Entertainment For Lively Minds
rugby semis...oh dear
Posted by Junior Wells on 16 October 2011 - 11:04am.
Well Aussies never looked like it. Without Beale we had no flair and apart from Digby's amazing driving run it was all all blacks.
Too good and we'll be barracking for the Kiwis.
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Perhaps
it's worth noting that in Australia "barracking" has exactly the opposite meaning that it does in Britain.
aaaah
thanks for that !
The funny thing...
Was that prior to the game the NZ fans were really apprehensive. You could feel it. And then Cooper put the kickoff straight into touch, and Eden Park just erupted. I think it was an important moment, despite it being so early in the game.
the crowd were immense
not your usual ABs crowd. The 'four more years' chant at the end was wicked. Enjoy your time in Aus. Maybe don't mention the rugby
Are you kidding?
I'll be wearing the silver fern on the flight.
Proud Kiwi
good on ya!
bit harsh on cooper
I don't think anything was going to change that opening onslaught by the ABs.
semis ....at home .....against wallabies.... how much more motivation do you need?
All the same I think a brave and desperate move would have been to take cooper off esp. after that kick out on the full.He was a broken man. Being booed by the best part of a stadium full of people every time he went near the ball for the entire series would do anyone's head in.
Kiwi's too fast, too organised . Did we take a high ball all night?
Just don't choke ...we can't have the French winning.
Why not?
Allez les bleus I say. Kiwi rubgy fans are bad enough at the best of times. Four years of their crowing would be too much to bear.
Unlike the Poms of course
when Jonny's dropped goal sank Australia.
Allez les Bleus indeed
Although part of me just wants them to win the feckin' thing so they can get over it and move on with life and stop being so tiresomely obsessed with it.
Seriously, a country going into recession (or not) depending on rugby results is just embarrassing.
NZ actually reminded me of the 03 England team in some ways
with dominance built on a grizzly front 5 and aggressive back row. Aus actually did well to keep the score as close as it was in the first half. I just hope that France can summon up a performance far superior to anything they have produced so far otherwise it could be a very one sided final
Two observations
1. The All Blacks are the only team, apart from maybe a couple of the Pacific Island sides, who actually play thrilling and entertaining rugby. Combine that with individual flair from the likes of Nonu and Dagg and great team discipline and even non sports fans can get what rugby is all about. Compare that with the dull defensive stuff regularly dished up by Northern Hemisphere teams.
2. The Wallabies, despite the Aussie press doing their best to desperately find something positive to say, are completely out of their depth when the ABs turn it on.
I wouldn't mind them so much
if they could just manage to play a match without the ridiculous haka, a spectacle that is now more adidas branding opportunity than cultural celebratiion.
May I just say
that if the Haka looks "ridiculous" to you, then possibly not watching it is an option. However, as a born and bred New Zealander, it means a lot to me, as I'm sure it does to most other kiwis. It's a symbol of the fact that we're a small country (4 million) but we won't back down from a good scrap.
I totally get the fact that it may not mean a lot to anyone outside of the country, but to us it definitely is a part of our culture. It makes us feel proud - is that a bad thing?
Speaking as an Australian
I have to say that watching the hakka gives _me_ a huge thrill every time! I can only imagine what it feels like to watch it as a Kiwi. It's dropping the hakka that would be ridiculous, not including it.
Speaking as an Englishman
and keen former player, I'd have given my eye teeth to have faced the haka.
The three most thrilling pre-match spectacles in rugby
3. The French crowd belting out La Marseillaise before a home game.
2. The Kiwis performing the Haka with absolute conviction.
1. The Welsh crowd - ANY Welsh crowd - singing Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau as if their lives depended upon it.
And I speak as an Englishman. (Don't get me started on Swing Low Sweet bloody Chariot...)
I am hoping for a replay of this on Sunday
The 2007 NZ vs France match:
Probably one of the most exciting moments I've seen on a rugby pitch and the ball hadn't even been kicked yet.
The Haka
Even more embarrassing when performed by the white players
The haka is a great tradition
but it is hard to argue against the point that you look like a tit doing it
Well, Jed, are you going to tell him he's a tit
or shall... well, not me!
Who me?
Mojoworking started it!
:)
Don't worry
if he's a Kiwi, you'll have to pronounce it "tet" before he'll understand what you're saying ;-)
What's the Kiwi for
"ludicrous mullet"?
Isn't it...
..."Just the usual please, mate"?
er...
"The height of fashion"?
will this world cup
end in time for the next one to begin?
Haka
Those that perform a haka aren't embarrassed about doing it and they don't find it ridiculous. These days, white players willingly perform the haka with just as much feeling as those with Maori/Pacific Island backgrounds.
I think it's a great thing.
While we're being embarrassed
perhaps we white folks can squirm and go all red faced at those illiterate fuzzy-wuzzies in Africa who paint their faces and do silly dances. And the Australian aborigines who dance around like emus.
Oh yeah, and short people got no reason to live
on the other hand
if the Wallabies were to adopt ,say, a traditional aboriginal dance as a pre game activity I expect they would be roundly mocked and accused of adopting a cultural activity which had no association with the bulk of the team members.
Some years back the Wallabies in the John Eales era (aaah those were the days)chose to ignore the haka. This inflamed the kiwis and we were trounced so it wasa bad move tactically. But the decision was attacked more widely as an insult akin to burning a bible or the koran.
So why is it sacred rather than simply marketing?
