I was in the Eden Park stadium on the final night of the Tournament. Not only in the stadium, but, as part of my duties, in the players tunnel area during the last quarter of the match. The volume of sound from the crowd was extraordinary – every move on the field was matched by a roar from 62,000 people; whether All Black fans en masse or the few determined French fans. Looking around the stadium, everyone was wearing black, as is always the case with Kiwi fans, although occasional brave blobs of French Tricolour could be seen in groups in the crowd.

The energy was palpable from the start; even the waitstaff in the corridors were getting excited as they wheeled food trays to the corporate boxes. The first try by New Zealand’s Woodcock generated a roar like nothing else, and New Zealand hearts were light. Then came a bruising battle for the rest of the match and New Zealand nerves were on edge around the country – at half time, there were comments like “It’s not decisive, too close, I can’t watch, OMG could we actually lose?”

The tension when the score got to 8 NZ, 7 France, and stayed there, was unbearable. As we all know, our boys hung on to that one point, and won the day, the night, the battle and the Cup. They had given it their all on the field, as summed up by Captain Richie McCaw:

“I’m absolutely shagged, but the courage and the heart the guys put out there, we had to dig as deep as we’ve ever dug before and it’s hard to really let it sink in.” 

The crowd kept cheering and cheering, and no-one left when the game ended; everyone waited for the trophy presentation, and the moment we had been hoping for from the time New Zealand won the bid to host the tournament – to see Richie holding up the Webb Ellis Cup. The moment finally came, the team assembled on the stage, Richie lifted the Cup above his head – and the crowd roared even more loudly. The flames and the fireworks went off, the glitter bombs showered glitter all over the AB’s, and around the country there was a new kind of weather phenomenon – a wind caused by the sigh of relief simultaneously from the stadium of four million people.

As happy NZ supporters began leaving the stadium, there were a few resolute French fans in the crowd, with their faces painted in the Tricolour stripes. I watched as they walked up the aisle, past a particularly good humoured All Blacks fan, who shook hands with the French fans as they passed, and gave them a sort of mournful Well Done of acknowledgement. One of the French fans gave the NZ fan his French scarf – a wonderful moment of camaraderie that said it all.

In the stadium that night, it was all about the rugby, but so much more had happened to get us there: the adopting of the minnow teams (who can forget Palmerston North’s support of the Georgia/Romania game by providing red and yellow buckets for the audience to wear on their heads?); the national festival (the extended Bluff oyster season, WOW on tour, food and wine experiences everywhere, vineyard clippings made into giant rugby balls, fashion, history and photography exhibitions, NZSO concerts, Kiri Te Kanawa…the list goes on). Then there was the Opening Ceremony, the stirring anthems, and through it all the contagious involvement in all things rugby even for those who didn’t usually watch a game or know anything about sport. I think most people decided to go along on the journey of the Tournament, even if they didn’t know what a ruck was, as it was clear there was loads of fun to be had. It also kept the electioneering at bay, so that was a plus as well.

New Zealand has had a turbulent year – the awful losses of the Pike River mine and the Christchurch earthquakes, and the highs of a Tournament delivered above and beyond expectations, and just to finish it all off nicely – the Webb Ellis Cup with New Zealand 2011 engraved on it.

Some might carp that to win by one point is too close for comfort, but it’s still a win, and you either win or you don’t; there’s no middle ground…that one winning point, earned by the valiant All Blacks, belongs to the whole country.

We may have proved to the world that we can deliver a major world event, but I think more importantly we proved it to ourselves. So whatever our Next Big Thing is, we know we can do it – with style, generosity, imagination and yes, just a little bit of number 8 wire.

Almost everyone was dressed up – French supporters with tricolour wigs, rooster hats, and red, white and blue drapes; Kiwis almost all in black, with silver hats, fern antlers, and enveloped in New Zealand flags. The black T-shirt, with the slogan ‘Keep calm/Piri’s on’, was everywhere. There was a team of people offering elaborate face painting; guitarists playing on every corner; and a juggler was performing high up on top of an elevated bicycle and surrounded by a circle of gawking admirers.  People were laughing, ribbing their mates, doing impromptu hakas, and taking endless photos. Queen’s Wharf had already closed; but no-one seemed to mind.  There were other places to go and watch the game on the big screen.  Aucklanders were partying – and this was before that nail-biting finish gave them something real to celebrate. 

World Cup 2011 and the REAL New Zealand Festival is now over.  I can return to my humdrum life.  After six weeks on the road, it is time for a few overall impressions.

One big party: The image which will stick in the mind is of Kiwis learning to party in public. The tradition of public carnivals is not deep in our culture.  It used to be said that at the weekend the streets of our cities were so empty that you could fire a cannon down the main street and not hit a soul.  On occasions when we did celebrate, such as VE and VJ days at the end of World War 2, people did not know how to behave or hold their drink; and once the kissing of strangers was over there was drunken hooliganism and breaking of windows. But the world cup has taught us how to have fun on the streets. True, the one real crisis of the cup came about at Queen’s Wharf on opening night; but this was simply a reflection of how keen we were to party.  Once that crisis was worked through, the organising of the national party – at fanzones and other public places throughout the country was superb.  There was plenty of alcohol drunk, but there was little aggro or wanton violence against property.  We sang and laughed and danced and cheered. Huge street parties was not how I had imagined the cup; but it is the enduring impression.  And this was despite that fact that early spring in New Zealand is never the most pleasant time to be outside at night – five of the first games I attended were in the rain.  But it did not stop the music playing.

