Let’s start but asking what you’re doing in the UK? What’s happening over there?
My partner Holly moved within Mastercard from Auckland to London in May. [This is] my first time experiencing the northern hemisphere winter, which is pretty brutal.
I’m taking three months off hockey to have a proper off-season (and focus on work). [It] felt like the right thing to do from a timing perspective but [it’s] always incredibly hard to miss a World Cup!
Tell us about your new role at HIA. What does it involve?
When Marcus Daniell (ATP tennis pro/New Zealand bronze medallist) started HIA I was the first athlete to join. I pledged a percentage of my income towards the most cost-effective charities in climate change, animal welfare and global health and poverty.
Since then 160 other professional athletes have joined to be part of the community. As you could imagine that has led to a lot more work internally. At the start of 2022 I moved into the managing director role to work with Marcus and the team to build out our systems and capabilities to both handle the initial swell but also ensure we are prepared for continued growth.
A big part of it is building the community of athletes. We have a pretty special group of pro athletes from a huge range of sports and countries so it is pretty exciting when we get a chance to bring them all together.
What made you get involved in HIA?
I’ve felt very lucky in life and hockey and would like to share that luck. It would be great if every kid grew up feeling lucky to be born. Sure I worked hard and all that, but I was born with a hugely supportive family, [and] my best mate’s dad happened to be an ex-Black Stick and probably the best youth coach in the country. We had this group of mates that pushed each other to be better.
We are all pretty lucky in New Zealand. Sure we have our problems that need fixing, but globally 5million children die every year from curable and preventable diseases, [and] 14,500 kids are killed from extreme poverty every single day. Extreme poverty is defined as consuming less than $1.90 per day. This is pretty grim stuff to think about, but the good news is we are making heaps of progress.
In the charity world there is this thing called the "emotional appeal fallacy". You all will have seen the ads on TV that shine a light on a single child and present their suffering as a tragedy (which it absolutely is). These ads are extremely effective in tugging our emotions and our wallets, as the saying goes one death is a tragedy but one million is just a statistic. When we hear that 14,500 children die every single day from preventable causes we can feel helpless and overwhelmed — this is "psychic numbing" or "compassion fade".
But at HIA we are fired up by these types of statistics. Many of us have competed in stadiums that hold this many people (Wimbledon, Hockey stadium at London Olympics). We know that behind every one of these statistics is a real person with a real story.
We find the best cost-effective charities to help make progress against these types of problems — we apply this type of thinking across global health and poverty, climate change, animal welfare and mental health.
And what about your hockey? Are you done? Word is you are keen on another Olympic campaign. What’s the plan?
I kick back into club hockey for my Hamburg team in March. I am playing there with Kane Russell and Blair Tarrant [who I grew up playing hockey with at Otago Boys’ High School]. I’m really looking forward to that. We have a great team and are looking to push for the German title and the European Hockey League title, which is exciting. Then I’ll hopefully join back up with the Black Sticks in June.
I’m keen to help the team qualify for Paris and would love to play at another Olympics. Tokyo was a let-down both personally, with an injury, and as an Olympics with the Covid restrictions, so it would be epic to get to Paris.
How’s the body and the back in particular?
Body is pretty good — a little bit of old age wear and tear and once you get past 30 you certainly take a bit longer to recover and bounce back from hard sessions. [My] back is great.
How has the Otago Boys’ crew taken the news you are skipping the World Cup?
Ha ha. We have a WhatsApp group where there have been a few messages and some banter flying back and forth. With Rossi [Nick Ross, another former Otago Boys’ team-mate] being back in the mix (and Simon Child coming back) I was really tempted and would have loved to be there. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be this time but hopefully those guys get the bug back and are thinking about a push to Paris too.
How good was it Otago won the national champs this year?
So stoked to see Dave [Ross, Otago coach] lifting that bloody elusive shield. Very special stuff and couldn’t be happier for him. Shows what can happen when you get rid of Kane, Blair and I from a team.
