James McOnie: The Crowd Goes Wild host on the Australian Open, the Chris Wood saga and the Drua v Los Angeles clash

Published Jan 26, 2025, 3:01 AM

James McOnie from The Crowd Goes Wild joined Piney to discuss the Australian Open, the Chris Wood saga and the Drua v Los Angeles clash.

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You're listening to the Weekend Sport Podcast with Jason Vine from Newstalk.

Zed b our regular Sunday Slot with James mcconey.

Hello, mate, Koda mate, Yes, I'm talking to you from lovely Rainy Top, where I've been down here, not for the cultures or concert, but for Storm Purvos's wedding. She married Dan Hilton Jones, so North Harbor Rugby fans might know his name, but of course Storm purpose from the Crowd Goes Wild and the Silver fans fantastic.

Well, I'll wait for the magazine spread to take in all the photos. Were you told you weren't allowed to take any?

Yeah, we were told, and I was going to break ranks.

I'm gonna men you.

And of course, you know, I looked around and I was thought, am I going to be the only person who decides to take photos and in that we've just specifically been told not to. And then I realized, look, we need a shot for the show for Crowd Goes Wild. So I put my phone in landscape mode, you know TV mode. Ye took a photo of the first I mean a video of the first kiss. So I don't know whether I'm going to be allowed to use that on crowd Go as well. But wat's the space always working.

You're always working, James, always working, always just in a back of your mind. How can I get the content? The Australian Tennis Open comes to its conclusion tonight with the men singles final. I'm not sure whether you had the opportunity to watch the women's final or have caught up on it. But Madison Keys. I was a fan of her finally winning a major.

Yes, so was I, Pony. I've seen Madison Keys grow up from tennis prodigy. She was on the tour at fourteen years of age and she turns thirty next month. So this is an amazing story really because she, you know, she lived in the shadow of the Williams sisters and every time a new tennis star emerged, she seemed to move further back down to taxi ranks. So, you know, Sloan Stevens and Coco Vandaway and Coco Goff and then now Madison Key's just been plugging away. She is you know, she hits the ball hard, She's pretty tall, you know, five point ten, she can you know, she's got that bill to be a Grand Slam tennis winner and finally put it all together perfectly. But there's a nice story behind it, Pony about her rackets. Have you caught up with us?

No?

I haven't.

So she she was a Wilson racket user for many years, probably a decade, and last year decided to change to YONIX and then and also got married coincidentally to one of her coaches and who she'd been dating for seven years. So married in November. Suddenly, new new racket, new husband, and she's winning a grand Slam, and so she won them with yon X. And then meanwhile, over on the other side of the court, Sablenka smashing her Wilson, which is a racord that then Madison Keys used to you. So yeah, one empire rises another another one for not.

A great night for Wilson. No, not a great night. Hey, we had. We had some Keiwi involvement as well, quite deep into the women's doubles and the mixed doubles. Aaron Rautler and Michael Venus together couldn't get past the semifinals unfortunately, but I enjoyed watching a couple of Kiwis go deep in the mixed doubles.

Yeah, it's awesome. You know, they're almost a father daughter combination. Michael Venus slapped me for saying that, but yeah, he is thirty seven, so he's slightly younger than Gale moffeeest but you know, and is one of the veterans and outstanding doubles player. You know, he's won a Grand Slam before, He's won of bronze medal at the Olympics with Marcus Daniel. But what I really like is that they've got this amazing chemistry. They want to play all the majors again this year together, so they've committed to the Actually, while I was interviewed them, interviewing them for Sky Sport, I sort of put them on the a little bit and Aaron said, I'm always the one as to ask Michael, and Michael goes, I'm disorganized. And so suddenly they said, yeah, we'll play. He goes, do you want to play French? He goes yes. And then now they're going to play Wimbledon and the US Open, and it means that New Zealand has a chance. In New Zealand doubles pairing has a chance to win a first Kiwi Grand Slam for doubles. There's been plenty of KEYWI players of one doubles titles with players from other nations, but never a key WE pairing.

