Robertson sacking is surprise to many Kiwis
My letter is for the nationwide concern for Scott Robinson being sacked as All Blacks coach, which incidentally is remarkably surprising to me and many faithful New Zealanders who have loved and admired Scott for his expertise and professional undertaking of his role. It’s been so shortlived I can hardly believe it.
He’s represented his country as a proud All Black and while the coach selectors think they have achieved something by sacking him, they haven't. It’s been an extremely difficult season with every country becoming more competitive. Take the likes of South Africa who have Tony Brown, the heart of Otago Rugby, coaching their team to the highest level. South Africa won the Investec Championship by the narrowest of margins, causing the All Blacks to miss out but they did retain the Bledisloe Cup, which is phenomenal.
The main reason we have been beaten recently by teams like Argentina, England, Ireland and South Africa has got nothing to do with our All Black coaching team but because some of our best coaching talent are coaching other nations which have come close to winning against us for a long time and have now finally beaten us.
I haven't been watching the 6pm news for days because of how depressing and devastating it has become, but losing Scott Robinson after one season is totally unreasonable and he will be devastated along with half the country.
The old saying was bring back Buck, but now it’s bring back Scotty.
Scott Robertson is not the first All Blacks coach to be sacked and won’t be the last. John Mitchell was fired as All Blacks coach after the 2003 Rugby World Cup and Wayne Smith before him (John Mitchell replaced him). If the All Blacks don’t perform or win, the NZ rugby union and public are ruthless, you get the chop.
Spoiling Wānaka
What exactly have the Queenstown Lakes District council unleashed on Wānaka?
Arriving this week for a two-week holiday, we were greeted not by lake views and mountain air, but by a heaving flotilla of behemoth campervans. There were more vans than cars. In the main town car park, at least half the spaces were occupied by rolling dormitories. Along the lakefront, the view was no longer water and willows, but sliding doors flung open to reveal portable kitchens, sock collections and the ritual boiling of two-minute noodles.
I’ve been coming to Wānaka for over 50 years. To see it reduced to an unmanaged van encampment is genuinely heartbreaking.
By allowing campervans to park anywhere and everywhere, the council has made Wānaka increasingly hostile for visitors who are not travelling with a mattress in the back of a Toyota. Ironically, while the town was teeming with budget international travellers, the shops were noticeably quiet. Plenty of bodies, very few wallets.
Yes, locals are rightly up in arms. But so too are long-time visitors who come for Wānaka’s beauty, not for a front-row seat to someone else’s breakfast dishes.
Something has gone badly wrong here.
‘Disgusted’ over NZ Post closures
I am disgusted with NZ Post over the recently announced closures of postal outlets.
Over the last few years we have had many postbox removals, one of which was in my area that the contractor had to drive past to empty another which remains.
There are two closures proposed in the Brockville/Kaikorai Valley area so the nearest outlet will be in Mornington. By saying outlets were only 5.4km or even 900m from another outlet that means at least twice that for extra travel by taxi if elderly can’t drive or maybe two bus trips each way taking up half a day to buy a stamp. Maybe Ms Sandoval from NZ Post should try walking that extra 1800m or even the 10.8km on crutches to see how easy it is. She says that these outlets accounted for only 1.7% of revenue. She doesn’t mention that the expense to keep these outlets open is most likely to be much less than 1.7% of total NZ Post expenses for the region.
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