I was going to write something really profound about the All Whites but every man and his dog – and I mean literally every man – has already beaten me too it.
Even the nation’s rugby writers who spend their days trying hard not to say the thing as each other have written about it and yep, they’ve all said the same thing as each other. Which has lead to the inevitable conjecture as to which is now bigger in this country; ruggers or football? Its short shorts verse long shorts again, just like it was back at school. Stubbies verse grippers, those that shower with their undies on and those that didn’t.
Which reminds me of my playing days at College when the long shorts that are common place today, started to make a comeback to football fields across the country. Not in my house though. My parents, the bastards that they were, never bought me anything longer than teste depth when it came to shorts and remained blissfully unaware of my desire to encase my pasty thighs in satin.
So I took matters into my own hands and made a pair of knee length shorts out of my rain proof track pants. Man did that shit them right up. Before then I had made do by making bike shorts out my old adidas trackies, the ones with the stirrups on the feet, so needless to say they were completely bricking it over the slaughter of two perfectly good pairs of pants.
In their anger they decreed that they would never buy me any new soccer gear ever again, which was hardly a punishment as far as I could see because they never had anyway!
But back to the All Whites vs. The All Blacks. Sounds like an interracial gang bang doesn’t it? It’s a futile argument really and a lot like trying to prove your point with the devoutly religious, so why even bother. Football, right at this very moment, is bigger than rugby in Godzone and that’s a fact. If you really want to get anal and hey, I’ll try anything once, let’s talk big picture.
There are over 200 countries in the FIFA world rankings and less than 100 in the IRB’s (which is a very generous count given how many of those countries are actually competitive). There might be a ‘world’ of rugby playing nations, but the world’s sport is football. It’s a World Cup Final tournament where 32 foot balling nations compete compared to rugby’s 20, so I don’t care how tight you like your shorts, football is bigger in every which way.
Anyhoo, I digress. Saturday night was a marvellous spectacle regardless of code and one that will live long in the memory but not if the team performs abysmally at the Finals that we’ve all gotten so excited about them making.
A few months ago I was very critical of the All Whites and their performance in the Confederations Cup where they were hammered by the best team in the World (Spain), brushed aside by South Africa and eventually drew with Saudi Arabia, a team not too dissimilar to Saturday nights opponents, Bahrain. Despite the euphoria of this week I haven’t forgotten that they were boys in a man’s world at that particular tournament.
At the World Cup they will in all likelihood, find themselves playing even tougher opposition and they will have to work very, very hard to try and avoid the kind of results that the last NZ team to make it to the Finals had, conceding 12 goals in three games.
If they do well (and nobody expects them to win the bloody thing or nuffink) then they will do more for football in this country than they did on an epic night in Wellington. If they crash and burn as so many footballing minnows in their position have in recent years then, just as they did at the Confed Cup, they will have wound the credibility clock back to pre November 14.
I hope they do well; really I do. Because I don’t want my boy to ever have to wear short shorts, or shower with his undies on.
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