Yawn.
Richie McCaw became NZer of the Year.
How predictable.
How dull.
How deathly eye rolling.
That pink dildo thrown at Steven Joyce deserves to be NZer of the Year over & above Richie McCaw. It has more personality than him too.
Don’t get me wrong. Rugby is wonderful and kicking, catching and running are all terribly important skills, but are we so devoid of passion beyond a game that we can’t appreciate that we should use the rare spotlight of media attention to those who need the platform? Whose appointment sends a message to the wider community, makes the awarding of it mean  something deeper than our fanaticism with fucking rugby!
Awarding it to McCaw denigrates it to a beer advert. The KFC of leadership.
Finger lickin.
I thought the short list was a disgrace.
Where was Helen Kelley? Jane Kelsey? John Campbell? Paris Goebbels? The female MPs who had the courage to stand and make their point in Parliament about sexual and physical abuse they have experienced in NZ? Where was the Salvation Army? Where was Kelvin Davis for standing up for human rights? Where was CPAG?
What about Amanda Bailey? The young woman with the courage to stand up and speak out against the Prime Minister touching her on 10 separate occasions at her place of work? Didn’t that take courage? Wasn’t the way she was used and tricked by the NZ Herald despicable? I appreciate it’s not kicking, running or passing a ball, but that kinda took true courage right?
That Louise Nicholas was overlooked is shameful when you consider the toxic rape culture that has been exposed in our media. Awarding her NZer of the Year would have forced us to acknowledge the work she does, forced us to talk about violence against women and platform her solutions.
That would have given the award mana.
Sadly kicking, running, catching and passing a ball is just too important.
Yes martyn,
We have another few that should be considered to be nominated and that list should include you and Nikki Hagar amongst that list.
Perhaps we need to make a bad politician award as well?
Bring a list of nominees for the worst most disgusting politicians, as well while we are at it?
Begin with the usual Key/Joyce/Brownlee/English/Collins/Tolley,/Barry/Grocer, and open the list up for extra nominations as the election year unfolds and they come out of the woodwork.
Shame on Richie the sell-out.
Who remembers the line “Don’t mix politics & sport”?
Bloody hell mate, you left out Mr .022% !!
You know who I mean, old Dildo Dunne.
The high priest of parliament.
Also bridges, one of the sleazist of know nothings, and wood house, who I think may actually be a robot
Also the benefit basher Bennet.
It was a hard contest out there for the title, all credit to the opposition, definitely a game of two halves but Richie kept the pressure up for all 80 minutes, and rugby was the winner on the night!
There is also a couply cancer researchers that deserve to be short listed, just cause.
All together now… BOO-O-O-O-O!
u get a special groin-stretcher-award for kelvin davis..whoar..!
..the howls of derision for him even being nominated wd drown out most else..
..(haven’t you noticed he is never quite in the moment..?..if he isn’t scripted/well-rehearsed..he is constantly in catch-up mode..
..(i choke on my kapakapa chocolate-drink when i read/hear po-faced predictions from rightwingers that davis is the next/a future leader of labour..(in his dreams..!..)
..but mccaw getting it is a punch-line predictable bad-joke..
..and don’t cry no tears for john campbell..he/we have well and truly landed on our feet..after the canning of campbell live..
..instead of 20 mins a nite to do his stuff..he gets about 80 mins..what’s not to love..?
..he/we are the winners from the perfidy of tv3..
..and i dunno if anyone else experences this with his new show..but i have seen campbell for so long..so often..that now i can just have the audio going on his new show..and my mind internally matches the correct campbell facial-expression/mannerisms to the words..
..i can have radio with pictures..without the proffered pictures…(heh..!..)
..and ’tis unique to him..it doesn’t happen with anyone else..
(and yr news the other day of the one-liners for panelists on 7days being written by a gaggle of under-paid under-comedians has left me disturbed..wanting to know more..
..are they confined in any way..?..do the producers give them freedom of movement..
..are they fed..or do they have to rely on their oneliner being chosen..given they work on a commission for chosen work only basis..
..and if output not picked..will they starve..?
..and do they have to buy their food for inflated prices from the company store..?
..i was wondering if 7 days has gone totally victorian-workhouse on this one..
The Slime Minister saw to it that his boy Richie was looked after. A love affair between the bros. Somebody write a book about it.
Well let’s face it Martyn, it could have been much worse.
FJK or his insipid son Max could have won the big prize this time. But then there’s always next year for either of them. Election year!
