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Bob Howitt - Source: ONE News -
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Rugby commentator Bob Howitt says he can understand why judge Dick Tayler has resigned from the Halberg Awards panel.
Howitt told TVNZ News at 8 that one of the frustrations judges probably feel about the process is that the votes are cast without discussion.
"I can understand his frustration because he doesn't get to debate this thing. And I think that's where it goes wrong," Howitt said.
Howitt said that one way that that could be avoided is if the judges had the opportunity to meet and discuss the nominees before the announcement.
He said his view for the 2010 awards was that the All Blacks' statistics were far superior to the All Whites.
"The All Whites had easy qualifying, and mostly losses in warm-ups. But the draw with Italy was excellent."
The All Blacks on the other hand won 13 out of 14 games.
"Not only did they win...they won them in style. They electrified the game of rugby."
He said the All Whites' victory at the Halbergs might be compared to the Tall Blacks' fourth-placed effort at the World Champs in 2002.
"That was an astonishing performance by the Tall Blacks, because that's a sport in which we don't have any tradition in whatsoever. I think excellence was something they could attach to that performance.
"But really, a team which has no wins at all but defends heroically and only wins one other game in the entire year, is that truly excellence?"
Howitt believes the Halberg Awards' voting panel should be reduced to five or six people so discussion can take place.
While he admitted that as a rugby writer he may have a degree of bias, he said the All Blacks record in 2010 was excellent.
"I see what the All Blacks achieve on the international stage and what they achieved last year was quite extraordinary... they have set the benchmark way up there, excellence in capital letters."
He said the All Blacks have traditionally had very lean pickings at the Halberg awards "and you can understand, because they have disappointed".
"Excellence has not been achieved since 1987 in terms of World Cups. But you can only go on what they are achieving year in, year out."
He said that 2010 was a year in which there was plenty of top class sport by New Zealanders and that "we have to live with the fact that the one that won it, didn't win."
Earlier today Tayler, one of the 28 judges of the Halberg Awards, quit his role in protest at the All Whites taking out three awards, saying " they didn't deserve it ".