Good hosts: It may be simply our national insecurity – our desire to be liked. But there is no doubt that New Zealanders went out of their way to help our guests.  The ‘Kia ora’s as you entered an exhibition, or the ‘How can I help you?’ which flowed from those wonderful volunteers in their blue uniforms were really appreciated.  I spoke to at least 100 overseas fans, and their comments on the ‘warmth’ of the welcome became almost tedious.

Nationalism: If you landed in New Zealand on Sunday and saw the ‘Go All Blacks’ signs on farm gates and suburban fences, and the black flags with silver ferns on cars, you might have worried that a dangerous nationalism had taken hold.  ’Patriotism is’, after all, ‘the last refuge of a scoundrel‘.  However, colour aside, this was not the black-shirts nationalism of the fascist state.  There were a few ugly asides, such as the petty anti-Australianism, but in general it was a light-hearted nationalism, no more than a pride in the country’s footie team and a deep desire to express our best.  Impressively, a love of New Zealand flowered alongside a real effort to learn about other countries.  I will not forget the large window display in a New Plymouth store providing a map of Namibia and an interesting caption about its economy and way of life; or the way Napier divided its central city into quarters representing the countries that played there; or Palmerston North’s relabelling of Main St as Romania St and George St as Georgia street and their encouragement to everyone to wear red or yellow buckets.

Dunedin campervans

Campervanners: I had expected that most of the overseas fans would be relatively affluent people, eating in posh restaurants and staying in motels or hotels.  From the moment that I checked in at the St Kilda motor camp and saw the huge army of campervans spread out over two football fields I began to realise that most were young, doing it on the cheap and heading for hamburger joints.  This was confirmed when I saw vacancy signs at motels on match days at every place I visited, and when I was the recipient of an avalanche of moans from taxi-drivers about their lack of patronage.  The profile of the visitors undoubtedly affected their response to the festival.  I nearly always discovered a few non-New Zealanders at the exhibitions, concerts and plays I attended.  The rugby widows undoubtedly enjoyed the cultural offerings.  But the numbers of overseas visitors at such events were not great. Most, quite frankly, were more interested in enjoying fun in the bars with their countrymen.  The audience who loved the festival were the locals.  So, the achievement of the festival was to give us a richer sense of ourselves.

An outpouring of talent: I never ceased to be amazed at the outpouring of creativity which the cup released and which the REAL New Zealand festival pulled together so brilliantly.  Each day when I looked at the festival programme, I was faced by tough mouth-watering choices.  The number and range of offerings was deeply impressive.  At times this meant that the audience was spread too thin; at times it meant that not everything was done to the same high standard.  I would sometimes turn up to see a dance group and find it had been cancelled; or go to an exhibition and find the labels were incorrect or wrongly positioned. But the energy and ingenuity of the offerings, whether it was street theatre or a showcase event, was a constant.  An awful lot of New Zealanders had their creative juices flowing over the last year.  And as for the food – well, you could not take part in this festival without enjoying some truly delicious tastes.

The Māori response: I had not set out to look for Māori culture in the festival, but time and again this is what I found.  I saw a wonderful Māori dance, Te Houhi: The people and the land; a powerful Māori play, I, George Nepia; an ambitious but largely successful opera with kapa haka, Arohanui; several exhibitions on Māori rugby and influential Māori rugby players; and I just loved the way Māori presented their culture in a living way.  Whether it was at the Haka exhibition at Hamilton or in the tents at the entrance to Waka Māori, visitors saw tattooing, weaving, carving and kapa haka in action.  They were encouraged to eat hangi foods, sing waiata, do a haka.  As a Pākehā, I sometimes felt that Pākehā culture, not Māori, was a museum relic!

Best rugby exhibition:  I saw too many rugby exhibitions for my own good on this tour, and too many consisted of lengthy texts extolling past heroes along with a collection of tired objects such as old programmes or boots.  Because the presentation was always lively and original, and it made a real effort to present rugby as a culture involving many people in the society not just the heroes,  the best was ‘Red, Yellow and Black’ at the Waikato Museum.

Best non-rugby exhibition: I loved renewing acquaintance with Len Lye in New Plymouth’s Govett-Brewster and Ralph Hotere in Dunedin; but the biggest challenge to my view of the world was in Nelson with George Shaw’s brilliant exhibition on street art, ‘Oi You.’

Best music:  The single most affecting musical moment was Kiri Te Kanawa singing alone ‘Pokarekareana’ as a third encoure at her gala concert.  It had us all in tears.  But for sustained music I loved Annie Crummer’s energetic singing in The Cloud.

Best theatrical experience:  This is a tough one, since I saw some brilliant theatre on my tour. I, George Nepia was fascinating and highly relevant; Finding Murdoch was engrossing; and The Earthquake in Chile, which was pitched so perfectly to its Christchurch audience, was one of the most emotionally intense evenings I have spent in my life.  But I will never forget the emotional power of Te Houhi.  It brilliantly evoked the human tragedy which colonisation brought to parts of this land.

Best match day: Perhaps because they were smaller and the event was more unusual, match day in the provincial centres was something special.  New Plymouth was brilliantly organised and the compact entertainment on the waterfront was superb; Napier’s adoption of the Canadian and French teams was done with real charm; the walk to the new stadium at Dunedin was one long drawn-out entertainment; and the pre-match programme in Palmerston North’s Square was most enjoyable; but the match day in Rotorua will live longest in my memory because I was there for an Irish match, and the Irish fans simply have to be seen, and even more heard, to be believed.

