Richie or Stan? Why not enjoy them both
Now the Super Rugby Aotearoa final has been won, almost inevitably, by the Canterbury Crusaders, New Zealand can sit back and reflect on a unique season of pandemic-affected . . . just kidding.
The Super Rugby Trans-Tasman competition – a planned but somewhat rushed sequel – kicks off tonight with the Otago Highlanders playing the Queensland Reds in Dunedin, and the Wellington Hurricanes playing the New South Wales Waratahs in Sydney. I realise a lot of readers do not require the locations of the teams, but many Kiwis do.
For some, the idea of the Hurricanes taking on the Warratahs is just a Friday night bar fight between rugby players and a country rock band from the 90s, probably over the Interislander. It would be mustwatch television (I’d put even money on Barry Saunders v Dane Coles), but factually incorrect.
The Crusaders – undeniably New Zealand’s most accomplished and worst-named team – will be hosting the ACT Brumbies in Christchurch while, as punishment for losing the Aotearoa final, the Waikato Chiefs are being sent to Perth to take on the Western Force.
Last but . . . well, also . . . least, the Auckland Blues will be in Melbourne to play the Rebels, whose team song is Do You Hear the People Sing?, from
Les Mise´rables, because the beating of their fans’ hearts echoes the beating of the drums. Or they just love winding up the rest of Australia. Considering the Blues’ form, they might consider making their team song Memory, from Cats.
If that sounds silly, bear in mind that Wellington fans, including me, have been gleefully chanting ‘‘Hurricanes! Hurricanes!’’ for 25 years without once checking what hemisphere we are in.
The sentence ‘‘The Hurricanes are running the ball back in nearcyclonic winds’’ is the kind of scientific backflip that can only exist in the linguistic Narnia of sports commentary. It is, after all, the artistic licence of sports
The [transTasman] rugby compe tition runs for a month, or an entire arts festival, depending on how you measure time.
commentators that makes them so entertaining.
The rugby competition runs for a month, or an entire arts festival, depending on how you measure time. Before the little voice in your head whispers ‘‘But sport is better’’, or ‘‘But arts is better’’, have a sip of coffee and ask yourself what that voice is actually talking about. Because this perceived competition between arts and sports in New Zealand is a farce.
When we talk about Richie Mo’unga (Canterbury’s secondfavourite Richie) manipulating teammates and opponents to move in certain directions around his designated performance space, we use the word ‘‘conduct’’.
When he runs between players gracefully, he is described as ‘‘dancing’’. His facial hair is arguably some of New Zealand’s most consistent art.
Likewise, no-one would accuse the Weta stunt team, or its motioncapture artists who’ve helped create the performances of Marvel’s Avengers, of not being athletic. Sure, people might point at directors, or stand-up comedians, or writers in cafes on laptops, and go ‘‘Athletes? Really?’’ But those artists simply have the athleticism of chess players, Olympic shooters, or New Zealand’s fourth-favourite summer sport, lawn bowls.
It becomes convenient to pitch arts and sport against each other politically, especially around Budget time. Why should rowing have ‘‘this’’ when Shakespeare lacks ‘‘that’’? A better question is: ‘‘Do the rowers know Shakespeare?’’ The history of both suggests at least a couple of ‘‘Cambridge crossovers’’.
We open our most sacred sporting games, the All Blacks’ test matches, with a cultural performance. And when other countries try to deny us, or disrespect, that cultural performance, things go very badly for them. Young New Zealanders who dream of representing the country in a team sport also dream of being able to do a haka with their team.
They want to do the artistic performance, and then play the sport. It is not a matter of either/or, it is natural to do both.
Does it always work? No. Israel Dagg rapping on an Air NZ safety video will haunt many to their graves. Not even Stan Walker’s mountainous talent could save him. But Walker couldn’t dance between five South African defenders in a Wellington wind to score 2010’s most audacious try. Is that try better than Walker’s Like it’s Over? Why pit them against each other, when you can rewatch the sporting highlight with the song playing loudly? That might be abhorrent to some, but art often is.
The Super Rugby Trans-Tasman competition concludes on June 18, when the winner will undoubtedly be crowned the best Canterbury Crusaders of the pandemic.