A welcome return on the far side of the world

Yesterday, tipped off by reading Sandra McDowell’s piece in the Rust, after going out for a short walk to collect my newspapers, I made a deliberate decision to tune in to the Sky Sports Main Event channel and have the inaugural match of New Zealand’s new five-team rugby tournament Super Rugby Aotearoa between the Highlanders and The Chiefs at Dunedin’s Forsyth Barr Stadium on in the background whilst having my breakfast and flicking through the colour supplements.

For those unversed in these things but interested, I offer a couple of explanatory notes:

‘Aotearoa’ is the Maori name for New Zealand, sometimes translated as “The Land Of The Long White Cloud”.

In the wake of the coronavirus crisis sweeping the world and thereby the effective collapse of the Four Nations (New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Argentina) Super Rugby competition, this new tournament is New Zealand’s response to its Government’s pronouncement that effectively the virus is over in the country and ‘normal life’ can be resumed.

For the record – and I write as someone who does not regard myself as a rugby fanatic – the match was a stunning advertisement for this new competition.

I had read beforehand that the Southern Hemisphere nations are trialing some new laws and/or interpretations of the existing ones, not all of which (I have to admit) I had acquainted myself with, but I did know that some of them were designed to get the ball away more quickly from the breakdown after a tackle – i.e. before the forwards had all piled in and slowed things down – and also discourage afterwards the practice common in the Northern Hemisphere of big back-rowers then peeling off with the ball and endlessly trying to “truck it up and recycle” against their opposite numbers, as if to demonstrate a little sub-set of the game as a whole and also thereby justify their existence.

To a noticeable extent, this seemed to work.

This was a ding-dong, end-to-end, entertaining match played at high intensity which ended 28-27 to the Highlanders, this after an extraordinary last five minutes in which both sides scored dropped goals that might (and in one case did) win the game for them.

One remarkable and ironic fact was that fly Bryn Gatland – who came off the bench to score the Highlanders’ winning points two minutes from time – is the son of legendary Wales and British & Irish Lions coach Warren Gatland who on this occasion was on hand as the head coach of the losing team!

I want to finish today by paying a small salute to New Zealand and particularly its people not least because the match coverage yesterday reminded me of many good things about both.

There are stereotypes commonly held about Kiwis that they are rugby-obsessed and, compared to Australians, generally quieter, more modest and easy-going.

‘Obsessed’ doesn’t really do justice to their relationship with the sport. Just as the Nordic and Alpine nations embrace all forms of skiing and ski-jumping – and in addition the Finns javelin-throwing – the inhabitants of New Zealand have a cultural relationship with rugby union that I’m told and accept [because although I’ve met many Kiwis, I’ve never been to New Zealand myself] that one can only truly appreciate by visiting it.

For its less than 5 million population it is a big country with a very strong localised ‘community’ feel that also translates seamlessly into a national one. And, weird as it sounds, rugby is the metaphorical glue that binds the population together – and that includes both genders.

They’re damned good at it, of course, which helps. There are also aspects of their success and pre-eminence which one can carp about, e.g. the feelings that the haka gives them an unfair advantage; that referees sometimes allow them greater leeway with the rules than their opponents; and that they are arrogant about their superiority.

Regarding the last of these, it’s not that they boast about their prowess – as say the Aussies might in a similar position – it’s more subtle than that. It’s just that the All Blacks always carry with them an assumption that they are going to win. One notices it in New Zealand TV commentators any time a UK television channel broadcasts local NZ coverage of a game.

That said, however, yesterday’s match displayed many positives.

The atmosphere in the ground was similar to that of a national cup final before kick-off – just the mere resumption of elite rugby after nearly three months can do that to your average Kiwi … and there were more than 20,000 of them packed into the stadium – buoyant, excited, overjoyed and filled with exuberance.

The programme presenters at pitchside before the game – the lead female (this being New Zealand there’s no gender divide as far as rugby is concerned) was excellent and her colleagues both ex-players with big personalities – were having a ball as they discussed the prospects, highlighted players to watch out for and built up the atmosphere.

The on-pitch officials played a big part in promoting the flow of the game, Kiwi style: efficient, astute, firm, fair, direct and curt in their instructions.

The players treated them with great respect and no decision was ever questioned.

Finally – and I’ve rarely seen this in the English Premiership and certainly never to this extent – after the match was over, all the players of both teams spent twenty minutes hanging around on the pitch surrounded by the fans, laughing, joking and chatting with them, signing autographs and posing for photographs. At most English Premiership grounds the crowds are never allowed on the pitch.

I know it was at least twenty minutes because that is how long the live coverage continued after the game whilst the post-match interviews and discussions took place.