Most upsetting moment:  This was not when I heard that Dan Carter had hurt his groin, or when the French scored their try in the final.  It came when I reached Christchurch’s Bridge of Remembrance, looked through to see the empty macadam where buildings long known to me had once stood and read the sad inscriptions on the wreathes laid against the wire barrier.

It was a moment such as this that put the cup into perspective.  It’s great that we have learnt to party in public.  The REAL New Zealand Festival was a brilliant showcase of this country’s talent and creativity.  It made us all proud to be Kiwis. I feel as if we have been on holiday for six weeks; and have come back home refreshed.  But when the party is over…….

I look forward to joining you next time!

I suspect, like a good many New Zealanders, as Rugby World Cup 2011 approached I became thoroughly immersed in making my own preparations. Depending on how you look at it, I was lucky enough to have two different and intensive projects to do leading up to the Tournament. As Director of the Whanganui Regional Museum, I was heavily involved with the creation of our exhibition Our Boots and Butcher’s Boys: Celebrating Five Generations of Rugby in Whanganui.

At the same time, I was assisting the team of the creative design company Eklektus Inc. develop the exhibition Oranges at Halftime, which tours the country as part of the REAL New Zealand Festival. Both have had extremely satisfying responses – both projects have been flooded with visitors, and both creative teams are naturally very happy. People’s interest in rugby’s power to connect New Zealand society has been wonderful, and at times moving, to experience.

Personally, however, I had such tunnel vision with these two projects that I was only dimly aware of what others were doing. So it was quite a revelation to see it all unfold before me as I soon as I stopped to take a breath.

All of a sudden, it was the 4^th of September and the Eagles arrived in Whanganui. Canoeing down the river in a waka, they cheered on by thousands of excited fans. (Photo courtesy of the  U.S. Embassy in New Zealand). The joy and excitement during their reception was  enough for me to start getting out and about to experience as much as I could.

The diversity has been astounding, and far from focused solely on rugby.  I’ve been to the Len Lye exhibition All Souls Carnival at the Govett-Brewster Gallery in New Plymouth. While there, I hung out at the Taranaki Fanzone, visited the Traders and Whalers exhibition at the Tawhiti Museum in Hawera.

A trip down to Wellington waterfront provided a chance to get some produce at the open air harbourside market history of the haka, in their virtual reality exhibition The Story of Ka Mate, the World’s Best Known Haka at Te Papa and the wonderful New Zealand On Screen installation, a partnership between Storybox and Chrometoaster. A few minutes’ walk and I was at the fanzone, taking in a group of Indian performers as part of the Diwali Festival of Lights. Palmerston North has also been celebrating, with the centre of town taken over by their festival “Our People, Our Place”.

Back at home, Whanganui has also had a wealth of different sorts of events. The big paint, on the 17^th of September, was a standout, part of the REAL Whanganui Festival, in which 100 artists and non-artists put brush to canvas to recreate Leigh Mitchell-Anyon’s composite photograph from pre-dawn to dusk of the Wanganui landscape, featuring the Sarjeant Gallery and Mt Ruapehu. See the wonderful results here. The witty and poignant works of Andrea Gardner in her exhibition Wild at the Green Bench is also memorable.

Driving through the smaller communities in the Lower North Island, I’ve been struck by the pervasiveness of the activities surrounding the tournament. Flags and signs encouragement along the road, small community events, and extravaganzas covering local food to vintage cars.  And then there’s the ubiquitous bunting.

As promised, the REAL New Zealand Festival has delivered a delightful, thoughtful and also astoundingly diverse range of activities that demonstrate nicely the rich cultural and artistic character we’re blessed with in Aotearoa New Zealand.

It’s midday on the day of THE BIG GAME. The countdown really began at Kiri Te Kanawa’s concert last night when the great soprano welcomed everyone to a ‘celebration’; and then explained that ‘hadn’t our boys done well getting to the final?’  Well, yes, perhaps. Certainly for the next two hours Kiri and her accompaniments, a wonderfully smooth New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, a strong bass-baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes, and a charismatic theatrical baritone Kawiti Waetford gave us every reason for feeling proud of the country, win or not – but winning the final is what the people want.

To soak up the mood, and since I was on Granddad duty, I decided to head to St Luke’s Westfield Mall and ask ‘real New Zealand’ how it was feeling about the game.  Here are a few answers.

My first conversation was with a late-middle-aged Pākehā woman: I am not really a rugby fan, but everyone says I have to watch it.  I will; and it has been exciting hasn’t it?  They say that if we win there will be a baby boom in nine months time!  A good thing that we won last week or it would have been an Aussie-French final.  That would have been funny, wouldn’t it?

The waiter at the coffee bar was from China.  He had been in New Zealand ten years. ‘I didn’t know the rules before the World Cup.  China is not a rugby place – but I will definitely watch it tonight – at home.  Rugby’s quite a nice game isn’t it?

Our neighbours at the coffee bar were both in the police, and their three small children were all dressed in black and had a black fern on each cheek. The father: I am going to the game actually – on duty at the Kingsland shops.  There will be about 200 police in all. But I hope to get in to watch some of the action. The mother: Our house is almost all black – there are black streamers everywhere.  It’s been an exhausting six weeks.  He has been working 14 hours a day.  Now that we have done the cup, perhaps we could have the Olympics.

I came across a bloke in a grey All Blacks jersey with his mates. ‘That’s not a very good omen’, I said, ‘That was the colour the ABs wore when the French beat them last time’.  It’s actually an All Blacks training jersey. We’re from Rotorua and going to the game. We went last week also. The whole thing is great for the country, but just a shame that they are not making any money out of it. Let’s hope we win – then we won’t get back to bed before 4 a.m.!

