GORDON LIGHTFOOT | Sport
TIME MANAGEMENT
All Blacks goal kicker Damian McKenzie has been forced to apologise to his teammates for missing the bus from San Diego, following their match against Fiji. McKenzie had to make his own way to Los Angeles airport, a 210 km journey.
But the smiling assassin is placing much of the blame for his lateness on the new goal kicking shot clock, which was brought in after he timed out in a match against England this year.
“Well this shot clock is good at keeping me on time when it comes to goal kicking, but it wasn’t able to tell me how much time I had left before the bus was leaving,” he told reporters, shaking his head.
McKenzie quickly became used to the one minute countdown for his goalkicking, and has not been timed out by a referee since the first incident.
“When you practice kicking with the shot clock for too long you end up becoming quite reliant on the thing to organise your time. For some reason I just assumed it would have an alarm that could wake me up in the morning,” he explained, apparently bleary-eyed from a similar but separate late night out.
“Pretty stupid to miss the bus and it’s my fault, but I also blame the shot clock to a certain degree. Would it be that hard for it to have an alarm?” laughed the first five-eighths, whose phone had also died.
Coach Scott Robertson would not comment on McKenzie’s indiscretion, but said he was happy with the shot clock’s performance.
More to come.
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