Is it time for Farah Palmer to smash glass ceiling at NZR?
Ray Warren may retire as voice of NRL
There is a position at the top of New Zealand Rugby that needs to be filled and the appointment could be history-making for an organisation that has previously been criticised as pale, male and stale.
Incumbent chairman Brent Impey will step down in the coming months – his exit was revealed exclusively by Stuff on Thursday – and that means a new chair will have to step up.
Enter Dr Farah Palmer, the wellcredentialed board member and current chair of the New Zealand Ma¯ ori Rugby Board.
Is Palmer about to crash through one of the last remaining glass ceilings in New Zealand sport and help run the national game?
First, let’s insert a caveat: you would not necessarily begrudge Palmer or any potential candidate for the NZ Rugby role from viewing it with a degree of caution.
Even before Covid-19 arrived, the game was facing multiple challenges and the legal action a
Ray Warren, the voice of rugby league, will decide in the next few weeks whether he has called his last game.
Warren is now 77 and though he dreads the thought of retirement, he also says he wants to make sure he does not harm the legacy he has built behind the microphone and binoculars the past 55 years.
There has been intense interest in Warren’s future since he officially resigned from Channel Nine at the end of 2017.
He continued to call games on a casual basis and has an arrangement in place with Nine that prevents him ever calling for a rival group of players announced in December following diagnoses of early-onset dementia ended rugby’s grim year on a fittingly depressing note. It is also a sad truth that accomplished woman such as Palmer have previously felt reluctant to put themselves forwards for big roles.
‘‘I suppose I wasn’t sure if I was the right person to even consider putting my name forward and so I had a lot of self doubt and that was the hardest part for me was just being brave enough to go ‘look, just network.
Nine are yet to formalise their official league line-up for the 2021 NRL season, and Warren knows he will need to give an answer in the coming weeks. For the first time, he stopped short of declaring he is a certainty to be heard in 2021.
‘‘I’m fearful of retirement because you don’t know what it is like until you dip your toe in the water, but then I’m fearfully protective of the good run I’ve been given and I don’t want to damage whatever reputation I may have built,’’ Warren told the Sydney Morning Herald. ‘‘That’s pretty much your be brave, put your name in the hat and just see what happens’,’’ Palmer told RNZ in 2018 about initially going for a NZ Rugby board position in 2016. That said, should Palmer be persuaded to succeed Impey it would be nothing short of a transformational change for NZ Rugby.
The 48-year-old has an excellent resume for the job, and plenty of mana. After a celebrated playing career, Palmer has excelled in academia and has served on the New Zealand Ma¯ ori Rugby Board for well over a decade.
She is a senior lecturer in Massey University’s School of Management and director of the university’s Ma¯ ori Business & Leadership Centre (Te Au Rangahau). Significantly, she was elected to the NZ Rugby board in 2016, giving her five years to accumulate institutional knowledge and build relationships.
But her appointment would be a much bigger story than the standard one of a well-equipped candidate rising through the ranks.
It would provide NZ Rugby with a different perspective at the top as it deals with all the challenges equation right there. I go from year to year, I know I’m getting older, and I don’t want make a fool of myself and undo what I might have done. I’ve had a really good run, that run has lasted 55 years. I’ve told Nine I’ll take the summer to make up my mind. I do still enjoy it, and anyone who works with me will tell you that – I still get excited.’’
It is well documented Warren has a fear of flying, and tries to avoid covering interstate games when possible. He also continues to battle with nerves in the days leading up to games, something that has gradually worsened over the years.
Matt Thompson has been Warren’s understudy for a few years, while Peter Psaltis, was regularly heard last year during matches in Queensland because of Covid. facing sporting organisations.
It would also be in itself an inspirational act for others to follow, something that should not be taken lightly.
Palmer would not be sole woman to hold an important role in New Zealand sport. Tonia Cawood has been the chair at the Chiefs since 2018, a role she stepped into just 18 months after the franchise’s reputation was dragged through the mud after a stripper was booked for the players’ end-of-season drinking session.
Rowena Davenport was tapped for the chair position at Otago and stepped into the role in 2019, becoming the first woman among the five ‘big’ provincial rugby unions to occupy the role. Raelene Castle now runs Sport New Zealand, having returned from across the ditch and a spell as CEO of Rugby Australia.
And at Sky, Sophie Moloney has replaced Martin Stewart as CEO – an enormously important position given the company’s vital role in funding Kiwi sport through its broadcast deals. Progress has been slow but it is happening. Many would say that it’s about time.
Nine could yet be tempted to use Warren for big games like Origin. Last year’s decider played at Suncorp Stadium was Warren’s 96th straight interstate fixture, but one he needed to call remotely for the first time in his career from the Sydney studios.
‘‘The biggest fear I have is to make a mistake and not know you have made it,’’ Warren said. ‘‘It’s all well and good to make a mistake and then go back and correct it. But when you make one and you don’t know, I think that is described as senility.’’
The late, great Richie Benaud was still commentating cricket on Nine in his early 80s. Martin Tyler is two years younger than Warren and still has one of the most recognisable voices in English football.