Category: Sport

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Black Caps are in firm control of the first cricket test against the West Indies after a dominant day three in Christchurch.

Centuries for skipper Tom Latham and number four batter Rachin Ravindra helped New Zealand set a solid foundation to reach 417-4 at stumps with a lead of 481 runs.

Close to half of the Black Caps runs came in boundaries on Thursday.

First ball is at 11am.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

New Zealand sprinter and national 100m record holder Eddie Osei-Nketia has officially switched allegiances to Australia.

Osei-Nketia broke his dad Gus Nketia’s record at the 2022 World Championships in Eugene, stopping the clock at 10.08 seconds. He came close to breaking the 10 second barrier earlier this year.

The 24-year-old, who is based in the US, is now set to race for Australia.

Governing body Australian Athletics posted on Instagram to announce the news. “Welcome, Edward Osei-Nketia,” the post said.

“He has been lighting up Australian tracks for years but Edward Osei-Nketia is now officially eligible to represent Australia on the world stage, successfully completing his transfer of allegiance from New Zealand.

“The 10.08-second man joins the nation’s rising sprinting stocks. This is going to be fun.”

Osei-Nketia is also the New Zealand 200m record holder, bettering the mark with a 20.24s finish earlier this year at a meet in the US.

He also ran 9.96s over 100m at a college meet in Texas in April although it was wind-assisted.

He last represented New Zealand in 2022 at the World Champs and earlier this year Australian Athletics confirmed he had requested a transfer of allegiance.

Osei-Nketia moved to the US after leaving New Zealand and had a crack at American football in Hawaii, before getting back on the sprinting track for the University of Southern California in 2024.

He has been based in the US since.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

2026 FIFA World Cup draw

Washington DC

Saturday 6 December, 6am NZT

Live blog coverage on RNZ

The draw for the 2026 FIFA World Cup will be made in Washington DC on Saturday. So who could the All Whites be grouped with? Here’s everything you need to know.

The 23rd edition of the World Cup will be the first to feature 48 teams and will be hosted by the US, Mexico and Canada. It kicks off on 11 June with the opening two games in Mexico, and finishes on 19 July with the final in New York.

A new rule in the draw aims to maintain competitive balance in the expanded 48-team format. It means the top-ranked team (Spain) and number two (world champions Argentina) are in opposite halves of the bracket, with the same applying to number three (France) and number four (England).

If the top four seeds win their groups, those countries won’t be able to meet until the semi-finals for the first time in the tournament’s history.

The World Cup draw takes place on Saturday morning (6am NZT) in Washington DC, with the updated match schedule, including stadiums and kick-off times, to be released on Sunday morning.

Teams qualified

Hosts: Canada, Mexico, United States

Africa: Algeria, Cape Verde*, Egypt, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia

Asia: Australia, Iran, Japan, Jordan*, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Uzbekistan*

Europe: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, England, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland

Oceania: New Zealand

South America: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay

North and Central America and the Caribbean: Curacao*, Panama, Haiti

*attending World Cup finals for the first time.

Play-offs

The UEFA play-offs feature 16 teams (four places available) – the 12 group runners-up and four UEFA Nations League group winners: Italy, Poland, Republic of Ireland, Romania, Denmark, Wales, Albania, Sweden, Turkey, Czech Republic, Bosnia-Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Ukraine, Slovakia, Kosovo and Northern Ireland.

There will be six teams in the two inter-confederation paths (Two places available). Iraq and DR Congo will go direct to one of the finals. Bolivia, Jamaica, New Caledonia and Suriname will be drawn into semi-finals.

Pots for draw

Hosts Canada, Mexico and the US are in Pot 1, which includes Spain, Argentina, France, England, Brazil, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

Pot 2 has Croatia, Morocco, Colombia, Uruguay, Switzerland, Japan, Senegal, Iran, South Korea, Ecuador, Austria and Australia.

Pot 3 will include Norway, Panama, Egypt, Algeria, Scotland, Paraguay, Tunisia, Ivory Coast, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.

Pot 4 will be Jordan, Cape Verde, Ghana, Curacao, Haiti, New Zealand, and the winners from the European play-off A, B, C and D, and the FIFA Play-Off tournament 1 and 2.