I stopped in at a chemist shop.  There were black balloons and streamers everywhere, and big blow-up black hands for sale.  All the saleswomen were dressed in black with silver fern icons.  One explained: I have been a footie supporter all my life.  My dad was Dutch, my mum a Kiwi, and it was my mum that got me into it.  Always been a Blues supporter.  I am also a Wales supporter – they were my other team.  They play such good rugby and have a Kiwi coach.  I am headed  to Queen’s Wharf tonight.  It’ll be pretty crowded, but I’m leaving work early – about 3.30.  Her mate, also dressed in black, took up the conversation: My family was Irish and we were more into boating than rugby.  But all the family is coming over tonight.  I’ll cook up a big feed; and then scream at the TV if they make any mistakes.  I won’t want to come to work tomorrow if they lose. Everyone will be so depressed.  Actually it’s only in the last few days that we have sold any of this All Black stuff – until then it was very quiet.

I talked to a young Kiwi Indian serving in a shoe shop. I am not really into rugby.  But I headed into Queen’s Wharf last week.  It was fun.  They cheered every point.  I am going there again if I can get off early enough.

I met a guy working for the Electoral Commission getting people to enrol in the election. I hear the banks are closing at 1 o’clock.  It’s almost like a national holiday, isn’t it?   Who’s going to win? I ask. Nation…  Oh you mean the game.  I hope it’s the All Blacks.  I suppose I’ll watch it – it’s a matter of patriotic duty.

I was button-holed by an Italian woman who had been in the country for two months.  She was selling moisturiser. I am not really a rugby follower – it’s not big in Italy.  But I am all for the All Blacks tonight.  I’ll watch it on TV with my friends.

It was becoming monotonous. I had yet to find either anyone who wasn’t going to watch the game – or even better a France supporter. So in the hope of remedying this, we headed for a French restaurant in Parnell.  Sure enough the woman in charge was French. There were French flags everywhere, although, suspiciously, large black flags with silver ferns lined the wall of the kitchen. I’m French.  I would like to support them.  But it’s not worth it.  If the French win, everyone round here will be so depressed.  It will be bad for business.  So I am an All Black supporter tonight.

So, at midday on the day of the game, everyone is an All Black supporter.  If they win, there will be lots of sore heads in the morning.  If they lose – well we are a mature people, and we’re used to getting beaten in World Cups by an unlikely French team, aren’t we? But a third time – surely not.  There must be justice somewhere in this world –  please, please, Go Blacks.

There was a time when all of us Kiwis had the soil of the country in our finger nails.  We had rellies in the country where we spent our summer holidays; and even if we didn’t, our cities were small and suburban so that we knew about growing vegies and hunting birds. The bush was close by, a daily reality.

Things have changed.  Our cities have grown, our population has become more culturally diverse, and we have developed a powerful urban culture of shopping malls, and inner city entertainments.  Many of us have become entirely urban people. In Auckland, where I am now, there are well over a million people, and more than a third of the population are Asian or Pacific Islanders and simply don’t have cousins in the country.  So if inner-city Aucklanders are going to experience the country, then the country has to be brought to them.  Over the last 48 hours I have seen three ways in which the country has come to the city.

First, the REAL NZ Festival has set up the Queen’s Wharf Country Showcase to display some of the traditional rural sports more often found at A&P shows.  I have already  described the fierce competition between the axemen of Australia and New Zealand which has been fought out over the last few days on Queen’s Wharf.  The same venue has also seen the country’s top eight shearers battling it out; and on the Auckland Domain there was another rural sports Trans-Tasman competition involving sheepdog trials.

Cutting down trees, shearing sheep and using dogs to herd sheep and cattle were once essential skills of surviving in the rural areas of New Zealand.  But very early on these rural activities became more than a job – they became competitive sports.  Perhaps the first of these was ploughing matches between neighbouring farmers.  They began in the 1860s using horses, or even occasionally bullocks.  When tractors arrived in the 1920s ploughing competitions continued and in 1956 a national championship was begun.  The good councillors of Auckland will be relieved to know that a ploughing competition was not held on the Domain.

Copyright see Te Ara (http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/farm-dogs/6/2)

It was the site of dog trials however.  This sport also seems to have begun in the 1860s; and there are now over 90 clubs in the North Island alone. The farmer uses just his whistle and hand movements to get his dog, if he is lucky, to herd an unruly pack of three sheep between gates and into enclosures.  Made famous by the TV show, ‘The Dog Show‘, dog trialling is wonderful to behold.  It must have been very strange to watch it among the hum of traffic and close to the classical pillars of Auckland Museum.

Shearing was another sport begun in the 1860s, but really took off when machine shearing began from the turn of the 20th century.  Like rugby, shearing is one of those sports where New Zealand creativity has led the world.  People like the Bowen brothers or David Fagan are legends in the world of shearing.  The speed of a modern shearer is a wonder to behold – with daily tallies of over 720 sheep shorn in one day.

Christchurch Farmers Market

The second institution which has brought the country to the city has been Farmers’ markets.  Today (Saturday) there was one at Parnell.  Kids could pet sheep and goats while their parents purchased fresh bread or organic lettuces or freshly pressed olive oil.  Farmers’ markets are not just any old outdoor fair.  They have strict criteria - an authentic Farmers’ market will only allow people to sell what they grow, farm, pickle, preserve, bake, smoke or catch themselves from a defined local area. The REAL NZ Festival has included no less than 40 such markets in its programme.  Each one is different because of the focus on local produce.  There is always plenty of fresh coffee available to wash down the treats you pick up from the local stalls.

