The Rugby World Cup begins this week in the land of the long white cloud. I love rugby union and I played the game for 25 years. Despite living in a footie and rugby league town I still love watching rugby union, especially the Southern Hemisphere teams.
...
I used to be a fan of the All Blacks haka but as time has gone on I'm much less convinced of its utility and I hate the throat cutting haka, kapa o pango, which is really over the top. They don't put up with this sort of thing in FIFA run soccer matches but in rugby union, rugby league and a few other sports the opposing team is forced to wait around while the All Blacks perform their ritual challenge. If you're from Fiji, Samoa or Tonga you've got a haka of your own to answer the All Blacks with but everyone else has to just stand there and bide their time until its over. Personally I like what the great Willy Anderson did as captain of Ireland two decades ago, but he received so much negative press for his move that no one (to my knowledge) has tried anything like it since. It's a shame, I hope that in this rugby world cup someone shows the All Blacks that we all have our own traditions that are worthy of respect.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
43 comments:
What was the flack about? Disrespect of another cultural tradition? Since the tradition seems to be one of ritual intimidation, his response seems like pretty fair play to me.
And to me this haka is just plain embarrassing.
Seana
I'm 100% with you on that. They called Willy Anderson and the Irish "disrespectful" but I thought it was an appropriate response to an intimidation attempt.
Like I say Fifa doesn't put with this which is why NZ soccer teams sometimes do the Haka after the game, which is fine with me.
I have to say that that one didn't seem all that intimidating, except for the leader.
Some of the responses there showed that the attitude toward women in sports hasn't really changed all that much. Sadly.
Why should the Irish, or anyone else, stand around politely during a display of folk dancing? The haka's not a national anthem. The Irish response was great, it had more intimidation value than the haka. The hockey haka was just odd. It felt like the beginning of some kind of demented ice dancing routine. If it happened here in Canada I can pretty much guarantee a major brawl with the other team would result. How's this for a compromise? The Kiwis can keep doing the haka before games, but it can only be done by NFL-style cheerleaders. I think everyone would be happy with that.
Agree with all of the above. Frankly, the fist response to the haka that came to my mind was to get all Braveheart on them, turn your backs and show them the arses. If you're going to be considered disrespectful, you might as well gte your money's worth.
Seana
I dont read comments under youtube videos anymore but I can certainly imagine the sort of thing idiots have said.
Cary
No one is ever going to ban the haka but I dont see why the opposing team just have to stand there and take it.
I really love what the Tongans do here...they let the All Blacks get started on their haka and then immediately start their own.
Dana
If you're not Polynesian you can't win unless you just stand there like an idiot taking it. Its absurd.
At the last world cup there was some talk that the South Africans were going to do a Zulu response to the haka but nothing came of it. I think it would have been fine.
I'm now a Willy Anderson fan!
Yeah, no wonder those New Zealand girls are all still single was about the size of it. I only read the comments because I was trying to get more sense of the context. I doubt any of those actually rather attractive girls would give a second look to the negative commenters in real life.
I liked the Tongan response. It seems as if one side is going to give a battle cry, then the other side should be able to do something parallel. Otherwise it's just a kind of pregame performance.
Peter
He's a mate of my sister's.
Seana
As if those cool players would give the time of day to those absurd internet troll losers!
I'm admittedly biased, but I love the Munster Haka: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJyhZ0xkhpQ
The four NZ players on the Munster team (led by Rua Tipoki, a Maori leader)performed their own. It's still a NZ response to a NZ ego trip, but the change from absolute bedlam to absolute silence when the All BLacks started theirs still raises the goosebumps. It was very very eerie.
Conor
I like the fact that it wasn't the horrible throat slitting haka and it was nice that the Munster boys did their own.
Here's an odd one. NZ Maori v Cook Islands, there's some kind of chief on the pitch in a grass skirt and the Cook Islands captain is carrying machete...
This can't end well you're thinking.
The Black Ferns do a Haka, but they arent allowed to do the slitting the throat gesture as it isnt considered approriate for "ladies". It could be said the Haka does give NZ a psychological advantage. Do you think it does?
Hold the phone.. Doesn't Ireland play two national anthems? if so Ireland and NZ are equal in terms of opening game faffing around.
I was worried for the ref for a minute in that Tonga/Cook Islands one.
Frankie
Definite advantage to the haka team. I played the Fijian Army Team once up near the Litani River in Lebanon and I was already pretty terrified to be playing rugby surrounded by minefields in S Lebanon with the possibility of Hizbollah rocket attack and out comes the Fijian Army Rugby Team who are not small and they start doing this terrifying haka about throwing spears and keeping the heads of their enemies... I dont mind admitting that I was literally keeking my whips.
Seana
Surely we can all agree that witch doctors and machetes are a step too far....
