• Through sport you can learn about life.
• Life is about riding highs and lows, taking the positives out of disappointments, remaining optimistic and always looking ahead to the next challenge and the next opportunity.
• This is how character is built and successful people achieve in life, as well as on the sporting field.
• If you want to succeed badly enqugh you must accept life’s little disappointments and learn from those to achieve your goals and dreams, rather than making excuses for your failures.
• Too often sports people will try to protect themselves from fail-qre by making excuses before the event. Successful sports people do not contemplate failure as they believe in their ability to compete successfully.
• Cricket is a great game with a strong history and an all encompassing tradition.
• Ask yourself ‘What can I contribute to the game?’ rather than ‘What can I get out of the game?'
• Remember that you are merely caretakers in your time of this great game, therefore you have a responsibility to nurture the game and to make it better for having participated in it.
• There are now numerous opportunities in the sport to offer career options, to be paid to play, to tour the world and to receive rewards and adulation. As a role model you will be judged not solely on your playing ability but also the manner in which you conduct yourself. By achieving positive results both on and off the field you have an opportunity to make a significant contribution to the game.
• Unfortunately some players change their behaviour after meeting with some on field successes. They believe that they are glamorous, act in a precocious and contemptuous manner, and expect the world to fall at their feet. These players often get covered in love bites – all self inflicted! These players aren’t always remembered for their on field ability.
• By being selected to a national team you have a responsibility to act in an appropriate manner and not bring the game into disrepute.
• Selection to a national team is not the end result of your endeavours it is only the start! By focusing on becoming world class, by always looking to improve and by thinking first before you act or perform then, maybe, you will reflect with pride and satisfaction at the end of your career achievements.
• In whatever you choose as your career option work hard, listen and learn from your experiences, set goals and the steps needed to achieve them and, above all, enjoy whatever you do, otherwise don’t do it.
• I wish you all successes and the occasional failures in your futures.
To use the Christchurch Boys’ High School motto: ‘Altiora Peto’ – ‘Seek Higher Things’.