When rugby comes into calculations, a feller called Michael Field is apt to drop the ball

The Sunday Star-Times has skated defty around a bit of conjecture about our next Governor-General that it published last week.

On its website this morning Alf found a piece by a scribe called Hubbard who says our next governor-general has risen from humble beginnings to the highest post in the land.

Alf had hoped this high post would have gone to him.

But Jerry Mateparae got the job, and Hubbard says –

Everyone who knows Mateparae uses the same words to describe him: “Modest, quiet, a gentleman.”

Hubbard could have said the same thing about Alf, if things had gone differently.

But let’s go back a week.

The SST then was reporting some stuff by a Michael Field.

HRH has missed out as our next GG – but the sits vac show we’ll soon need a bigwig at GCSB

If it's a military background we need, here's the man.

Okay, so Alf bombed out on the GG’s job.

He has been deeply depressed since learning the Queen has appointed former Defence chief Jerry Mateparae, who – for good measure – will get the knighthood that Alf for years has hoped might come his way.

Jerry (a splendid fellow, let the record show) will become the next Governor-General in August, to begin a five-year term when Sir Anand Satyanand steps down.

The Herald says –

He will be 56 when he becomes New Zealand’s 20th Governor-General and Prime Minister John Key said yesterday that his relatively young age was a factor in choosing him.

“I just think we are a young, modern country. It’s a great fit for what we are doing,” he said. Mr Key said he had compiled a list but General Mateparae was his first choice.

The deeply depressed Alf discerns more than a whiff of ageism in that remark.