Commentary Corner

Phil Gifford

Amateur sport is battling – but it’s a struggle worth pursuing
We are thrilled to have New Zealand’s leading sports journalist Phil Gifford as the writer of our lead article this season. In a stellar career Phil…
30 Apr 2024
Steve Hinds

Paying it forward
Nicknamed ‘The Enforcer’, Steve Hinds has been the World Rugby Citing Commissioner Manager since 2017. This after a full-on career with the New…
30 Apr 2023
Michael Heron QC and Charlotte Agnew-Harington

Sport, women and integrity
The increased focus on sporting integrity in recent years has coincided with an increasing emphasis on women’s sport. This has led to consideration of…
4 Jun 2022
Rebecca Rolls

Shifting the dial in sport
Rebecca represented New Zealand in both cricket and football. In cricket, as a wicketkeeper batsman, she played 104 ODIs, two T20s and one Test match…
30 Apr 2021
Anastasia Boyle

A lifetime of cricketing summers
Anastasia Boyle is a French language teacher at Burnside High School and sister of former Canterbury cricketers, David and Justin Boyle
30 Apr 2020
Clare Commons

Sporting life after school – a mother’s view
This woman’s a bit crazy. I know this because I said yes when John Mitchell asked me to write Commentary Corner. Only a crazy woman would agree to…
30 Apr 2019
Andrew Nuttall

Cricket – the trip of a lifetime
Thanks to the efforts of Stuart Spalding, Bob Masefield and fellow Willows Club members I had the opportunity to be involved with a month long tour of…
30 Apr 2018
Charles Lyttelton

Lasting friendships across boundaries
Lord Cobham, of Hagley Hall, Worcestershire, is an honorary member of The Willows.
30 Apr 2017
Roger Knight

Play within the spirit of the game
The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is responsible for the Laws of Cricket and is currently revising these Laws in order to produce a new Code for…
30 Apr 2016
Robert Donaldson

Catch! ... some wisdom from McCullum
The call of “Catch!” elicits immediate focus—a shot of adrenaline, the tensing of muscles, a sense of anticipation for fielders ... and fear in a…
30 Apr 2015
Chris Clarke

Future makers – a generation of Kiwis with a world vision
We’ve all tried and, if you are like me, probably failed at explaining the game of cricket to visitors from nations who don’t play the sport. Most…
30 Apr 2014
Spiros Zavos

NZ cricket needs to be returned to the true believers
I watched the enthralling cricket Test at Wellington between New Zealand and England from my home in Sydney. At one point in the play I called over to…
30 Apr 2013
Sir Anand Satyanand

Visit to Sri Lanka and Malaysia cricket
Introduction - I was invited to join a team of 13 secondary schoolboys drawn from school teams from Wellington, Christchurch, Waimate, Dunedin and…
30 Apr 2012
Judge Andrew Becroft

Sporting hero: Clive Currie
Boys always want heroes. When I entered the third form at Rongotai College, Wellington in 1971, I was no different. The sixth and seventh formers…
30 Apr 2011
Sir John Key

Opportunities for youth who are prepared to do the hard yards
Judging by most of the young people I meet, New Zealand’s future looks bright. As I travel around the country I’m constantly impressed by the…
30 Apr 2010
Robin Butler

Commentary Corner
Lord Butler is a former president of Oxford University Rugby Football Club.
30 Apr 2009
Inspector John Price

Young people need a coach
It is a great honour to be asked to write an article for this year’s Annual Report. I am not an accomplished cricketer, but what I know is that The…
30 Apr 2008
Mike Coward

The Spirit of Cricket
In quieter and gentler times there was no need for the game’s governors to prescribe what is meant by the “spirit of cricket”. If you were breastfed…
30 Apr 2007
Roger Moses

School sport is a powerful teacher
Notwithstanding the gloomy weather and even more desultory performance by the Black Caps, the second test match against the Australians at the Basin…
30 Apr 2005
Dr Graham Stoop

Commentary Corner
Last year’s ‘Commentary Corner’ was written by Jonathan Hensman then of Wanganui Collegiate School. He wrote of the need for schools to be…
30 Apr 2004
Jonathan Hensman

The role of Wanganui Collegiate as a lighthouse in our society
Life as an adolescent is an extended period of vulnerability and is somewhat different from even twenty years ago. Back then, respect for adults was…
30 Apr 2003
Chris Ineson

Peak Performing Organisations
“It’s a mental thing.” “It’s 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration.” “It’s all about goal-setting.” We all discuss it from time to time... what enables…
30 Apr 2002
Joseph Romanos

Commentary Corner
I’ve been fortunate to be involved in the writing of books on Waiter Hadlee, Merv Wallace and John Reid over the past few years. While all have been…
30 Apr 2001
Don Cameron

Commentary Corner
Cricket has charted a fascinating, if idiosyncratic course, over its first 250 years, and so we might have expected that in this highly organised…
30 Apr 2000
Peter Roebuck

WG 150
W. G. Grace was a cricketing colossus who bestrode the sporting world. In his pomp he was the most famous and recognisable man in Victorian society…
30 Apr 1999
Don Neely

Commentary Corner
In his poem “The Waste Land", T.S.EIIiot wrote “..... April is the cruelest month”. That may be so in the Northern Hemisphere, but during this April I…
30 Apr 1998
Sprio Zavos

1946ers reunite
While the furore over some New Zealand players staying out late during the second test against England at Wellington was erupting, officials were busy…
30 Apr 1997
lain Gallaway

Commentary Corner
In recent months followers of sport have watched in ama:tement as Rugby League set out on a precipitous path to self destruction. It reached the cliff…
30 Apr 1996

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