Rainbow Warriors

The club is also moving – very quickly – with the times, and many would say more quickly than expected. Christchurch as a city has changed following the earthquakes and whether the Heroes’ firm and fast acceptance into a traditionally masculine and potentially threatening environment is a result of that change is impossible to say, but what isn’t up for debate is that improved tolerance is a good place to start for a city’s rebuild.

The Heroes are Canterbury’s only gay and inclusive rugby team and have just finished their first season – their final game was on the day the Crusaders beat the Lions to win back-to-back Super Rugby championships - and they celebrated on the following Friday night with a function at the city’s casino, attended by at least 300 people, all of whom left thoroughly entertained early the next morning after several drag acts, a strip show or two, and, finally a dance party.

It hardly needs to be stated that it wasn’t your usual end-of-season rugby bash. It is said that some of their (straight) clubmates have become rather envious at how organised and together the Heroes are; not to mention the sidelong glances at the strong support they receive on the sidelines and their halftime energy snacks.

As a team they are following in the sprig marks of the New Zealand Falcons, a gay and inclusive team associated with Auckland’s Ponsonby club, but the Heroes are forging their own path in Christchurch, a city traditionally seen as extremely conservative. Rugby clubs in Christchurch are seen as even more conservative; they have traditionally been a bastion of macho culture and seen rightly, or wrongly, as intolerant of difference.

But the Heroes, who take their position as role models extremely seriously – knowing they will be scrutinised by both the gay and straight communities on and off the field – have found that isn’t necessarily the case.

What are the team all about? Manager Andrew Rusbatch, a 39-year-old who works in publishing IT, takes up the story:  “It’s just about guys wanting to play rugby but it represents a little bit more than that for us as a community.

“What we’ve found since myself and [fellow manager] Rawa [Karetai] and the team members have been involved is that there’s often the perception that there’s this massive amount of homophobia in sport… I guess the gay community and straight community had their pre-conceptions. We expected a bit more of a backlash or homophobia and thus far there hasn’t been – we’ve actually been really well supported by the club.”

Setting up the team in the Senior Division 4 competition and playing on a Saturday afternoon is one thing, walking into a clubrooms on a Saturday night when the drink is flowing is quite another for those still mentally scarred by the attitudes from within the sport many of them played as youngsters.

They are a small team size-wise and there were many injuries throughout the season. In the last two weeks of the season, two players were taken off the field on stretchers, one with concussion and the other with five broken bones in a foot. But there was improvement too.

Loose forward Wedlake, asked about the “results” this season against the other seven teams in the division whom they played twice, quite rightly turned the question on its head.

“It depends on what you consider results,” he says. “The scorelines, yes, but the results in terms of morale in the team is always positive. We’ve been asked, twice, I think, whether we wanted to stop because the score was at 100 points but no one wanted to stop. It’s an 80-minute game and we want to play the whole 80 minutes.”

Rusbatch: “All new teams go through that. Another team at the club, the Canardlys, have a 25-year history with the club. They play in the same division. They used to get thumped every week too but the trick is to keep turning up. And we’re learning and improving.

“Through the competition we play each team twice and every team has come back after our second game and said ‘wow, you guys are really improving’. We’ve started to play cohesively as a team and we’re learning a lot. The scoreline may not always reflect that but we’re putting in solid tackles and the ball skills are increasing. The general skill level of the team is increasing.”

Wedlake: “A lot of the guys have never touched a rugby ball before. You’re coaching at different levels.”

Karetai: “If you’re looking at results in terms of building a community and a strong, safe environment, being able to go across different spectrums of rugby, community, family, then that is a win. We’ve got huge support through the community.”

A look at the Heroes’ website shows how much financial support they have received in only their first year. They are now planning fundraisers for not only their own team and club but also the wider Christchurch community. Their can-do attitude is probably one of the reasons why they are so popular at the club.

“It is fairly typical of the gay community – we are all quite well connected and we do tend to help each other out,” says Rusbatch. “The number of sponsors we have… I guess it’s for two reasons – we’re doing something that’s quite different in terms of getting involved in sport which isn’t something the gay community has traditionally been involved in and secondly the gay community tend to look after our own.”