Kerre Woodham: Awards never black and white

For one month, the entire nation was behind the All Whites in South Africa. Photo / Photosport

I love the Halberg Awards, there always seems to be controversy over at least one of the award winners and this year was no exception.

The All Whites were always going to be the popular choice to win Team of the Year. That they were the public's darlings is evidenced by the Most Memorable Sporting Moment for 2010 going to Winston Reid's equalising header in the dying moments of the match against Slovakia in the World Cup.

But the team's winning of the supreme award has seen columnists divided into for and against camps, and one judge has even resigned from the judging panel. Not just any old judge either. Dick Taylor is a Commonwealth gold medallist and a former Halberg winner.

The debate is the same one we were having in the office this week. It was the soccer fans, who remembered with clarity the All Whites coming out honours-even against tournament favourites Italy and giving as good as they got in matches against Paraguay and Slovakia, versus the rugger buggers who pointed out that the All Blacks lost only one game last year.

The football aficionados asked how many countries had rugby as their national game as opposed to football; the rugby camp asked how three drawn games could make a team champions. And on and on it went until deadlines were upon us and it was back to work. That's the beauty of the Halberg Awards - there are no rights or wrongs, just matters of opinion and like the great man, Sir Murray Halberg, says, there'd be no point to the awards if they didn't spark passionate debate.