Those do- or- die games of rugga are always the best eh? Hizbollah..minefields..Fijian Man mountains? Sort of trumps my saturday afternoon playing touch rugby with the ladies in Richmond Park. We had to decide who was going to make the after games cakes and other important things. We all have our battles i guess.
You can see how if it isn't treated as a cultural artifact that's to be preserved it quicky becomes real and gets out of hand. I suppose eventually there will be some unfortunate incident and it won't be part of the line up anymore.
Frankie
Well the wrong cake will mean social death I imagine.
Seana
I still feel that a very simple "no machete" rule would have improved that situation.
Here’s a clip someone put together of a number of teams’ reactions to the haka.
Caryl Férey, the French author of Zulu whose interview with me generated some disgust in South Africa, has also written a book set in New Zealand called Haka. I guess a domestic rugby match in which the Bordeaux and Normandy teams spew Sauterne and Calvados at one another in attempts at pregame intimidation would be too tame for him.
Peter
He didn't show the Anderson clip which is still the most dramatic response to the haka. Still there were some good responses there.
I thought it was a little bit funny when he talked about how the English were poorly copying their Australian cousins by trying to drown out the haka with singing...it was actually the opposite, clearly Waltzing Matilda was being played over the stadium speakers whereas Swing Low Sweet Chariot was a spontaneous song from the crowd.
I've noticed that Australian and American crowds at sporting events do not sing en masse, whereas one of the great pleasures of watching sporting events in the British Isles is singing. In fact it may be the best thing about Premier League Soccer - the singing of rude, often very funny songs.
I thought you were against men singing.
Seana
What's that Emerson quote about "foolish consistency?"
Ok, now I've found one which is even more ridiculous than the man with the machete. In this one half the team are carrying actual spears.
Emerson probably said that when he was backed into a corner too.
It's probably a good thing the U.S. isn't that into rugby, because a logical sequence of events is that Americans would up the ante by bringing their handguns.
Adrian, a few supporters groups in MLS are trying to get the singing going - google the Timbers Army to see what's happening in Portland (especially when they play Seattle. And some of the Seattle groups are doing a lot of singing in their home stadium, too).
I'm not sure I buy the intimidation factor in pro sports. I can't find it now, of course, but I remember the Steelers coach (in the 70's), Chuck Knoll, saying something like, "All that rah rah bullshit only lasts until the first time you get knocked on your ass." of course, times have changed. I can imagine today Knoll and those Steeler teams being critisized for not being "emotional" enough.
John, they seem to make up in enthusiasm what they lack in the lyric writing department.
Rude funny songs these aren't.
I liked David Campese's approach. He took a ball and had a kick around the goals while the Kiwis did the haka (which, strangely enough, accommodates the words of "Pat-a-cake pat-a-cake baker's man" if you try hard enough). When quizzed later, Campese said, "seen one haka, you've seen them all". But Adrian, what I liked best about that Irish clip was the sound of Bill McLaren's voice. For me, Bill's voice was the sound of Saturdays in a comfortable chair in front of the TV with a great deal of beer.
John
I didn't know about this but you're right.
This is quite surreal.
Seana
I doubt the US Rugby team will ever get very far in the rugby world cup because their talented players tend to get cherry picked and go off to the NFL or Canadian Football Leagues.
David
I sympathize with Campo. Why should everyone non Polynesian team be forced to just stand there and suck it up? Especially if, like now, it seems to go on and on forever with some of the kiwis taking their shirts off etc. Its absurd.
Bill McClaren had a great voice but we werent allowed to watch him in our house because we considered him (and the BBC in general) to be biased against Ireland. We always watched the coverage on RTE or sometimes put on the BBC with the sound off and listened to the radio commentary from Radio Ulster.
Singing was a part of the fun when I saw Fiorentina play Juventus in 1997, along with vulgar chanting, riot police idly beating time with their nightsticks, the Juve supporters' anti-Semitic signs, and the Florence fans who stoned the Juventus team bus before the game, injuring three players.
Such flair! Such passion! Such gritty authenticity! ======================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Have you noticed how many views some of those haka clips have? The hell with Maori tradition; the haka is clearly big business.
Peter, didn't you mean the hell with rugby?
Peter
I used to go to a lot of Coventry City in the English first division. One time away at Sheffield I cleverly caught a milk bottle with my forehead thrown by a Sheffield Wednesday fan.
Peter
Peter
I used to go to a lot of Coventry City games in the English first division. One time away at Sheffield I cleverly caught a milk bottle with my forehead thrown by a Sheffield Wednesday fan.
oops sorry for the double post. having blogger troubles. Again!
Seana
Rugby is big business but nowhere near the big business of soccer or even the NFL, MLB etc.
Post a Comment