It’s what caustic dictators (or slimy, devious currency traders) do isn’t it? Promote themselves and/or their useless offspring above everyone else, for personal gain!
Just had a fleeting thought here. Wonder if FJK had a quick (intimidating) word in the judges ear re Richie winning. Because as we all know, dear leader loves to be associated with winners and Richie winning will reflect back to him. Hmm ….
“Wonder if FJK had a quick (intimidating) word in the judges ear re Richie winning. ”
Why, MARY_A – how could you possibly say such a thing? Wash your mouth out with soap. Immediately!
Don’t you have 100% confidence in the honesty and integrity of our dearly beloved PM?
(/Sarc)
Animal Farmcalls it best about dictator like Putin and Key:
“Four days later, in the late afternoon, Napoleon ordered all the animals to assemble in the yard. When they were all gathered together, Napoleon emerged from the farmhouse, wearing both his medals (for he had recently awarded himself ‘Animal Hero, First Class,’ and ‘Animal Hero, Second Class’), with his nine huge dogs frisking round him and uttering growls that sent shivers down all the animals’ spines. They all cowered silently in their places, seeming to know in advance that some terrible thing was about to happen”
Next year, the first father and son New Zealanders of the Year, with medals. Boooooooo oooooooooooooooo
Richie is a darn good rugby player but enough to get NZer of the year award is a bit out in left field. Just shows that the real NZers who really deserve to get this award are not considered unless they are in donkeys camp.
Who decides who gets NZer of the year award ? Bet they are right wing
Natz type idiots wanting to use politics and awards to win points not deserved. Sorry Richie, though we greatly appreciate your amazing talents, it is not enough to get NZer of the year award, we feel. Are you sure you want to be connected so closely to our disappointing lying leader who gets booed off stages and shown much disdain and disrespect by so many right now ?
You didn’t expect anything different did you Martyn. You are so correct, he may have the skills in the rugby department and flying also but he sure is lacking in the personality department. Also he invests in the Retirement Village industry which is just a full scale rort of elderly’s investments – not an ethical investment by a long shot so that’s a score against him for me. Another thing what’s with the hair do, I have always thought he looks like a chunky hedgehog – do others see it like I do??
Have you ever met him to really research if he ‘has a personality’?
Judging that from his particular type of TV exposure is like judging something to be the truth by the fact it was in the newspaper. And is whatever he has been good at and any positive impact he has had, been diminished by a lack of personality?
I can’t argue with the disquiet about the notion that one has to be particular Kiwi cliche type to win acclaim, and I am totally disgusted and pissed off that McCaw and the All Blacks have been raped by John Key.
All McCaw did was do what he did. The problem is with others needing to define and order priorities of great achievement and contribution . The Halberg Sports Awards are the same where the nonsensical, ridiculous aim is to say whether Lydia Ko’s achievements last year were lesser or greater than those of Lisa Carrington, Peter Burling and Blair Tuke’s more worthy than those of Hamish Bond and Eric Murray or the All Blacks.
One of his ex-girlfriends commented he was a nice guy but boring, and his own coach Steve Hansen admitted the same, brilliant guy but boring – I think that is sufficient don’t you. I am not saying he isn’t a decent guy, I just admitted he didn’t have a lot of personality. It comes across when he is interviewed as well.
my sentiments exactly Kate..sucessful rugby players gloating about their retirement village investments…makes me puke!..if they had any brains they’d have kept quiet about that one…
Him and the other much-lauded sell out, Carter, the one who just came out in support of a flag change. He too has his money invested in the Retirement Village industry. He too has no personality but knows how to chase a ball around. It gives them no credentials for anything else, let alone a bloody NZer of the year award. They have the Halberg awards for sports “personalities, haha). Lydia Ko doesn’t deserve her young NZer of the year award either. Ofcourse FJK is behind it, hoping some of their cheap glitter will rub off on him.
But he can fly a helicopter. None of the others you mentioned can.
That’s nice dearie…. now…what have I got in the cupboards for tea tonight…
Hehehe…good retort. 🙂
I quite like Ritchie – think he handled it all rather well.
There’s the line from Ziggy Stardust – “When the kids had killed the man…” That didn’t happen to Ritchie.
But it happened to John so fast you wonder if there was ever any man there in the first place.
It was probably his tackle that got him through.
It was a religious decision, the cult of rugby and influence of JK.
Nothing against Richie but he got paid to play and enjoyed it,
Jane Kelsey fought for the nation,she is far more deserving.
