Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Ryan Bridge: 'A kid in sport is kid out of court'

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Ryan Bridge: 'A kid in sport is kid out of court' · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Even if you're not into football, it is hard not
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: to be excited about a local franchise winning the A
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: league final. That you have to be a real grinch
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: not to get a smile on your face. Congratulations to
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: all the players, to Steve the coach, to Nick Becker
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: the CEO, and the well heeled who backed them from
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: the beginning. I might add, these guys have what you
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: call momentum, something you can't bottle. They've created a winning bus.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: There are two things that leap to mind as the
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: AFC party bus snaked its way through Queen Street yesterday. One,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: this is part of a wider story about the rise
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: of football, which now boasts more Kiwi players than rugby union.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: A big part of that is to do with Auckland.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Rugby has an Auckland problem which football and league are exploiting.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Unlike the Blues, the Wars and Auckland FC regularly fill stadiums.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: It's not come out of nowhere, of course. Twenty fourteen
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: there was a council survey found rugby was the twentieth
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: most popular sport amongst Aucklanders in twenty sixteen of one
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand registered union players in New Zealand,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: just forty thousand came from this region. That was less
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: than three percent of Aucklanders. So the numbers haven't been
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: great for a while. They launched a strategy to turn
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: it around, have they Rugby is stronger in the provinces.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: But if getting young players on the field is the
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: aim of the game, then Auckland is king. Same story
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: goes in politics. You know, you can win an election,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: you can't win an election if you lose Auckland. You've
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: got to have Auckland to win. I mean, it's just
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: a pure numbers game, a population issue right. Labor found
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: that out back in twenty twenty three. Second thing, fans
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: don't really care if the players, the coaches, or even
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: the owner and Bill Foley are Aucklanders or even Kiwis.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: They just care that it's a football and b they're
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: winning in that order. Another lesson perhaps for other codes
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: with sticky rules and criteria issues. Maybe in the end
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: none of this really matters. What really matters is that
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: kids are playing sport and as long as they're playing something.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: You know, what's the old saying, a kid in sport
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: is a kid out of court. For more from early
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live to news talks it'd
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: be from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on
• 2:13
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