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 Chris Rattue.
30 years of friction
I've been in this sports-writing game for more than three decades and one of the constants has been a running feud, on my part anyway, with New Zealand rugby.
But beyond this disdain for how the national sport is run, I also had lots of scraps with individual sports people back in the day.
Conflict. It used to be part and parcel of covering sport. And an editor suggested I should go down this memory lane and write a piece on some of those battles both big and small.
All Blacks selector Grant Fox. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Ian Foster must go after agonising loss
The first and most obvious thing to say about Argentina's brilliant win over the All Blacks, from a New Zealand point of view, is that Ian Foster must go.
Previous All Black coaches were very lucky – they had a bloke called Richie McCaw leading the way, setting the standards, showing how to keep your mind on the job, laying a long-lasting foundation.
But it was time for the dawn of a new era when the great Steve Hansen departed, the sound of an English World Cup stampede ringing in his ears.
Sometimes the biggest risk of all is to take no risk at all. Scott Robertson. Tony Brown. The future was with names like that.
