Halberg Awards

• Mike Kilpatrick
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Posted by Mike Kilpatrick - 47 minutes ago

Apparently the All Whites are favourite to be named Team of the Year at the Halberg Awards tonight. And if the latest rumours are to be believed Ryan Nelsen could well take out Sportsman of the Year.

If that happens the Halberg judges should bow their heads in shame. And I'm saying this as a massive football fan.

I have no problems if Winston Reid's 93rd minute equaliser against Slovakia in South Africa is named the nation's favourite sporting moment of 2010.

That goal captured the imagination of the nation and helped propel Reid from footballing obscurity to a contract with West Ham.

But now the hype of the World Cup is over can we really look at what the All Whites achieved last June in the cold, harsh light of day?

They achieved nothing. Unbeaten at a World Cup? So what. The All Whites still didn't qualify for the group stages.

Us Scotland fans have been holding on to meaningless crap like that for years. After we beat eventual runners-up the Nederlands in 1978 we convinced ourselves we were good enough to have won the trophy.

Instead we became the first team to go out of the World Cup on goal difference. And that's nothing to celebrate.

And has the world sat up and taken notice of New Zealand football since those glorious winter days? Nope. New Zealand continues to sit in the meaningless Oceania Conference with the rest of the footballing non-elite doing nothing while the major teams are playing against each other.

Don't get me wrong - the All Whites did well against Bahrain to get to the World Cup. But effectively all they had to do was play well for two games to get there - the rest of the qualifying was a joke.

A third division team in England could have beaten some of the guff New Zealand played to get into the play-off.  All the while teams like the Czech Republic, Norway, Sweden, Ireland, Russia and Croatia - all better teams than the All Whites - had to play other major nations and ultimately missed out.

And arguably the greatest result in New Zealand's World Cup history - the 1-1 draw against Italy - has to be put in perspective.

Yes, they were the reigning World Champions. But they were dreadful. Full of players past their best and unwilling to do anything but cheat to try and win a game.

And Rikki Herbert as coach of the year? Please.

Herbert deserves some kudos for getting the All Whites there. But the Phoenix this season have been mediocre and may just get into the playoffs.

And the All Whites, when they needed to win their last game against Paraguay in South Africa, looked like they were playing for a draw.

A more adventurous coach may have lost that game - but at least they would have given it a good shot. As it was the All Whites never looked like winning the last match.

Am I jealous New Zealand was at the World Cup and Scotland couldn't qualify? Of course I am.

But if Scotland had qualified for the World Cup and been eliminated in the first round (as we would invariably have been) I wouldn't be pretending it was a great achievement.

And if you look at the overall results from the year I make it that the All Whites played 10 games in 2010. They won once, drew four times and lost five times. Hardly award material!

Team of the year has to go to the All Blacks. Not only did they win 13 out of their 14 games against the best teams in the world they did so by completely turning around their form from 2009 and playing a brand of rugby few could keep up with.

This was recognised by the Laureus Awards - a much higher honour than the Halberg Awards - when they were named a finalist in the team category.

Ultimately they were beaten by Spain. You know, the team that actually won the World Cup.