Who wants an ill-thought-out analogy?
Here we go...
You're having a meal at a big table that seats 30 people. You know about half of the people there. You have all just been served your big, delicious meal - and you're starving. But wait! The 15 people you don't know start to "thank the Lord" and say grace. It takes about a minute.
You and your friends think this is ridiculous.
Do you :
a. sit in respectful silence until they've finished
b. tuck into your meal regardless
c. tuck into your meal and throw bread rolls at the people saying grace, telling them to shut it.
Most of us would go for a. wouldn't we?
you might be a bit less respectful
after the umpteenth dinner party
Should a haka performed by a mixed group at sporting events be regarded as the equivalent of the Lord's Prayer ?
I'd think twice
about attending a dinner party where the hosts/guests made throat-slitting gestures en masse across the table before the soup arrived ;-)
With respect, I think you miss the point
If the Wallabies were to "adopt" ... - yes of course they would be ridiculed and rightly so.
The haka is part of New Zealand culture, and has been for a long time. Just from personal experience, I learned it at school in the 1960s and my Dad learned it at school in the 1930s.
It's an example of how New Zealand has accepted and incorporated Maori culture, in a way that no other country invaded or "conquered" by the British has managed to accept and respect indigenous tradition.
understood
and respect what has been done re the treaty of waitangi is it?? without resorting to google
but the spectacle at every single rugby event league or union and any other international event has ,it seems, turned it into a tourism / marketing event
if you say it is different that the haka has sacred /spiritual meaning...at these events ...performed by these individuals then I will accept your word.
I'm well aware that NZ teams have been doing it for ages,
the problem is the reverence with which it's now treated by the IRB; so, no advancing towards the haka mob etc as in this clip...
(not that, as usual, it did us any good that day). I do feel that the 'receiving' team should be allowed respond in whatever way they feel appropriate, whether by advancing towards it or simply ignoring it. I seem to remember David Campese once continuing his warm up at the other end of the pitch, an entirely admirable response.
I have no problem accepting that NZ are, and usually are, the best team in the world, and that provided at least ten of them turn up next week they'll win the World Cup. I do have a problem with the relentless self-mythologising the performance of the haka contributes to, and the sense of self-importance this 'sacred ritual' communicates. Perhaps indeed, it is an example of 'how New Zealand has accepted and incorporated Maori culture'. Or perhaps it's no longer that simple.
The "receiving" team
can do what they like. It's a challenge. If you ignore it or show disrespect that will just wind up the All Blacks even more.
As for the IRB it's one of the things they've actually got right. Other countries are just envious they have nothing to match it. Australia tried with some folk singer doing Waltzing Matilda. Perhaps the Poms could try a clog dance?
Get over it. It's brilliant and heart-stirring even for non-Kiwis (see posts above).
The opposing team can't do what they like.
http://www.allblacks.com/news/14266/IRB-confirms-haka-will-not-be-challe...
So, New Zealand get to perform their choreographed marketing exercise (see youtube clip, one of several I could have cited in my post above) and everyone else just has to put up with it. What we might, in this part of the world, refer to as 'a load of bollocks'. Do you really think other countries are envious? Do you really think we want kick-off delayed for a further 5 minutes while some other nonsense takes place?
Well, you can continue to get upset by the haka
and I will continue to be proud of it and the tradition it stands for.
Cheers
the fine for challenging seems otiose
inevitabiy the fine on the field for challenging a haka appears to be to lose by at least 30 points
The Glee challenge
it might be fun if a team tried using Single Ladies as a challenge.
I suspect it would lead to losing by more than 30 points. Be funny though.
Women
are not allowed to perform most versions of the Haka, I understand?
Is that a tradition which should be maintained?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/niuenew...
Women
It's not that simple. Some hakas are meant for women. Others for men. Others for children. Some for mixed groups. It's generally not that particular groups aren't allowed to perform hakas, more that they're designed for particular groups to sing. Last week I saw performance organised by the Te Matatini Society, who look after Maori performing arts, and that included several hakas featuring women. To say that "the" haka is "is forbidden to women" as that article does is misleading on two accounts - first because they aren't (even Ka Mate, the war haka usually performed by the All Blacks, has been learned and performed by NZ schoolgirls for a century), and second because there are many hakas.
Thanks
for the clarification Fraser.
That makes more sense.
there's no place
for Japanese poetry in Rugby.
I think you've got an " i " in the wrong place:
you're thinking of the iHaka. There's an App for that...
Um...
Fifteen pumped up men
Prepare themselves for battle
Enemy in awe
The Haka
always brings a tear to my eye like I was a proud Maori or something. I have no idea why. I guess it's just that intensity and the respect for tradition.
But I think the opposing team should be able to react however they like. Turn their back, approach them, practice kicking at the other end of the pitch. It's gamesmanship and makes the ensuing encounter that much more intriguing.
this picture sort of sums up the night
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/sport/hoodoo-lives-on-after-wallabi...
Bit unfair
that the All Blacks can fly. No wonder the Aussies lost.
as a sort of British, Indian, a bit Spanish, a pinch of Dutch,
born in the USA kind of bloke - can I just say I love the Haka?
A whole thread about the Rugby players' "semi"
and not one Word Bird been in to comment? I'm thoroughly deflated.
Word For Word
I swear I was about to post exactly the same thing!
Whereas the other semi
was just a big flop...
welsh try
if that wasn't a forward pass I'm a kiwi