Interesting comments; I was personally disappointed in respect of the All Whites and even Riki Herbet. The qualification did more in the eyes of the average Kiwi than the actual winners , the doubles 'team'. I hadn't even heard of them, and I am an avid sports follower. As for the coach, well anyone who has had the job of coaching a team at any level would be aware of the relative merits of 'Tonks" v 'Herbet', I put the results of the night down to the shallow 'tunneled' thought of NZ sports journos and their ilk, most interesting though would be to check out the relative spoting 'background' and 'affiliations'of these 'super' judges , don't you think?

@Tony comment #93. Ever heard of Ricki Flutey and Henry Paul, believed they played for England and weren't exactly the most English people going around. Well researched comment, top marks

Getting sick of these soccer people berating everyone that doesn't conform to their silly drone mentality. Who cares if most of the world follows it? I don't. How about trying to be different from the flock for once? The All Whites defeated a team that wasn't even in the Top 50 in the world. Big deal.

If anyone punches above their weight, it's probably our cricket team. I hate cricket, but cricket is followed by billons of people and is probably second only to soccer for sheer number of fans. And our cricket team can compete with the best and actually win the odd ICC tournament against the best in the world. Something the All Whites will never do.

Obviously an article written by a soccer-head. The All Whites have beaten teams that would struggle against A-league teams, so hardly a major achievement. FIFA gave them a free ride.

Herbet as coach of the year has to be some joke. The Phoenix are mid-table at the All Whites beat teams they would be expected to beat anyway.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the footballers win, it was just one win and largely thanks to an incredibly generous path to the world cup that other nations would kill for. I would have been more impressed if they had played 3 or four such sides to make it. I realise the 82 world cup sqaud was not competing for the same award, but in comparison their road to the world cup was an order of magnitude harder. I wouldn't have quibbled if they had got the gong, but as far as the achievement is concerned I'd rate it about par with the kiwis Aus in a cricket game. Pretty good, reasonably rare but hardly earth shattering.

One thing that noone ever mentions is that one of the All Whites best players is a pom,through and through. Imagine if one of the England rugby teams best players was a kiwi - you would never hear the end of it.

Just an observation

Why all the fuss about the all whites not getting team of the year? What have they done to deserve it? they beat a very average (by world standards) team from Bahrain and QUALIFIED for the world cup. Until they win against respectable opposition they don't deserve any recognition. As for Rikki Herbert should we not look at all the teams he coaches? The phoenix aren't exactly setting the world on fire in the a-league, sure they are on the verge of qualifying for the play offs but as 6/10 of the teams qualify for the play offs again no major achievement.

Rowing have done well, but it's a sport that no one cares about world wide..The All Whites really should have won team of the year, and I think there is a case for Vettori winning best male. At least Rugby didn't win - seriously it's a shame people in NZ are so rugby mad, as it's not even a global sport.

Justathought#78 - did you ever think that football training, which involves physical impact as well as cardio and muscular strain, may be a little bit different to the cardo and muscular only training of rowing and triathlon. I've done triathlons, trained before work, lunchtime and after work, and it was way way easier than when I was training and playing for Miramar Rangers a number of years ago.

All training is different, and I don't think you can measure it by the number of hours you spend at it.

And the times you quoted for football training is more than my All Black neighbour trains for either the ABs or the Blues. So are you going to tell the ABs to harden up as well??

All you soccer fans are right. We should give top billing to whichever sport is most popular around the world, no matter how modest our achievement. I mean I know I wouldn't personally be embarrassed when our 'team of the year' became the laughing stock of the world cup.

Furthermore I can't wait till we're just another grey part of a big homogenous milieu of sameness where everything is subservient to football. Maybe when we 'grow up', as so many of you urge us to do, we can even fight in the stands like real fitba fans. You know, and shed our bogan rugby image where people just stay sitting in their seats and mix with other fans, which is so dull and lifeless compared to vibrant soccer.

It's petulant for us to march to the beat of our own drum. And silly for us to reward achievement in sports for which we have an aptitude. Right and wrong comes down to a numbers game, NZ, and the numbers say we should be obsessed with soccer.