Saw the Herald poll say the new flag is gaining ground so we can discount that as false advertising cant we !!!!
Too right Martyn, I guess all these awards, titles & honours are now strictly for the corporate elite & their enablers after all Obomba getting a peace prize even though he’s responsible for much slaughter of the innocent, even bombing another peace prize winner (Doctors without borders hospitals), the queen giving knights of Malta medals + titles for Jimmy Savile, Rolf Harris & Cliff Richard, hell even look at our White Ribbon embarrasser Jonkey FFS what a joke!!
More likely is that he has been dazzled by Key sucking up to him. Do rugby players have brains? If McCaw was a worker for any other outfit but the New Zealand Rugby Board would he have been the winner? Its all about power and the real heroes in this country are those who work quietly in the background with no expectation of personal gain.
100 per percent right Martyn. This government lives in a Neoliberal fantasy world all its own.They have no clue as to the hard slog to improve kiwi’s condition and are not interested, they’re simply couldn’t care less!
Ill nominate Josie Butler… she did more to put us on the map than the all blacks ever did .
And provide the whole world with a source of entertainment… and you know what they say… laughter is good medicine.
Enjoy .
=]
ffs
that decision has now made it a meaningless award, a mere popularity contest, as substantive as a Spice Girl’s career
I was at a party with Julie Christie and Mark Weldon (apologies about the name-dropping), and overheard that next year’s New Zealander of the Year will be an 8 part reality series, culminating on Election Night 2017.
Sorted
Eek!!!
Rob Fenwick should have got it. You can read about him here:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11591852
I was really pissy about this but I know that there is a large section of our society that thinks Richie deserves this and John is a guy they would like to have a drink with. The left needs to work out how to make the real John appear for longer than the tiny peeks we are getting. Richie got this award you doing his job, not rocking the boat, and being seen with the right person. Pointing to how to get on in the new New Zealand.
“…and John is a guy they would like to have a drink with”
Yeah, just keep him away from your pony-tail.
yes Frank only time I meet JK I had to step away as he creeped me out in the same way that Rob Muldoon did. Have thought a lot about the pony tail thing and feel that it was about winning, have meet lots of “power guys” and they are all about humiliating the staff! Think that the only way to counter Key is to work out how to make the mask slip – it hasn’t yet most of the millennials think he’s wonderful.
So did I Lucy, and I’m a middle-aged woman. Is there no end to the sleaze with this slime minister?
Given his wall st “credentials” i imagine his favorite intoxicant is ingested nasally.
Professional sport has little meaning.
If Richie was not around then that would make no material difference to the majority of NZders lives presently or in the future.
Our real leaders are those who add to community good, make sacrifices for others and set examples of fighting the degradation of life styles, health, human rights, honesty ( particularly by politicians and community representatives), equity, equal opportunity for our younger generation and many other aspects of our once semi egalitarian society.
Tall poppies that are paid well to compete are not our heroes.
Professionalism in sport is about sponsoring, advertisement and commerce with rising share process and profit. Trickle down does not happen.
Not to defend professional sport but a number of the things you say are the sort of things I to say about John Key.
I worked with Richie McCaw once. When he turned up on set with Danny Carter I had no idea who they were. Such was the level of how de tuned I’d become to the wily and banal ways of them marketing mindlessness to the masses. I have to say McCaw was, and perhaps, still is, a huge,affable and gentle fellow. Carter was, and perhaps still is, a genuine and basically nice person.
I have to ask. Is Richie McCaw just as much a victim of callous manipulations as we all are?
Or do you think he’s a vain, rich arsehole?
I guess the real problem here is that those who manipulate and control from the invisibility they afford themselves have sent confusion and hate into our homes via the TV. Dividing us up into anxious groups then watching on as we tear into each other for their profits, power and privilege.
I say, watch rugby and enjoy that is that’s what makes you happy. Just be aware, that so long as your rugby stars wear merchandising and show logos from banks to brewers, and you me and them are being manipulated and swindled.
Watching TV, especially Free to Air TV1 , is exactly what our present Government wants us to do, having managed to get rid of any thinking programs ( Channel 7, Campbell.)
National Radio alone tells it (mainly) how it is. At least we are allowed to think about issues as they are presented to us on Radio. Thank God , whoever he/she is, that we still have political comment on radio. Hope Jonkey never gets his slimy fingers on National radio. Probably thinks because it is called National that it espouses his Party line.
