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How New Zealand’s Michaela Brake emulated Michael Jordan in Singapore
By Finn Morton reporting from Singapore
The date was June 11, 1997.
It was game five of the NBA Finals, with Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls taking on the Utah Jazz in Salt Lake City. With the series locked at 2-2, the Bulls took a decisive step towards another league title as Jordan balled out with 38 points in the 90-88 win on the road.
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That is one of the most talked about NBA games in history. Jordan was ill but still put on a show when the Bulls needed their star point guard to do just that, and that performance has since been labelled ‘The Flu Game’.
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Two-time Olympic gold medallist Michaela Brake emulated Jordan’s heroics last weekend by putting on a show, while sick, in a finals match that New Zealand won 31-7 over Australia at Singapore’s National Stadium. Brake had also helped New Zealand secure the league title the day before.
Brake opened the scoring in a highly-anticipated Cup Final decider between New Zealand and Australia in just the second minute, with the try-scoring phenomenon showing agility and pace while racing more than 50 metres to the house.
Team vice-captain Risi Pouri-Lane scored shortly after, and while Maddison Levi hit back for the Aussies on the stroke of half-time, it was one-way traffic after the break. Brake scored the last try of the Final as the Black Ferns Sevens ran away with an utterly dominant win.
After lifting the Singapore trophy and then the SVNS Series league title, Brake stopped for about four minutes to talk about New Zealand’s history-making weekend. After apologising for her croaky voice, Brake opened up on the challenge of playing ill.
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“It felt good in my head by physically I’m bloody struggling with my health,” Brake told reporters just after New Zealand lifted the SVNS Series league trophy.
“I had my team who had my back and they knew that the physical status that I’m in right now and they just kept reminding me to keep pushing through. It was just 14 minutes of rugby that I needed to push through and I just kept reminding myself of that.
“Whatever result came upon that, I’m proud that I pushed through a back-to-back tournament which I haven’t done in a long time.
“Whatever state that I’m in I’ll perform at the best of my ability on the field for the black jersey but I’m very excited to go home and to rest my body.”
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Before the Final, it wasn’t clear from the stands that Brake was ill. Instead, you could see how much representing New Zealand means to the 29-year-old, who was visibly emotional as the national anthem echoed throughout the Singaporean venue.
Teammates like Jorja Miller and Sarah Hirini smiled as the entire team swayed from left to right in unison as they always do before a decider. The New Zealanders often talk about the proud ‘sisterhood’ that keeps this group so close, and here they were again, together as one.
About one hour later after the men’s title-decider, which saw Fiji beat Kenya in a tense clash, Brake was sked about the Black Ferns Sevens’ form this season before a question about the national anthem was raised. Brake’s response was heart-felt and genuine.
“The story behind that is that version of the anthem I sang for six years straight at my primary school and when I sang that national anthem I would vision myself wearing some sort of New Zealand uniform or being at the Olympic Games,” Brake reflected.
“It’s a reminder that that five-year-old kid had a massive dream and she didn’t let anyone get in her way. That version of the national anthem will always pull on my heartstrings, I can’t help it, it’s such a cool version of the anthem, it’s beautiful, the English and the Maori version of it.
“You don’t really get to sing your national anthem very often but when you do, I’ll sing it with pride and if it makes me cry, it makes me cry.”
New Zaland are the league winners but there’s still more work to be done in order to become overall SVNS Series champions in 2024/25. Next month, the circuit heads to Los Angeles’s Dignity Health Sports Park for the winner-takes-all World Championship on May 3-4.
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Men’s pools for SVNS Series World Championship
Pool A: Argentina, South Africa, France, Great Britain
Pool B: Fiji, Spain, Australia, New Zealand
Women’s pools for SVNS Series World Championship
Pool A: New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Great Britain
Pool B: Australia, France, USA, Fiji
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Crowning an “overall SVNS “Series” Champion based on ONE tourney seriously undermines the efforts of NZL & ARG who have already won the “series” (for some reason now called “leagues”).
It’s ridiculous. I mean for e.g. the AB7s can win the “overall SVNS Series Championship” after qualifying 7th. Merely by winning the LA tourney. In fact any of the men’s teams on their day, can become the SVNS Series Champion. If the AB7s did win LA, I’m sure they’d be the first to admit embarrassment in calling themselves SVNS “Series” Champions.
An unbelievably stupid format which must be changed stat.