As we say goodbye to 2020 and welcome in 2021, it's a good time to catch up on the very best of the Herald columnists we enjoyed reading over the last 12 months. From politics to sport, from business to entertainment and lifestyle, these are the voices and views ouraudience loved the most. Today it's the top three from Dylan Cleaver.
My 25 years as a sports journo
Lockdown was an edgy time for sports writers. Denied the meat and drink of "the match", many had to look elsewhere for inspiration.
It is about 25 years, give or take a few weeks, since my byline first appeared atop a sports story. It'd be a stretch to say this with any confidence but I think it was a preview for a football match involving the Metro club and it probably appeared in either the Central Leader or the Auckland City Harbour News, old INL freesheets that graciously took on students one day a week. I can say with utmost confidence the story would not have been any good.
In the time since, I have covered and occasionally interviewed some characters. I was asked to consider some of the most intriguing personalities and/or careers I've followed.
All Blacks coach Steve Hansen at the 2019 Rugby World Cup. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The enigma that is Grant Dalton
He's been on this earth for 62 years and over time none of Grant Dalton's edges have been rounded off or smoothed. His vision remains firmly set to black and white. In his world there are winners and losers.
"I have strong ideals of right and wrong," he told me once. "I trust really slowly and I lose it instantly. A grudge is normally created by somebody trying to screw you and in the America's Cup, a lot of people are trying to screw you.
"My game is to outlast them, too. A lot of these people come and they go and you just outlast them… eventually they f*** themselves."
Team New Zealand boss Grant Dalton. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Club rugby in NZ is dying. Here's how to fix it
Members of the Herald sports team and enthusiastic contributors have metaphorically travelled the length and breadth of the country this year to bring you our 1st XV of Classic Rugby Clubs.
Clubs up and down the country shared similar stories: it's a struggle for mere survival out there.
Running concurrently to these stories was a number of reports on the commercialisation of secondary school sport, a phenomenon that cannot be reported without analysis of the overheated, overhyped and fetishised world of 1st XV rugby.
The synching of these stories was accident rather than design but it did lead to several thought boil-ups.
What if New Zealand's professional rugby teams could only contract players out of club rugby?
