Is Tony Smith New Zealand's best Journo?

Here is snippets from his latest piece
from the Christchurch Press. press.

OPINION: Sorry netball fans but it's hard for the general
sporting public to get too excited about the Silver Ferns'
latest series against Jamaica.


Still essentially a Commonwealth sport, netball
has no profile in North America, Asia, South
America, Africa and Europe (outside the UK).


Jamaica are allegedly ranked third in the world
yet the Silver Ferns comfortably beat them by 23
goals in Christchurch this week after struggling
in the first quarter.


It's hard for a code with such strict restrictions on
court movement and a surfeit of whistleblowing to
make too many changes to its basic recipe.


Basketball has already arrived. Yet we've only been getting
snippets of the Tall Blacks' buildup to next weekend's
world championships in Turkey as opposed to live, primetime
free-to-air coverage of netball.

That's a massive disappointment given how the
Tall Blacks gripped the nation when they
finished fourth in the world championship
in Indianapolis in 2002 when captain Pero
Cameron made the all-star tournament team
starting five.

Their games in Turkey will be covered live on
Sky. But, unlike the All Whites, whose pre-World
Cup games were televised in full, the Tall
Blacks have so far slipped under the public's radar.

Basketball is second only to football
on the sporting stage in terms of global popularity.

One day, the New Zealand public and media
might wake up to the fact.

(His whole piece can be found at stuff.co.nz or the press.)

Posted in: New Zealand Sport Journalists