Confederation constraints will apply, with no group having more than one team from the same region except UEFA, which has 16 representatives and can place up to two teams in a group.

The 12 groups at the World Cup will include one team from each of the four pots.

Fifa will start by drawing the teams from pot one.

Once a team is drawn they will go into the first available group.

Who could the All Whites face?

With 48 teams in the draw (50 percent more than the 2022 Qatar World Cup), New Zealand have 36 possible opponents from every FIFA confederation apart from Oceania.

They could face any of the Pot 1 teams of Canada, Mexico, the US, Spain, Argentina, France, England, Brazil, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

Canada or the US would likely be the All Whites favoured opponent from the seeded pot, but they would both still be very hard to beat.

New Zealand Football boss Andrew Pragnell and All Whites coach Darren Bazeley will be in Washington DC as part of a New Zealand delegation of seven people who will be stateside for the draw.

While the duo will be “ball watching” during the draw to find out which teams the All Whites will be grouped with for New Zealand’s third appearance at a World Cup, that is a passive part of what they are up to.

They have no influence over how the draw plays out, but they can work the room and get themselves and their football wishes in front of some influential people.

New Zealand history at the FIFA World Cup

New Zealand first attempted to qualify for the World Cup finals in 1970, but didn’t achieve their goal until 1982.

In the buildup to that tournament the All Whites went through a gruelling qualification process that involved 15 games, and they had to beat China in a sudden-death play-off in Singapore.

That squad contained many of the greats of New Zealand football, including Wynton Rufer, Steve Sumner, Duncan Cole and Ricki Herbert.

In Spain in 1982 the All Whites lost all three group games – 2-5 to Scotland, 0-3 to Soviet Union and 0-4 to Brazil.

As Oceania champions New Zealand qualified for the 2010 finals by beating Bahrain in a two-legged intercontinental play-off with Rory Fallon scoring the decisive goal in Wellington

The All Whites were the only team to go unbeaten in the 2010 tournament in South Africa although they still failed to get out of their group.

They drew 1-1 with Slovakia, 1-1 with Italy and 0-0 with Paraguay.

Host cities

USA: Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle.

Mexico: Guadalajara, Mexico City and Monterrey.

Canada: Toronto and Vancouver.

Television coverage

TVNZ will cover the tournament, with all of the All Whites games and some others to be broadcast free-to-air.

A World Cup pass to watch all of the games will be able to be purchased.

Although kick-off times have not been confirmed it is likely that games will be played in the late afternoon and evening because of the heat. That means games are likely to start between 8am and 3pm in New Zealand.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Ryan Fox emerged happy from a taxing opening round at the Australian Open in Melbourne, sharing the top of the leaderboard with Australia’s Elvis Smylie and Mexican Carlos Ortiz.

Strong winds at the Royal Melbourne course dominated day one, with world number two Rory McIlroy among those to struggle, finding himself languishing in a share of 57th on one-over.

Fox was more composed, shooting a six-under 65 which featured eight birdies and two bogeys.

The 38-year-old made a rapid start to his round with a tidy approach to the second, an up-and-down at the driveable third and a long putt from off the green at the fourth to complete a hat-trick of birdies.

A smart tee-shot on the seventh had him four-under and while he dropped a shot before the turn, he sandwiched a two-putt gain at the 14th with a pair of smart approaches to share the lead.

A second bogey of the day came on the next but he hit back on the par-five 17th to once again find the summit.

“I would’ve taken even par on Friday,” Fox said.

“This golf course is tricky enough. There’s obviously a lot of trouble, especially with all the crosswinds. It’s pretty wide off the tee for the most part, if you hit the right club, but with all the crosswinds, you can get yourself in a lot of trouble.

“So I was very happy I managed to stay away from all the bad stuff on Friday and holed a couple of putts early and sort of kept me on my way and hung on through the middle, through the really tough stretch of holes there, and then took advantage of the par fives and a couple of good wedge shots coming home.”

Fox won twice on the PGA Tour this year, but following a break did not make the return to the Australasian Tour that he wanted to last week, finishing 12 strokes off the pace in a share of 39th at the Australian PGA Championship in Brisbane.

