Ma¯ori influence underpins rugby in Aotearoa
A leading sports historian says rugby may not have become New Zealand’s national game as early as it did without its Ma¯ori influence.
Today’s leading Ma¯ori players – Aaron Smith, Nehe MilnerSkudder, Joe Moody, Damian McKenzie and TJ Perenara – are following a path forged by some of the pioneers of the game more than 100 years ago.
Ron Palenski, director of the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame and author of numerous rugby books, says Ma¯ori have had ‘‘an enormous influence’’ on the development of the game here.
‘‘Rugby may not have established itself in New Zealand as the national game as early as it did it hadn’t been for Ma¯ori,’’ said Palenski, who noted Ma¯ori had played a prominent part by ‘‘adopting the game throughout the country’’.
Palenski said some of the most influential early rugby figures in New Zealand were Ma¯ori. Rotorua’s Joe Warbrick, who made his first class debut at 15 for an Auckland selection, was part of New Zealand’s first touring team to Australia in 1884.
Warbrick – later tragically killed in a geyser eruption at 41 – organised the New Zealand Natives team tour to Australia and Great Britain in 1888. He selected and captained a squad which included his four brothers. The team was away for over a year, playing 107 matches.
Tom Ellison, from ta¯kou, was on the 1888 team and became renowned as one of rugby’s great innovators and thinkers. Palenski said Ellison – a lawyer – convinced the New Zealand Rugby Football Union to adopt a black playing uniform.
‘‘Ellison was appointed captain of the first official New Zealand touring team to Australia in 1893. In April 1893, he proposed at the NZRFU’s first annual meeting and that team wear a black jersey with a silver fern.’’
Ellison also suggested white shorts and black socks. His recommendation was adopted, although black shorts were introduced in 1901 and the New Zealanders were known as ‘‘The All Blacks’’ from 1905.
The New Zealand Rugby Museum (NZRM) website says a member of the Ellison family believed two Maori proverbs were behind their ancestor’s desire to have a silver fern on the black jersey.
They were: ‘‘ When one warrior dies another arises’’ or ‘‘ Mate atu he toa ara mai he toa’’ and ‘‘ When one fern dies another arises’’ or ‘‘ Mate atu he tetakura ara mai he tetakura’’.
The NZRM noted the proverbs were ‘‘marvellously appropriate for a game that is all about support play’’.
A part Ma¯ori player from Southland, Billy Stead, was one of the key figures of the famous 1905-06 tour.
‘‘Billy Stead was the vice captain. Everyone remarks about Dave Gallaher, the captain, and the influence he had, but Billy Stead was the unseen¯influence,’’O Palenski said.
Stead and Gallaher co-authored a book, The Complete Rugby Footballer, which became a seminal text and was still being hailed in 2011 by ESPN rugby writer Graham Jenkins as ‘‘one of the most influential books produced in the realms of rugby literature’’.
Stead, a skilful first five-eighth, captained the All Blacks in two tests against the touring AngloWelsh team in 1908.
The New Zealand Ma¯ori team concept was devised by Bay of Plenty official Ned Parata, who became the NZRFU’s first Ma¯ori life member. Stead was coaxed out of semi-retirement to be vicecaptain of the first New Zealand Ma¯ori touring team to Australia in 1910. He later coached New Zealand Ma¯ori and became the first Ma¯ori to coach the All Blacks – in two tests against the touring Springboks in 1921.
Warbrick, Ellison and Stead were Ma¯ori rugby’s early trailblazers, but Wairoa-born George Nepia was, according to A Concise History of New Zealand tribute in 2005, New Zealand rugby’s ‘‘first rugby superstar’’.
The mercurial fullback was the star of the 1924 Invincible’s tour to Britain,Ireland and France, playing all 32 games as a 20-yearold as well as leading the team haka. At the peak of his powers, Nepia was denied a chance to tour South Africa in 1928 on racial grounds but returned for the tour to Australia in 1929 and a home series against the British and Irish Lions in 1930 before taking up a professional rugby league career in England.
All told, Nepia played just nine tests for the All Blacks, but is still ranked as one of New Zealand’s greatest fullbacks.
The genial East Coast dairy farmer remained enormously popular and was immortalised in a biography, I, George Nepia, and in a memorable This is Your Life television documentary. South Africa controversy The racist South African political regime’s opposition to non-white players prevented some of New Zealand’s finest Ma¯ori footballers from playing away series against the Springboks.
Among those unable to tour South Africa were livewire halfback Vince Bevan and gifted centre Johnny Smith (winner of the first Tom French Cup for Ma¯ori player of the year) in 1949. By 1960, when the All Blacks were next due to tour South Africa, public outrage was widespread in New Zealand at the ‘‘No Ma¯ori’’ policy.
Anti-apartheid group C.A.R.E (Citizens Association for Racial Equality) held ‘‘No Ma¯oris, No Tour’’ protests. Nepia, his fellow 1924 Invincibles team-mate Louie Paewai and Bevan spoke at a rally in Wellington in August 1959. Almost 160,000 people (from a population of 2.3 million) signed a petition against the tour by an allwhite All Blacks team.
