Editorial: Sometimes you need to be flexible

Special times call for special responses. Last year was one of very special achievement for New Zealand sport. Success against the best in the world came in unprecedented dollops. Somehow this had to be reflected when the finalists for the Halberg Awards were announced. Yet the response of the Halberg Trust was to stick to what had sufficed previously. The result is a tiff that clouds next month's awards ceremony.

The voting academy's error, in the eyes of many, was its failure to find a place for the New Zealand rugby league side in the team-of-the-year category. Those critics have a strong case. But, with there being room for only four finalists, the academy chose the All Blacks and the three rowing crews crowned world champions in Japan. This meant there was also no place for the New Zealand netball team, which had cemented its dominance over arch-rival Australia.

Most immediately, of course, this process throws up the difficulty of comparing one sporting triumph against another. How can success at the highest level in rowing be rated against the rugby league team's thumping of a seemingly invincible Australia in the Tri-Nations final? And how does the Kiwis' victory stack up against an All Black side that defeated the Lions, won the Tri-Nations and completed a Grand Slam tour of the British Isles?

Year in, year out, ranking such performances is never easy, whether the subject is the finalists or the eventual winner. The academy must analyse success on the basis of a variety of factors, including the event won, the strength of the competition, the popularity of the sport, and its place in the national psyche. Assessing that demands a clear, utterly unbiased approach. In that area, the 25-member academy comes up short.

It is made up of 17 athletes and coaches, and eight sports journalists. Inevitably, the athletes and coaches bring their own prejudices to the judging. Some probably have a natural inclination to support an Olympic discipline, such as rowing, over rugby league, a sport about which they may know little. Worse, the academy no longer meets to discuss the nominees' merits. Votes are cast by email. That means there is no forum for waylaying preconception.

The list of finalists suggests the academy may have been aware of this year's special problems. Clearly, the rowers had to be recognised, such was the relative rarity of their triumphs in a discipline pursued worldwide. It was impossible to recognise them as one team, given that not all the crews were successful. Equally, the All Blacks had to be finalists. The academy, therefore, decided to plump for them, but to offer consolation elsewhere to the Kiwis and the Silver Ferns. Mentors Brian McClennan and Ruth Aitken are finalists in the coach-of-the-year category, while goalshoot Irene van Dyk is in the run-off for sportswoman of the year.

This, however, was never going to provide sufficient recognition of the enormity of the Kiwis' achievement - or that of the Silver Ferns. Both, even if involved in sports that are played by a relatively small number of countries, delivered decisive results against a rival whose dominance has only sporadically been challenged. The nation swelled with a collective pride.

In reality, there was only one solution. That was to enlarge the number of finalists in recognition of the contributors to a stellar 12 months. The All Blacks, the rowers, the Kiwis and the Silver Ferns all deserve to be there. That they are not suggests the Halberg Awards needs to be more flexible if, by dint of good fortune, we ever again witness such a year.