows there ain't much else going on.
