SPORTRITE - Time rehearsing haka better spent on game

With Tim Eves
Having endured what must rank, surely and hopefully for eternity, as the worst display by the Kiwi rugby league team ever, there is a groundswell of antipathy towards Gary Kemble and his team of obscure, moderately talented players.
This general malaise set in just before the Kiwis departed for a four-test tour of Great Britain and France, to be precise about four seconds after the Kiwis delivered that atrocious pre-match haka in Wellington two weeks ago then promptly trotted around the stadium like headless chooks and lost 58-0.
The local pre-match cheerleading squad might as well have stayed on the field, ditched their pompoms and played instead.
They could have got nil. And delivered a more convincing haka.
It might have been culturally insensitive, mind, but entertaining nonetheless.
We have since been assailed by a new version of the haka displayed - or is that performed, depicted, acted ... who knows what the correct verb is here, by the All Golds.
The All Golds, in case you were too busy ironing the curtains and missed it, were the Kiwi's team with Kangaroo Steve Price included and Stacey Jones at halfback as an invitation player.
The All Golds, by the way, wore black and played a game against "The Northern Union" (aka England) that had something to do with a centenary.
All this blurred the significance, or lack of it, of the haka. Just why did the All Golds do the haka anyway? It also raises an interesting point about the haka. These days, just what is the point?
From a coaching point of view the haka must be an infuriating distraction. The war dance, which these days is politely called a "challenge", takes hours to perfect, and if not rehearsed is usually interpreted as either culturally offensive or as a portent of doom for the team performing it.
That in itself is strange. Historical studies of the haka never refer to a choreographed display. One doubts if Te Rauparaha, the Maori chief credited with creating the "ka mate" haka we see most often, would have been all that upset if his warriors got their timing a bit wrong just before slaughtering the enemy.
Despite this, New Zealand teams spend several hours practising the correct way to slap their thighs, poke their tongues out and stamp their feet, time that could (for the Kiwis anyway) be better spent passing the ball, catching the ball, counting to six or perhaps learning what a head high tackle is.
Note to Kiwis: The neck starts just above the shoulders.
But this strange affectation over the haka is now tiresome.
Usually a personal highlight, especially when the All Blacks play, the pre-match display has lost something in the delivery.
When England lined up to play South Africa in the Rugby World Cup final, it was almost a relief when the anthems stopped and play started without the haka interlude.
These days international opponents seem to have worked out ways to diffuse any psychological edge derived from the haka anyway.
Of all the reactions, perhaps the French have mastered it best. At the Rugby World Cup Gallic crowds acknowledged the haka with a stony silence, as you might a painting in an art gallery or a poetry reading at a library.
They didn't seem to be "challenged". They did not appear to be culturally enlightened. The players were apparently delightfully unaffected.
Very nice, the crowd seemed to be saying with their ovation, lovely choreography.
Until the haka regains its rightful status, whatever that is, it might be time to shelve it.
What better way of distracting international opponents. They would start the game wondering why they weren't even good enough to see a haka, let alone receive one.