New Zealander Daniel Hillier, who finished in a share of fifth last week, continued his consistent form with an opening 68 in Melbourne to share seventh.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Black Caps are in firm control of the first cricket test against the West Indies after a dominant day three in Christchurch.

Centuries for skipper Tom Latham and number four batter Rachin Ravindra helped New Zealand set a solid foundation to reach 417-4 at stumps with a lead of 481 runs.

Close to half of the Black Caps runs came in boundaries on Thursday.

Openers Latham and Devon Conway resumed in the morning at 32 without loss, taking their partnership to 84 before Conway went for 37.

Kane Williamson joined his skipper but just before lunch would send a feather thin edge behind off Kemar Roach to give the Windies a sniff.

Roach then turned villain when he dropped Ravindra at midwicket as Latham brought up a patient half century from 120 balls.

Ravindra got another reprieve on 13, as 12th man Kavem Hodge put down a regulation chance at slip.

Upping the run rate, Ravindra raced to 50 from only 52 deliveries, as he and Latham took their partnership to three figures.

The New Zealand captain brought up his 14th test century right on the stroke of tea, followed soon by Ravindra who needed just 108 balls for his fourth test ton.

The Black Caps were cruising in the last session of the day before Latham was out for 145 off 250 balls very late in the day.

Latham also passed 6000 test career runs with his captain’s knock on his homeground of Hagley Oval.

Ravindra was eventually dismissed for his second highest test score of 176 when he was bowled by Ojay Shields.

Rather than declare with their healthy lead, New Zealand batted out the day with Will Young (21) and Michael Bracewell (6) at the crease.

The first ball of day four is at 11am.

As it happened:

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

New Zealand Olympian Lewis Clareburt says medley swimmers in the Southern Hemisphere will get left behind if they don’t join forces.

That’s why the two-time Olympian is moving from Auckland to Melbourne as he targets a maiden medal at Los Angeles 2028.

Clareburt will join a highly competitive medley squad under renowned coach Jolyon Finck at Melbourne’s Nunawading Swimming Club.

Clareburt, who won the 400m Individual Medley 2024 world title in a depleted field in Doha, has seen men’s medley swimming be dominated by the likes of French sensation Leon Marchand.

Marchand trains in Texas under master coach Bob Bowman, and swept the 200 and 400 medley golds at his home Paris Olympics.

World record holder Marchand also swept the 200 and 400 world titles for a third time in Singapore this year, following his sweeps in 2022 and 2023.

Bowman, the former coach of Michael Phelps, prepared Carson Foster in his Texas University programme before the American took bronze in the 400m at Paris.

Finck was looking to develop a school of medley swimmers able to rival the best in the United States, Clareburt said.

“We’ve been getting beaten by this group of Americans who have all been training together, they swept the podium this year in the medley events and a few of my friends from this side of the world … decided we would come together and create a medley-specific squad and train together and try beat these guys on the other side of the world.”

Clareburt told Checkpoint he needed any edge he could get.

“There’s nothing better in training than just being able to race someone and try and beat them every single day. The whole crowd being together lifts everyone up. I’m gong to make everyone faster, we’re all going to work together but hopefully the goal is to steal some medals off the podium.”

It would be a unique situation to train with athletes that he would ultimately want to beat at the LA Olympics, Clareburt said.

“I think it’s the future of sport being able to train with some of your competitors to uplift everyone in that training group to try and race each other at the end of the day.”

It wasn’t possible to create that kind of environment in New Zealand, he said.

“We just don’t have the same depth as we do overseas so being able to find a training partner that can match my ability in most of the aspects of my swim is quite difficult. The 400 medley is quite a unique event in that you have to be world class in all four strokes so it is quite a difficult even to be competitive in and there’s not many of us that actually do it on the world stage at a world class level.

“Being an Olympic swimmer, being the top 1 percent of swimming is difficult as is and trying to attract that to New Zealand is really difficult, it’s an issue for lots of sports in New Zealand.”

Clareburt said his goal has always been to make an Olympic podium.