Watching seals at Te Wao Nui

The third place where I saw the country brought to the city was at the Auckland Zoo, which has just opened a wonderful new section called Te Wao Nui, which is an introduction to the animals and natural environments of Aotearoa.  Not surprisingly, exotic beasts like elephants and giraffes remain popular at the zoo.  But this morning it was pleasing indeed to see so many people in this New Zealand-focused section.  Te Wao Nui is organised around six habitats – the coast, islands, wetlands, the forest, the high country and the night. Using clever doors, one of which will only open once the first door is closed, you wander into huge aviaries and enclosures to see seals, tuatara or mountain kea set amid the distinctive worlds where they flourish. The labels are lively and informative, and the kids from 18 months to 98 were really having a good time.  For Auckland kids who will probably never make it to the high country of the Southern Alps or to an offshore island, it is a great facility.

In the end of course, there is no alternative to spending a couple of weeks on a farm and getting to know the isolation and the hard work which country living means.  It is not for nothing that the rural lifestyle has been so crucial to New Zealand identity.  In the past we put down many of our successes, from warfare to rugby to no 8 fencing wire ingenuity, to the training of people brought up in the backblocks.  But the vast majority of us are no longer country folk or bush people.  So thanks to the REAL New Zealand Festival for giving us in these different ways a taste of the country in the midst of our largest city.

Hard on the Heels, Peter Bush, Capturing the All Blacks

Closing on October 30, this photography exhibition at the Museum of Wellington City and Sea is well worth a look (the exhibition is also on in Auckland till 31 Oct, Dunedin till 6 Nov, Christchurch till Jan 2012 and Whangarei till 27 Nov). Peter Bush has been photographing the All Blacks for over 50 years, and he achieved extraordinary access – sometimes by guile, sometimes by hard work, sometimes by sheer good fortune. Starting in 1949 as a news photographer for the New Zealand Herald, he went on to specialise in rugby. As he says “This was that wonderful period before television and video images shifted the still photographers off the privileged perch we had occupied for the last 50 years.”

As you enter the exhibition, the first big photo there is the famous shot entitled NZ vs East Glamorgan, Wales 1972/73. Sid Going leads the thundering herd out of the mist. An evocative image, one All Black (Sid Going) is seen clearly, with ball in hand running toward the try-line, while shadows of the other players are seen in the mist. In the documentary which is part of the exhibition, Peter Bush explains that he was standing on the try-line, almost on the field of play, with his 200mm lens – he modestly said that he was in the right place with the right lens, however there is much more to it than that. His eye is unerring for the decisive shot and his images tell the story of what it is actually like to be a player – as close as most of us will ever get.  There’s a note, on another photograph from this Glamorgan match, about the game being played “under farcical conditions”. One assumes this is in reference to the fog – while great for powerful photographic images, it must have been hell to play in a game where the players couldn’t even see to the other end of the field.

The exhibition is set up with a 1950’s lounge suite, covered with crocheted rugs, set up around an old television set, from which Peter Bush talks to us in a documentary. The interesting thing about this is that I found myself looking at the prints on the walls, then I’d hear Peter telling a story about a particular image, and I’d dash back over and sit on the couch again to hear it, then get up and toddle off to look at the photos again. You get a sense from his comments in the documentary that he’s not too fond of the “namby pamby” replays we get today of every piece of on-field action.

There’s a powerful photograph of the All Blacks in Belfast, in 1972/73, going on to the field with armed soldiers, guns at the ready, flanking them. There had been terrorist threats that one player from each team would be shot, and in that time and place, the threat was taken very seriously. Peter Bush talks about that photograph – he said was a very long day, and extremely tense.

Some of the photographs make the viewer aware of how different things are now from the way they used to be. There’s an extraordinary photograph of Eden Park, a wide shot, and the field of play is covered with people, there’s even a spectator perched high on a goal post. Apparently, the spectators used to walk onto to field after the match, as a sort of “pitch invasion”. If that happened today, there’d be police and media helicopters overhead, security battles, arrests, riots and general mayhem; in Peter’s photograph from 1956, it all looked rather peaceful and pleasant – people just milling about, talking about the game.

There are more modern photographs too – there’s a brilliant one of Dan Carter, in the rain, kicking as only he can. Peter Bush describes Dan Carter as the best first five he has seen in almost 60 years of covering rugby. Let’s hope Dan will be doing it all again soon.

So take a moment, go to the Wellington Museum of City and Sea, enjoy the marvellous permanent exhibitions, then visit the Hard on the Heels rugby photographs  – and when you watch the final remember that you’re part of a great tradition, whether on the field,  in the stands, or on the couch.

Photo of Peter Bush by Radio NZ, others from exhibition website.

We are now into the business end of the World Cup.  The hordes of Irish and Scottish and Argentinian and English and Italian fans in their campervans have gone home, licking their wounds.  There don’t seem to be many Aussies or Welsh around either.  The few French get a cheery wave as they pass in the street.  The action has moved to Auckland, and the kids are on holiday.  So I decided the place to be was the Auckland waterfront. The sun was shining, the harbour sparkling, and people were there to enjoy themselves.  What impressed me as I wandered around was that the REAL New Zealand Festival had provided something for everyone.  Here are a few of the different scenes that I saw and heard as I wandered round.

Scene 1: The piercing scream of chainsaws going at top pull me to the outside space on Queen’s Wharf.  The ANZAXE competition is in full throttle.  Australian woodsmen in yellow singlets and Kiwis in black are aggressively shaving slivers of wood with their saws, or axing them in the underhand chop.  The axemen are huge brawny types. The competition is fierce and close.  Beside me a grandfather and his young grandson are watching intently.

Granddad: ‘Well, it’s the relay next’.

Grandson: ‘Let’s hope the Kiwis win, like they did in the footie.’

Granddad: ‘Have you ever seen wood-chopping like this?  When I was kid it was always the most exciting thing at the local country show.  They brought the blokes in from the bush country and let them at it.  But these ones look like they’re professional.  The announcer says that they compete with one another all over the place, in Sydney as well as here.  It’s about to start, cross your fingers.’ The relay starts with a cross saw, then a chain saw, then an underhand chop and finally the standing chop.  It was not long before the Aussies were in front.

Granddad: ‘Well it looks like THEY have won. Let’s go and have a cheer up with some candy floss for old times sake. We’ll have to come back tomorrow and see of the Kiwis can do it then.’

Scene 2: I approach the Waka Māori further along the waterfront. There are a series of tents.  I enter the first.  Carvers are at work. A young Māori kid is watching intently.  There is a very long pou (pole) half-carved.  ’What’s that for?’ I ask. ‘It will go up in Taupō.  The local council wants it’. ‘How long will it take to finish?’ ‘It will open in December’.

I enter another tent where there are weavers working their flax.  Beautiful korowai (cloaks) hang on the walls.

Further along are four small cubicles three sides enclosed in black and the fourth open to observers.  In each a tattooist is at work.  Sample designs hang on the black walls.  A youngish Pākehā man stands looking for a while; then leans over to one of those with their arm out being worked on. ‘Does it hurt?’ he asks.

‘Not really.  It’s not too bad’.

‘How long have you been there?’

‘About an hour and a half.’

‘Do you want one?’ interrupts the tattooist.

‘Could do,’ comes the reply.

I move forward and enter the waka, greeted by a very warm ‘Kia ora.’  There is a large exhibition , ‘Rau tau: a hundred years of Maori rugby’.  Each panel is framed by a beautiful flowing Māori design.  There are a lot of words and some nice images. It is presented decade by decade.  Old friends appear again – Tom Ellison, that creative footballer from Otago; George Nepia, fullback hero; Buck Shelford, tough as nails and enthusiast for the haka.  I notice the audience is largely grey-headed males, mostly Pākehā.  Two of them stop before the 1950s panel.  There is a photo and text portrait of Pat Walsh.

‘Well, do you remember Pat Walsh?  He almost lost us that series against the ‘boks in ’56.  He made a muck-up of playing full-back in the first test, and then they lost the second.  A jolly good thing they brought in Don Clarke.  Now he was a real champion.’

‘That’s pretty unfair.  Don’t you remember they kept Pat Walsh in the team as centre; and he played there real well.  He was a clever bloke; and did a heck of a lot for counties rugby.  And if I remember right, didn’t he bring Don Clarke back from South Africa at the end of this life when he was dying from cancer?  Good bloke and a helluva footballer, I say.’

Scene 3: I return to Queen’s Wharf and enter The Cloud.  There is a very long cat-walk.  The audience is almost entirely well-dressed women, apart from the bevy of photographers, all male, crouched at the end of the walk to take photos. In search of my own, I join them.  46 fashion houses show their wares for the spring and summer seasons, beginning with Zambesi and ending with Jockey. It is a Fashion Week show. I am naturally interested in the male garments – the brightly coloured underpants, and also, incredibly, walk shorts! On the way out I hear two elegantly-dressed women discussing the show.

Can't escape rugby - even in fashion!

‘Well, trouser suits seem out, don’t they?’

‘Yes, and aren’t the hem lines short?  Many of them are very uneven in front.  I don’t think I have good enough legs to wear that cut.’

‘Yes, but they did look flowing and comfortable, didn’t they?’

‘It was good to see so little black.  We have had rather too much black over the last wee while haven’t we?’

‘Couldn’t agree more.  The colours now seem to be cool pastels, with big blocks of colour and very few floral patterns…’

Scene 4: On the way out I pass a spectacular looking bright orange sports car.  Perhaps the blokes standing round were partners to all the women watching the fashion show. The car was a Hulme supercar, modelled on Canam cars, and named in honour of Denny Hulme the famous Kiwi racing driver.

‘Top speed is 214 km/h’ says one bloke to another ogling bystander. ‘Fancy driving at that speed’.

‘Exciting eh.  But where would you do it?  This thing is made for the road, you know, not the race track.’

Scene 5: I head west along the waterfront clutching a ticket to Taste of New Zealand. I enter the large arena of  Victoria Park. There are tents on all sides. I purchase my ‘crowns’, the currency used to purchase the culinary goodies, grab a Moa Stout, and sit in the evening sun to listen to Hanna Grace, a lyrical vocalist in the Tracy Chapman mode, performing on the Peroni bandstand. The large number of people swooning around are in couples or mixed groups of four or five. I feel distinctly under-dressed.  The men universally have stylish open-neck shirts and smart jackets; the women are in elegant black.  I meet an old acquaintance.  She has a friend with her.

‘What have you tried, so far?’ she asks.

‘Just a beer,’ I mumble.

‘Let’s get a taste of that Laurent-Perrier Champagne.  We might as well go for the best’.

‘Well, I’m here to taste Kiwi,’ I say.  ’Forrest’s Riesling has a huge reputation.  I am going to try that.  But I wouldn’t mind going to the whiskey masterclass. When you hear the bagpipes, there is a session on sweet and smoky malts about to begin.  I think I’ll head off there.’

‘What about something to eat? I’ve got my eyes on the cured big eye tuna.  It’s at the Cru on Sale St stall.’

‘Perhaps, but I could do with some meat – how about Mahy farms Beef Cheek with carrot mash and pedro Ximenez jus?’

We eat and drink, listen to music and spend a short while at the Fisher & Paykel display of kitchen equipment.  I try a sliver of specialty fudge brownie.  It’s so delicious I buy a packet. All very nice – if you have money and taste and good middle-class urban aspirations.

The crowd at Taste of New Zealand is very different to those who enjoyed watching the axemen or Waka Māori.  Later that evening a different group again, younger and more hip, would listen to the Songbirds perform in The Cloud. There are many different audiences to be satisfied by this festival, and yesterday, it seemed to me, whatever your interests or age or ethnicity or income, a good time was being had by all.

Put together a case of old jerseys, cups, programmes and tickets; throw in a couple of panels about heroes of the past; add a scrummaging or a kicking-a-goal interactive; find a catchy title (usually involving the colour black) – and you have your Rugby World Cup 2011 exhibition. I have seen half a dozen such exhibitions over the last month; and on my way north yesterday I saw another, ‘Khaki and Black‘, at the Waiouru Army Museum.

It followed the standard formula.  The labels were a bit wordy, there were a couple of surprising errors (surely every rugby fan knows that the famous 1956 series against the ‘Boks was four tests not three) and one of the interactives was not working.  What saved the exhibition for me was some unusual objects, especially a fabulous 19th-century woollen rugby jersey, and the well-researched story which it told. ‘Khaki and Black’ explores the interaction of rugby and war.

I have already quoted in an earlier post Tom Ellison‘s famous phrase that rugby was ‘a soldier-making game’; but he was simply picking up the point made by the Duke of Wellington: ‘The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.’  Rugby became popular in schools in New Zealand at the turn of the 20th century at the very time that military training was introduced.  Rugby was seen as developing men physically, encouraging teamwork and courage, and promoting strategy and tactics – all valuable on the battlefield.

When the 1905 All Blacks went to Britain and swept all before them (forgetting for a moment that dubious loss to Wales!), commentators in Britain saw their success in the light of the relative failures of British forces in the South African War.  Many British recruits for the war had been rejected as physically incapable and a parliamentary investigation into the ‘degeneracy of the race’ followed.  In that context, the All Blacks were interpreted by the British as the salvation of the Anglo-Saxons.  The New Zealanders had ‘done well’ in the South African War.  Now the All Blacks’ success suggested that, while the British were becoming soft as a result of their urban lifestyle, New Zealand was producing men toughened on the colonial frontier who could fight effectively in future wars. The All Blacks gave New Zealand men a special role as the territorials of the Empire.  This was how, and why, rugby football became so bound into New Zealand national identity.

‘Khaki and Black’ follows this close relationship of rugby and war.  The exhibition highlights particular heroes – W. J. Hardham, rugby player, who won the Victoria Cross in South Africa and whose name is commemorated by the Hardham Cup played for in Wellington club rugby; Dave Gallaher, who served in South Africa, captained the 1905 All Blacks, and then died on the Western Front.

It also shows effectively how rugby was used during New Zealand’s wars to strengthen physical and team skills while also providing merciful relief from more deadly conflicts.  In the First World War, while Ranfurly Shield and club competitions at home were suspended (from fear that holding them might discourage recruitment), competitions were set up between company teams for battalion honours, between provincial teams for brigade honours, and between the allied servicemen for the ‘King’s Cup’, which is claimed to be the real predecessor to the World Cup. In the Second World War General Freyberg was so enthusiastic about rugby as training for war that he donated a cup for competition between units.  Following the end of the war he helped create the famous ‘Kiwis’ team, which toured the UK and France to huge applause. Freyberg instructed the team ‘to play bright open football with the winning of the game the least important factor.’  They did so, although in the process they also won 29 of the 33 games they played.

So rugby and war have a long and rich history well told in this exhibition.  But the exhibition raises a couple of questions.  One is, if rugby is surrogate war, how do you teach the distinction between maiming, even killing the enemy,  and playing rugby in a  clean sportsmanlike fashion? This is a hard distinction to draw, and New Zealand rugby has always been bedevilled by allegations, especially coming from the English, that we play ‘dirty’.  Dave Gallaher himself, a wing forward, was continually accused of cheating because his position was not known in the UK.  In the 1925 Invicibles tour Cyril Brownlie was sent off for dirty play in the test against England; and in 1967 Colin Meads was also given his marching orders in the test against Scotland. To encourage competitive physical battles but not violence has always been a tricky issue.

The second question is, why did rugby continue to be so central to New Zealand identity long after fighting for the Empire had lost its importance?  In my view this happened because the mass media established so strongly the link between rugby and being a New Zealander that traditions were set up that had their own momentum.  At the turn of the century it was the telegraph and the newspaper which were the agencies of communication.  From the late 1920s radio coverage of games became crucial.  From the late 1960s television has been the pre-eminent sustainer of the mythology of the ABs.

Both of these issues – rugby as incipient violence, and the role of the media – are wonderfully explored in a play, ‘Finding Murdoch‘, which is on at QTheatre in Auckland as part of the REAL New Zealand Festival. The play explores a famous incident on the 1972 All Black tour of the UK. In the game against Wales the huge Otago prop Keith Murdoch scored the All Blacks only (and winning) try.  That night he was involved in a fight at the (ironically named) Angel Hotel.  Two days later he was sent home from the team by the manager Ernie Todd.  He never made it home, but disappeared into outback Australia.

The play follows the actual quest by Margot McRae, who wrote the play, to track down Murdoch and tell his story. It explores the culture of violence that has always been part of rugby.  As the All Blacks go out onto Cardiff Arms Park with the miners from the Welsh valleys roaring and singing, the experience is described several times as ‘preparing for battle’.  The battle itself is full of illicit punches and violence – ‘a bit of niggle’ is the expression, although that seems a slight underestimation: one All Black was knocked out cold.  That night in the pub the insults and accusations of cheating and dirty play kept flowing from Welsh supporters.  It became too much for a drunk Keith Murdoch, who was already notorious for acts such as throwing furniture from hotel windows.  This time he threw a punch.  In traditional Kiwi male style, Murdoch refused to talk afterwards and kept his feelings to himself.

The play explores the Kiwi male psyche effectively, and exposes the drive for sensationalism and high ratings which came to dominate television by the 1990s when McRae’s hunt takes place.  The interchange between the television producer, the crusty rugby reporter, and the young woman news hound is fascinating.  McRae discovers that the manager Ernie Todd was suffering from cancer throughout the tour, and when she finally tracks down Murdoch in a Queensland pub it becomes clear that he was really fleeing from the media circus that All Black rugby had become.

Rugby is no longer thought of as a soldier-making game, but in a week when we have seen endless televised replays of the Welsh captain doing a spear tackle and then being sent off, the issues raised by both ‘Khaki and Black’ and ‘Finding Murdoch’ remain pertinent. Whether rugby is surrogate war, or just prime time entertainment, it has always been much more than a game.

During the REAL New Zealand Festival, which runs alongside Rugby World Cup 2011, our Jock is roaming the country and blogging about it for the REAL New Zealand Festival Insider blog…

My title could refer to the bodies of the Wallaby rugby team, but it does not.  It refers to the colours of the two teams which will meet at Eden Park on Sunday night.  So I thought that in the spirit of strict impartiality I would give a voice to the two groups of fans, and show you some of the ways they have expressed their devotion to their respective teams. One of the joys of Rugby World Cup 2011 has been the creativity shown by people in demonstrating their loyalty.  So this is a photographic post of images collected over the course of my travels during the past month.

Since we are good hosts, let’s begin with the visitors.  Most of these images of ardent Francophiles were shot in Napier when France played Canada.  I now regret not photographing the French fans who lined up outside their hotel on the Napier waterfront and clapped each player individually as they left the hotel for the game.  But I think you will agree that the fans did well in other ways:

Versus

Hawera

New Plymouth

New Plymouth

Taumaranui

Taumaranui

Christchurch - on the Red Zone fence

Napier

Palmerston North

Wellington

Wellington

Nelson

Christchurch fence - before the Aussie game

Canterbury Museum

‘May the best team win’ he says in true sportsmanship, and then mutters to himself, ‘Go All Blacks!’

There’s a new Rugby World Cup phenomenon around, and no it isn’t how far the French managed to get. This phenomenon is  a sort of confessional appearing in workplaces around the country…the conversation generally runs along the lines of “I never usually watch rugby, but…” followed by an impassioned discourse on that red card to Wales, Ireland beating the pants off the Aussies, how impressive the AB’s young guns are, or the finer points of a rolling maul.

I have to say that while most of my rugby confessionals have been with other women, I’m proud to say that I also know a few blokes who don’t usually know one end of a rugby field from the other, and they too are getting knowledgeable. I use knowledgeable with a certain amount of tongue-in-cheekness  – when a bunch of people who know nothing about rugby start talking about rugby, no-one else in the group can prove them wrong. For example, I have yet to meet anyone who knows exactly what is supposed to happen in a scrum, however I have been present at serious-faced conversations about the various pack weights.

Prior to this tournament, the only time I have ever remembered a scrum is when I was a bit homesick and watched an AUS/NZ game, Tri-Nations I think, on TV from the good old House of Pain, Carisbrook. The scrum was memorable because they were playing in sleet at the time, and enough steam was rising from the scrum pack to run a medium-sized steam engine.  We won, our boys being slightly more used to playing in such conditions. I think the Aussie captain got hypothermia.

For newbies to the rugby chat, it’s useful if you’ve heard, and managed to remember, a bit of the commentary from the game you just watched. Even if the commentators are talking rampant nonsense, at least you’ll sound vaguely knowledgeable.  A quick trip through the online newspapers to the Sports Pages can also be a good source of handy factoids. I have been one who never, ever glanced at the sports pages, but now I am reading the reviews and summaries along with the best of them.

I have even had conversations with my venerable 82 year old Eastbourne Aunt, who prior to the tournament, might have known that there was a sport called rugby, but that would have been the extent of her interest. Possibly because I have been working on the tournament, she has taken more of an interest – initially just to be polite, but the fever has grown and now we actually converse about the AB’s chances and other teams demise. (She was sorry to see gallant Wales chucked out of the tournament by a mere one point). You’ll be pleased to hear that we now feel, after serious consideration, my Aunt and I,  that the All Blacks are likely to come out on top, and we are genteelly quite pleased about that.

It’s been fun to have random rugby conversations, not only with friends, but also with complete strangers. Often, the chat starts along the lines of “have you been following the rugby?” then plunges in to an analysis of the various refereeing styles, followed by an expression of sympathy for Dan Carter. Does the poor boy really want the whole world talking about his groin? Probably not.  I have had great chats with taxi drivers, movers, shopkeepers, remedial massage therapists (ok, only one) and no doubt with my hairdresser when I get there next.

These chats have turned out to be one of the unexpected joys of the tournament – everyone is going a little bit rugby nuts at the moment, and you’re missing out if you don’t join in. Go the ABs!!