None of us know Richie so commenting on his personality etc etc is all conjecture. Yes he is a great rugby player and you might ask, given the feel good factor of a World Cup, why shouldn’t a rugby player be NZer of the Year? Does it always have to be an intellectual or such like?
More pertinently what the “f” is this NZer of the Year all about? Another award for those who might or might not deserve it? A chance for a photo op with Shonkers and an a TV shot with an idiot like Paul Henry? In the “establishments” ideal world Shonkey would have been AB coach and the team captained by Paula Rebstock. Awards of any nature just make me puke, I suspect that is why Richie is being classy enough to keep as low a profile as is possible for one so exalted.
And FJK’s laddie boy Richie went on to win the Halberg Sports Award the following night, which perhaps he was more deserving of than NZer of the year!
Mary, we assume Richie does not mind Shonkers being in sight at rugby events…..who knows? What we do know is that Piri Weepu and Liam Messam have made their views upon Key and the TPPA very clear and don’t like Key hanging around the dressing room basking in their glory.
Shut up and eat your rugby
or you wont get any cricket for desert….
There is a fundamental flaw in your argument Martyn, namely you assume that the awards matter. They don’t. They are a private award promoted by Kiwibank as nothing other than a marketing exercise and dressed up with glitter, notable people as judges and some pomp and ceremony all for nothing.
Your New Zealander of the Year is whoever you want it to be. No need to get upset because some arbitrary panel don’t agree with you. I am sure they are not upset that you don’t agree with them!
That’s a bit disingenuous, SGthree. If the awards were so immaterial as you suggest, why are they given such prominence?
Methinks if it was a left-wing organisation promoting a similar award, you’d be quite vocal in your opinions.
don’t ask me why they are given prominence – blame the media. I am not particularly concerned about the politics of the award – it is essentially just a private organisation organising a function. At the end of the day who really cares? I am sure that Helen Kelly or Louise Nicholas aren’t sitting there thinking their efforts have been in vain because they didn’t win NZ’er of the year
You are right. The notion behind them may be genuine but they are a marketing exercise.
I can’t come to terms with those seemingly into sports needing to stretch their interest past the excellence of the achievements of sportspeople and rank them compared with others in different disciplines.
To make it fair should Lisa Carrington be given a golf club and Lydia Ko a paddle and a canoe?
Someone comes up with a cure for alzheimer’s in the same year as someone finds how to reverse muscular dystrophy. Why turn that into a contest to decide which was better?
This post and the thread that follows is a superb example of why the far left in NZ have been consigned to the political dung heap.
As has your rather asinine comment.
I think sometimes we forget that rugby is no longer purely a sports game: it is a product.
That is why the political right have taken over the game: it is a product to be exploited and the political right are very good at exploiting anything and anyone that will make them plenty of money and give them heaps of brownie points.
Richie McCaw, for all his admirable skills and pleasant demeanour, is just part of the product that the political right want to exploit.
They don’t really give a f…k about him. After a short while it will be “Richie who?” as they move onto the next exploitable new kid on the block.
Look how the MSM have tried to avoid mentioning Sonny Bill Williams since SWB did the unthinkable and voiced a social conscience about the treatment of refugees in Lebanon.
They must be hoping that Richie or Dan don’t do the same.
Bread and Circuses Mike:
Panem et Circenses
“It was Juvenal that coined this system, a mechanism of influential power over the Roman mass. “Panem et Circensus”, literally “bread and circuses”, was the formula for the well-being of the population, and thus a political strategy. This formula offered a variety of pleasures such as: the distribution of food, public baths, gladiators, exotic animals, chariot races, sports competition, and theater representation. It was an efficient instrument in the hands of the Emperors to keep the population peaceful, and at the same time giving them the opportunity to voice themselves in these places of performance.”
Rugby, cricket and rugby league. And a chance for the Slime Minister to sleaze his way into the changing rooms and rub shoulders with the Gladiators and bask in their reflected glory.
Well said !!
John keys rent-a-richie
Wrong person won!
Let’s face it we have a long way to go before we grow up as a country.
It seems that we can’t say or do anything that doesn’t involve RUGBY.
Its not enough that we have sports awards to acknowledge its achievements.
Numerous coverage on all channels at the exspence of a lot of other sports.
It even has its own channel.
Ritchie I am sure played his heart out as did the rest of the TEAM it is a TEAM sport.
We have missed an opportunity to give this award to some one truly outstanding there not hard to find it would be good to remind kiwis that talent exists of the rugby field if we dare to acknowledge it.
This award is like the John Key flag
another corporate invention when the award is worth so much more.
.
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