Oh, we'll look forward to that. I was just having a quick check on on Michael Venus's career. He's made a pretty good career out of being a very good doubles player. Four point seven million UIs dollars in prize money.

I know, it's amazing. And actually, do you know what mixed doubles is very watchable? They they play, you know, they don't really play best of three sets off. It's if it's one set all they goes straight into a super tiebreaker, which is first to ten. I think, yes, first ten. So you know, it's high enter attainment, a lot of pressure on each point, which I think is really what you want out of out of sport and for tennis. So I mean, let's make mixed doubles great again, then Trump do it.

I don't know, I don't know where that his involvement would necessarily be be integral to it to mix doubles becoming great again. Look, I think of this in this part of the world. If Aaron Ratlif and Michael Venus can win a Grand Slam, then yeah, I think would you know it would be very very happy with that. Hey, I was going to ask you about rugby. I know it's only the twenty sixth of January, but actually Super Rugby starts and is it three weeks man? That's going to come around quick. The Fiji and Drewer are going to play against major League rugby side Rugby Football Club Los Angeles as one of their preseason games.

Well, they played them on Friday, Pony and it was reasonably close, high scoring game. The DLUA got up so they won it. And but I looked at LAFC and RFC and they scored several good tries, they were combative in the forwarde and I just think, is this a glipse, you know, to the future of rugby. Can we get an American team into Super Rugby? They seem pretty competitive and this is a team that, Yeah, they had a couple of rarely gun players lelia Fano at verse five and betraying the Puma's half back. But then there were players from Randwick Club Rugby, you know in Sydney filling in. So once a team like that can get bolstered by more talent, then could they actually be continue to play Super Rugby and maybe does Super Rugby think about doing two divisions? This is where I mean, I know it's hard to see that happening when you see what's happening with crowd numbers, but I think something needs to happen to the game. It needs to expand. And America is fresh pastures and this time of year. Of course, once the Super Bowl is over next week, there is no American football really in the college football season is pretty much done and dusted. So there's this's clear ear for rugby a lot. You know, from February through the June are.

These are sorts of things that are sort of going through your mind as the wedding vows are being read yesterday or an alullan proceedings at the wedding, And these are the sorts of things that fit Popp into your head.

Yeah, can we get La Ragby and super and it's just super. Yeah, that's all I did to make the speech. Piny I got dropped as MC and as it woo for for a brother and sister combo and you can't argue with that. I'm not going to sort of throw my toys, but I did say, well, I had actually already prepared something, so maybe and so Storm said, well, why don't you introduce the MC So I sort of managed to muscle my wa hands to the wedding, feeling a bit guilty of about that now, pulling focus like a proper TV person. So you know, I'm keeping a low profile today. You know there'll be no big entrances to the to the barbecue the day after.

I'm going to make So there's two distinct sets of people in Topaul. There's there's the wedding crowd for storm Purpose's wedding and there's the Cold Chisel crowd. Have they been in evidence around Topaul in the last little while?

Oh they have, I can see them. And I think that the father of the groom would have rather been at Cold Chisel by the sounds of things. Russell Hilton Jones, I'll throw him under the bus. A former North Harbor Flanka and in Northland as well, I think, And so he yeah, he was definitely talking about Cold chizzl a lot last night, wondering what the playlist was and you know, when are they're going to play forever now and all this kind of thing. I was like, Okay, Russell's just focus. We've got free booze here. We're having a good time, and you know that the band is playing Proclaimers five hundred miles. It's not the last.

A wedding reception floor filler like that. You cannot go wrong. James Safe travels back up to Walkland and look forward to chatting some sport with you again next Sunday. Cheers Piney mate into YouTube mate, James mcconi, huge part of our Sundays Alternative commentary collective. Craig goes wild all across your social media as well, and look out for that prohibited, forbidden video. I think that's what happens if you're really famous. The magazine, the women's magazines get the you know they signed the deal. I've never been in this situation as a guest or certainly not as the participants in a wedding either. But they say, okay, we'll pay you X amount of dollars, but no one can take photos because we want to be the ones for the photos. I think that's what's happened here. I hope it was a brilliant Dan toport. I'm sure it was not.

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