“I’m 26 now, there’s only a finite amount of years I’ve got left in swimming so I really want to make sure I use every opportunity that I can to try and be the best, at the moment it’s just not going to happen in New Zealand unfortunately.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Australia sprung a surprise by dropping veteran spinner Nathan Lyon and picking Michael Neser in a four-prong seam attack for the second Ashes test starting in Brisbane on Thursday.

England captain Ben Stokes won the toss and elected to bat first.

Australia lead the five-test series 1-0 after winning the series-opener in Perth by eight wickets.

First ball is at 5pm NZT.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Analysis – The 2027 World Cup draw has happened, just under two years from when the tournament will be held in Australia. That in itself is worth questioning, but it is worth remembering this format was heavily scrutinised for the last World Cup and World Rugby obviously hasn’t listened or doesn’t care.

The only really possible explanation for doing it this far out is so fans have plenty of time to plan their travel to Australia. But even that is questionable, as it feels like a really unsustainable way of making sure the tournament is making enough ticket revenue.

Here’s what else it means for the 24 teams that have qualified:

Déjà vu

Whatever the case is, it’s meant that the All Blacks are in a very similar situation to 2023 anyway. Potentially one big game to start, then a real lull until a projected quarter-final against the Springboks.

How did the top two seeds end up on the same side of the draw?

This is a very strange one from World Rugby, because you would think surely the teams ranked one and two at the time of the draw would automatically go to opposite ends and sent on a path to meet in the final. That hasn’t happened (again), with the Springboks and All Blacks likely to end one of their campaigns in the quarter-finals.

The overstayers

Meanwhile, England couldn’t have had a better draw if they’d organised it themselves. Their path through to the business end is pretty clear, however at least this time the English actually look to be building a serious challenge rather than falling arse-first into a semi like they did in 1991, 2007 and 2023. From a hosting perspective, the prospect of having big-spending Poms in Australia for all those weeks is an early victory though.

Vamos Los Pumas

One side that will be very happy is Argentina, who have drawn a relatively easy pool and path to a semi-final. It’s not like the Pumas need any sort of leg up anyway, not only are they consistently beating everyone put in front of them now, they have historically been very good at World Cups with semi-final appearances in three of the last six tournaments.

There’s no reason to think that if things go their way, they can win the whole thing.

A date with France

Whoever wins the projected All Blacks v Springboks quarter-final will then likely meet France, who will still be very sore over their one point loss to the South Africans at the last World Cup.

What about the Wallabies

If there’s one team that really embodies the fact that an awful lot can change between now and October 2027, it’s the host nation. Just four months ago the Wallabies had knocked off the Springboks at Ellis Park, since then they’ve lost 10 of the next 12 tests.

Can it swing back? Rumours of players switching codes from the NRL may be just that, but the Wallabies will ride a wave of public momentum into their big pool match with the All Blacks regardless.

Hong Kong action

One of the All Blacks’ most famous World Cup results was their 145-17 demolition of Japan in 1995, but that isn’t even second biggest winning margin recorded by the teams in their pool. The Wallabies walloped Namibia 142-0 in 2003, but the actual world record is Hong Kong’s 164-13 result over Singapore in 1994. Hong Kong winger Ashley Billington still holds the individual points scoring record, with 50 (10 tries).

However, given their team are entirely locally based amateurs, Hong Kong might be in the dubious position of being on the other end of some sort of record scoreline by the time this pool stage is over.

It’s ages away

On his media call this morning Scott Robertson really summed up how far away all this is, noting that between now and the World Cup the All Blacks and Springboks play each other six times.

2027 Rugby World Cup pools

Pool A: All Blacks, Wallabies, Chile, Hong Kong China

Pool B: Springboks, Italy, Georgia, Romania

Pool C: Argentina, Fiji, Spain, Canada

Pool D: Ireland, Scotland, Uruguay, Portugal

Pool E: France, Japan, USA, Samoa

Pool F: England, Wales, Tonga, Zimbabwe

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Weightlifting New Zealand is hoping Aotearoa will have its first female Commonwealth Games gold medalist next year as an impressive group of young lifters come through the ranks.

The sport has just completed its national championships, with more than 100 lifters taking part from around the country and the South Pacific.

Significantly, almost two-thirds of the athletes competing were women.

Two world-ranked teenagers were the stars of the event, Olivia Selemaia and Litia Nacagilevu dominating their divisions.

