The not-so-dark art of picking the 30 greatest Highlanders

Jeff Wilson interviews fellow Highlanders great Aaron Smith.

Ranking players in any sport is an art — not a science.

That line was always in mind throughout the process of finalising our extensive, exhaustive (occasionally exhausting) and hopefully entertaining 30 Greatest Highlanders series.

Our 30 greatest Highlanders

We never wanted this celebration of 30 years of Highlanders rugby to be a dry list of players based purely on appearances or tries or player ratings.

There were criteria, of course (see below), but the series would only work if we allowed our judges to contribute a certain amount of gut instinct and intangible feelings.

Nearly 375 men have worn the Highlanders jersey into battle.

To determine the 30 greatest was always going to demand a comprehensive judging panel to get as solid a result as possible.

We enlisted two former Highlanders coaches (Tony Gilbert and Greg Cooper), two former Highlanders players (John Blaikie and David ‘‘Crazy’’ Latta) and two long-serving men from Highlanders HQ (chief executive Roger Clark and rugby general manager Greg O’Brien).

Otago Daily Times sports editor Hayden Meikle was joined by sports reporters Adrian Seconi and Kayla Hodge, former sports reporter Jeff Cheshire, former long-serving rugby writer Steve Hepburn, New Zealand rugby journalism royalty Bob Howitt, and Rugby News editor Campbell Burnes.

The judging panel was completed by Paul Dwyer and fellow commentator Paul Allison, also a former Highlanders board member; women’s rugby greats Jacinta Nielsen and Margaret ‘‘Bro’’ McKenzie; Southland stalwarts Nathan Burdon and Logan Savory; and passionate Highlanders fan Mark Currie.

All judges were asked to rank their 30 greatest Highlanders players since 1996, based on this loose criteria:

General impact on the team.
Ability to influence and win games.
Pure performance.
Favourable comparisons with peers (i.e. would demand selection in any other New Zealand team at their peak).
Longevity.

Once all 20 judges had submitted their teams, I collated the points — 30 for a No1 ranking, 29 for a No2 ranking and so on, down to one for a No30 ranking — to determine the final list.

The whole process was fascinating, and while the numbers eventually started to blur into one another, the results were enlightening.

No fewer than 70 Highlanders players got at least one vote.

Big No8 Paul ‘‘Ogre’’ Miller, prop-turned coach Clarke Dermody, winger Tevita Li, loose forward Luke Whitelock, first five Simon Culhane and the late Connor Garden-Bachop were among the players to get a single vote.

There was a relatively clear top 31, interestingly. And I can reveal the unlucky man to miss out was Josh Blackie, the wonderful openside flanker who finished with 69 points to the 74 of No30 Fabian Holland.

Some of the rankings nearer the top were exceptionally tight.

Byron Kelleher edged Ash Dixon for 20th place by a single point, Carl Hoeft pipped Jimmy Cowan for 13th by the same margin, and Tony Brown claimed fourth ahead of Anton Oliver by a point.

Remarkably, star flankers Taine Randell and Josh Kronfeld wound up tied on 429 points. We gave Randell the higher ranking, sixth, as he had three top-three placings from the judges to Kronfeld’s one.

We always suspected No1 and No2 on the list would share a surname, and the two greatest Highlanders could barely be separated.

Ben Smith had 10 first-place votes to Aaron Smith’s nine — the one non-Smith No 1 ranking went to Kronfeld — but Aaron had more points overall.

This has been a lot of fun. See you for the 50 Greatest Highlanders series in 2046.