HACKED OFF!
England’s 2003 hero Dawson accused of disrespecting All Blacks with mock haka
MATT DAWSON was criticised by new Zealanders yesterday for mocking the supposedly fearsome haka in a frivolous video.
In a two-minute advert for a clothing brand, England’s world Cup-winning scrum-half turns the tribal pre-match Maori war dance into a backside-wiggling parody.
Dawson’s version was called the ‘Hakarena’ — a hybrid of the haka and the 1994 song Macarena from spanish pop duo Los del Rio.
In the video Dawson said: ‘England have an amazing chance to be crowned world champions for just the second time in history, but there’s a major obstacle: the All Blacks.
‘The current world champions are in amazing form with awesome power, strength, depth and one secret weapon: the haka.
‘They’ve used it to intimidate us. They think they have an advantage over us. They think they’ve won the game before a ball has been kicked.
‘But I’m telling you what, we’ve got our own secret weapon.’
He and players from London team Battersea Ironsides then perform the haka that slips into a version of Macarena.
‘Have a go at the hakarena,’ he exhorts England fans. ‘ Maybe we’ll put the All Blacks off their rhythm.’ Humorous or crass? It was certainly not a laughing matter in new Zealand, where the haka has been close to the people’s hearts since it was performed by the native Team of 1888-1889.
sir Pita sharples, former co-leader of the Maori Party, said the send-up was ‘insulting’.
‘The haka is done as a way of honouring the enemy,’ said sharples. ‘You do it if you’re up for a challenge. By doing the haka as the All Blacks do, it’s recognising the worth of the other side. so if they’re doing something to mock the haka, then that’s pretty shameful.’
some of the new Zealand media were even more scathing, with one report saying that the video was ‘in true, pompous Pommy style’.
At the All Blacks’ hotel in Teddington, where the champions are preparing for their opening Pool C match against Argentina at wembley on sunday, the players handled the situation diplomatically, probably as a result of word in their ears from the team’s PR staff.
They said the video, which was recorded for men’s clothing range Jacamo, would not blow them off course and resisted the invitation to describe the advert as disrespectful. Prop Keven Mealamu would go no further than to say: ‘I have been doing the haka since I was four. It means a lot to us. It is part of history and traditions as All Blacks. But to see him do that is quite funny.’
However, an insider indicated that the squad were privately unimpressed by the rogue haka, believing that other nations, including England, should not make fun of their heritage. The new Zealand rugby team perform two versions of the haka. The first is the Ka Mate, which tells the story of one of new Zealand’s chiefs, Te Rauparaha, being chased by enemies and seeking the protection of a relative.
The second haka, performed since 2005, is Kapa o Pango, or the team in black.
It is a celebration of all things new Zealand.
sharples said that it was fine for opposition teams to stand in an uninterested huddle while the haka was being performed, but he warned against England fans following Dawson’s prompt to do the hakarena.
‘To mimic it and deliberately bring it into ridicule is, to me, insulting,’ he said. ‘The Maoris and new Zealanders in London could react to that big time.’
In a slight irony, All Black great Jonah Lomu yesterday performed the haka at a promotional stunt for MasterCard.
If that was selling the war dance’s soul at a price, it was at least performed authentically.
Dawson’s dad-dancing- at- awedding antics, which he surely hams up partly as a send-up of himself, fills the waiting time before the mouthwatering prospect of England and new Zealand actually clashing on the pitch next month.