The All Blacks did tour without Ma¯ori players in 1960, but in 1970 South Africa’s apartheid regime allowed the entry of several players, including the great Ma¯ori halfback Sid Going and teenage Samoan wing Bryan Williams, as ‘‘honorary whites’’.
In 2010, the South Africa government’s sports minister Rev Makhenkesi Arnold Stofile officially apologised to Ma¯ori players left out of All Blacks tours to the republic in 1928, 1949 and 1960.
Going was among a number of Ma¯ori to make a mark in the All Blacks in the successful 1960s era, alongside mobile flanker Waka Nathan and the silken skilled first five-eighths Mac Herewini.
Most successful All Black teams have had Ma¯ori in key roles – Wayne (Buck) Shelford at No 8 with his brother-in-law Steve McDowall at loosehead prop in the 1987 Rugby World Cup winning team, brothers Zinzan and Robin Brooke in the 1990s, Israel Dagg, Cory Jane, Richard Kahui and Piri Weepu in the 2011 Rugby World Cup champion group through to Aaron Smith, Nehe MilnerSkudder and Joe Moody in 2015. NZ Maori Ned Parata’s dream of a New Zealand Ma¯ori team bore fruit with the first official tour to Australia in 1910. Some 117 years later, NZ Ma¯ori (branded by NZ Rugby since 2012 as the Ma¯ori All Blacks) have played 117 games against international teams for 72 wins.
They have beaten Australia six times, England twice and scored a famous victory over the 2005 British and Irish Lions and have toured overseas many times. Black Ferns Ma¯ori contribution to New Zealand rugby does not begin and end with men. Wahine have proved equally skilled at sport once dubbed ‘‘the game for all New Zealand’’.
Farah Palmer captained the Black Ferns to three women’s World Cup victories between 1998 and 2006. Today, the Massey University lecturer serves on New Zealand Rugby’s board and chairs the New Zealand Ma¯ori board. The national women’s championship is named the Farah Palmer Cup.
The Black Ferns’ 2017 World Cup winning squad also contained a number of outstanding Ma¯ori players, including try-scoring wing Portia Woodman, whose father, Kawhena, and uncle, Fred, were former All Blacks. Haka Ma¯ori influence on rugby has extended beyond the pitch. The All Blacks haka has had much to do with the recognition of Ma¯ori culture worldwide – and Buck Shelford can take a lot of credit for that.
Palenski said for many years All Black haka attempts amounted to ‘‘an embarrassing shuffle of the feet’’ and ‘‘waving of the hands, and that was about it’’ and they ‘‘hadn’t always done the haka at home’’ matches.
The approach to the haka began to change in 1985 when Shelford and hooker Hika Reid – former Western Heights High School teammates in Rotorua – took charge on the cultural front on an Argentina tour.
‘‘One of the players came to me and asked me if we should do the haka,’’ Shelford said in a book, Buck Shelford – The Man, The Story, The Truth. ‘‘I told him to go and said Hika. I wasn’t into my reo then like I am now.’’
‘‘The player asked me if I’d talk to Hika. So I did. ‘Hik, the boys want to do the haka. What do you reckon? [Reid said]: ‘Nah. The Pakeha – they don’t know what they’re bloody doing’.’’ He was right!’’
Shelford told the players that if they were going to do the haka, they would have to do it properly. The team put it to the vote and agreed – with just one dissenting voice – to learn the correct words and actions.
‘‘Once they got into it, they realised it could be quite a powerful psychological weapon,’’ Shelford said. ‘‘People don’t realise how much it pumps you up.’’
He and Reid held practice sessions for the players focused on learning the right words and pronunciation.
‘‘I can’t say we really nailed the haka for the first time,’’ said Shelford, who went on to lead over 30 haka for the All Blacks. ‘‘We had to have all the good buggers at the front to hide the ones who were struggling with it.’’
Palenski said the All Blacks had developed the haka, from 1987 Rugby World Cup tournament, when it was ‘‘still a bit amateurish’’ to a ‘‘highly choreographed’’ version today.
‘‘There was talk 10 years after the first World Cup about whether the All Blacks were doing the haka too much and it was becoming too big a thing, and whether they should drop it for a while,’’ Palenski said. ‘‘But it was put to the players and the majority voted to keep doing it, and just as well.’’ Mana University of Canterbury director of sport development Professor Richard Light says the All Blacks’ haka ‘‘reflects the bicultural nature of New Zealand society’’. Light and colleague Remy Hassanin conducted a study into rugby coaching influences in New Zealand, Australia and South Africa and looked at what influence culture played in shaping the sport.
Their research revealed three prevailing themes, including the influence of Ma¯ori culture on New Zealand rugby, Light said.
The New Zealand study focused on three Pakeha rugby coaches, who had all talked about the pride they had felt at performing a haka as school first XV players. The researchers noted New Zealand rugby’s ‘‘collective’’ approach, which was ‘‘a very strong part of Maori culture,’’ Light said.
That meant players were encouraged to put the team and club first, ahead of their own interests. Maori principles, such as mana, were very important, in rugby, said Light, who believes the All Blacks’ collectivist approach is ‘‘a model for business’’. Most people, he said, ‘‘accept that Ma¯ori influence on New Zealand rugby is extremely powerful’’.