Gordon Hunter (rugby union)

Gordon Rowland Robert Hunter (1949 – 9 March 2002) was a New Zealand rugby union player, coach and selector who was raised in Southland and educated at Southland Boys' High School (1963-1967). Hunter made a couple of appearances for Otago before a workplace accident left him without his left eye. He subsequently made a career as a coach and selector, coaching Otago, the Otago Highlanders, and the Auckland Blues. He also spent four years as an All Blacks selector in the mid-1990s. He died in Dunedin of cancer in 2002 at the age of 52.
Since 2002 the Gordon Hunter Memorial Trophy has been contested annually between The Auckland Blues and The Highlanders. In 2020, the Highlander's coach Aaron Mauger noted the positive qualities that Hunter had demonstrated and co-captain Aaron Smith said that he "cared for his players..."[and]"...trusted you play your game but also was a bit of a character off the field." Writing in the Spinoff in 2017, Scotty Stevenson recounted several humorous stories about Hunter outside of rugby, concluding, "in essence, he was a coach who loved the game and even more so the boys who played it for him. He was the Detective who left his own fingerprints on New Zealand’s national sport."