Selemaia, 19 – who finished eighth at this year’s world championships – set Oceania and national records in winning the 69kg class, while 18-year-old Nacagilevu – who finished ninth at the world champs – also broke records in the 86kg class.

While the two have impressed on the world stage, Weightlifting New Zealand president Simon Kent said the depth in the sport had grown significantly and they were now seeing the results of investment at the school level.

“Especially the women’s depth has grown in the last half-a-dozen years,” Kent told RNZ.

“The number of clubs has grown and there is good involvement with our community schools programme Lift for Gold. We’ve really invested, there is more exposure and more young people are getting to have a crack at the sport.

“From a high-performance perspective, we’ve really targeted investing in these young ones over the last couple of years and they’re now coming through.”

As a result, Kent expected as many as a dozen lifters (six men and six women) could compete at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, with the hope that a woman could come away with New Zealand’s first weightlifting gold medal.

New Zealand has won 40 weightlifting medals at the Commonwealth Games over the years, including 12 gold. They have included victories for legends of the sport like Precious McKenzie, Tony Ebert, Don Oliver, Graham May, Darren Liddel, Richie Patterson and David Liti.

Since women’s weightlifting was added to the Games programme in 2002, the closest a Kiwi has come was the silver medal won by Olivia Baker in 2002.

“The one thing missing is we’ve never had a female win a gold medal, and we think with this young group coming through there is every possibility that that could happen next year,” Kent said.

“What Olivia [Selemaia] has done over the last year proving that she is genuinely a world class athlete and not far behind is Latia [Nacagilevu], who is also demonstrating that she has wonderful potential.”

Both those lifters have stiff competition in the Commonwealth, but Kent was confident they could contend for titles, and as teenagers they still had a long way to go in their careers.

All the major contenders for the New Zealand Commonwealth Games weightlifting team will compete at the Oceania Championships in Samoa in April, which will be the last qualifying event before the Games.

Selemaia, Nacagilevu and David Liti were all ranked in the top three in the Commonwealth and all-but assured of selection for the Games.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

The All Blacks end of season review will be completed by the end of January and coach Scott Robertson is ready for the “interrogation” headed his way.

Robertson spoke to media on Thursday following the draw for the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia, which has New Zealand in Pool A with hosts the Wallabies, Hong Kong China and Chile.

The All Blacks are coming off a year in which they won 10 of 13 tests with three defeats. They retained the Bledisloe Cup but couldn’t win back the Rugby Championship nor complete the Grand Slam on their end of year tour and fell to a record loss at the hands of South Africa.

Those defeats, a pattern of poor second half performances and the team’s struggles to adapt to their rivals’ change of tactics have left many pundits questioning whether the All Blacks are getting better.

Consequently, there is plenty of interest in the end of season review and Robertson said it had begun.

“It’s pretty much an interrogation, right from the top to the bottom,” Robertson said.

“It’s a great tool for us to get feedback as coaches, and the whole group from the players and all the management.

“People are gathering (info now). But in the new year, that’s when the information is disseminated out.

“We have an All Blacks camp (in January) and then the team (input) and the board (input) and all that (review) information will be had by the end of January.”

The review process was nothing new, Robertson said.

“We have someone that travels with us the whole time that’s reviewing.

“There’s online stuff, there’s also the group stuff that the team do while they’re on tour, you sit down one-on-one, you talk to all the leaders and get their feedback, so there’s a personal touch to it as well, so that’s all being gathered.”

The players would be involved in the review and it would be full and frank, Robertson said.

He was confident the review would show the team was improving less than two years out from the next Rugby World Cup.

“There’s a lot to do before that. There’s a lot of rugby, there’s a lot of chances for us to go and get better in areas, and as a team, and hone in like everyone else. Like I said before, World Rugby is the closest it’s ever been.

“We’ve got some really good competition across the squad and there’s a lot of depth in our squad. This year we had the most injuries we’ve ever had as an All Black squad and so it did create opportunities for other players.

“We want to be four deep in each position and we’re starting to get there and we’ve got another super rugby competition for someone to come in and play really well and put pressure on the current side to play well and pick themselves for the All Blacks next year.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand