The good, the bad and the rugby.

The Rugby World Cup kicks off in a few days time, as if you didn’t already know.

Let’s be honest, if you’re not in one of about 4 countries that actually have a realistic chance of winning it then no, you probably didn’t know. Despite all the hype, rugby is still only a sport played competitively in only a handful of countries. Oh sure, there more and more nations turning up to play but being on the wrong side of a cricket score is hardly being competitive.

For most of the time, we have dominated world rugby. For centuries, teams from the Northern Hemisphere consisting of skinny, white upper class toffs would turn up on our shores for a 10 week tour and get pummelled from the moment they landed. It was hardly a fair contest. Gay Frenchmen would be lining up against fifteen human mountains, all of whom were farmers and had quite possibly eaten the only gay Frenchman they had ever met previously.

And so it went against all comers. Even our nearest neighbour, the Aussie, was no good at rugby. Not until the early nineties anyway when some of our guys went over there and showed them how to play the game. The only side that ever matched us in the intimidation factor were the Saffas, for they too were farmers and man mountains who ate their natives.

All that changed in the mid nineties though when the game went professional. All those countries that previously had been given the sporting equivalent of stand up sodomy by us, now found themselves in the enviable position of having all the money thanks to the return tours to their countries by the All Blacks – the biggest draw card in world rugby. And more money meant better gyms and drugs to make their players bigger, stronger and as fast as our farmers (if you think I’m joking about the drugs, have a look at Lawrence Dallaglio before and after the 2001 World Cup).

Since then, reputation has meant nothing to the gay Frogs and the English toffs. Australia never liked us anyway and the Saffas still eat their natives (albeit discreetly). We haven’t won the World Cup since the first one in ’87 and if we don’t win another soon, then we are in danger of becoming the rugby equivalent of the England football team – forever destined to remember that one time we did actually win it.

None of which really bothers me because rugby is not my thing. But it is the boat floater for the majority here in NZ, which means we’ll be ceasing all intelligent conversation for the next four weeks. I have made the connection between sphincters and opinions before in this blog so it should come as no surprise to learn that rugby brings out the verbal runs in us like no other.

Sport is in our blood and some of it we are very, very good at. We’ve always been a nation that has over achieved given its size and populace. We have had some tremendous sporting achievements over the years, but our strongest contribution to world sport these days is in minority codes. Rugby, cricket, netball and rugby league. All sports played competitively by only a handful of nations.

We’re decidedly average at football, crap at tennis and we have one good golf player but the only balls he seems to hit these days is when he steps on the rake in the bunker. Occasionally we do well in individual sports at the Olympic and Commonwealth games but it can be a long time between medals in those disciplines that have served us well in the past. With the advent or professionalism in rugby, there is little or no incentive for an athlete to play anything else, because the money is simply not there. Is it coincidence that ever since rugby turned pro, we stopped being good at a whole range of individual sports too?

Incidentally, I was no good at rugby. I recall the only two real games of ruggers I ever played in I had to retire hurt. Once because I banged my head on some joker’s knee and the other because someone said some very mean things to me. I did try to bluff my way into the rugby fraternity though by wearing my mate Bruiser’s first fifteen jacket at College. But that was about as convincing as my self proclaimed sexual prowess stories were back in those days.

Not that that was my first failure in trying to dress my way into something. In primary school there were only two ‘gangs’ you wanted to be a part of – the Red Swannies and the Blue Swannies (Swandri’s are of course the essential all terrain, all weather, all occasions garment for the Kiwi bloke). Despite knowing this, my mother bought me a gold / bronze / poo brown one. I think the only other colour available in the Swanni range was green and as I recall, only a girl at our school had that one. So no surprise then that no bugger wanted to swap their red or blue swannie for mine. Good times.

I bet the All Blacks don't have a gold Swanni. The French might though....