Editorial, Tuesday September 22, 2015

Peter Jackson, editor, The Northland Age

Twenty-four hours into RWC 2015 (at the time of writing) and the signs aren't good. Twice we've seen tries awarded then annulled, on the first occasion apparently thanks to a vitriolic response from tens of thousands of English spectators to repeat screenings on a Fijian knock-on, by two of the best referees in the game.

Efforts to reduce the capacity for human error to have an impact on the outcome of a game of rugby are commendable, but can go, and arguably have gone, too far. We have reached the point where referees and touch judges no longer trust their own eyes, and wouldn't dream of making a decision until the TMO has analysed the action from every conceivable angle.

One might well say that such attention to detail could have done the All Blacks a huge favour in Cardiff in 2007, but reliance on technology to detect the smallest of errors is spoiling the game. You know something isn't working when an 80-minute match takes 100 minutes to complete, as did the opening game between England and Fiji.

This is a game that depends upon human error for a result. If no one made a mistake every match would finish nil-all, although there could be the potential to drop kick a goal or two without anyone cocking up.

The triumph of Japan's Brave Blossoms on Sunday morning against a Springbok side that was causing some consternation even before it left home brought the tournament to life less than 24 hours in, and saved the TAB any real prospect of having to shell out the $1 million it was offering to anyone who could predict the winning team and margin in every game, but the pedants are increasingly spoiling the spectacle. We could be heading for the point where we will have to wait a couple of days for a result, to give a new breed of TMOs the chance to examine the game frame by frame to ensure that no tries were awarded after an off-side 20 minutes earlier.

The real worry though is the potential that this tournament offers for those who might cause, and take, offence. We copped the first demonstration of that even before the first game, when the Poms went public with their 'Hakarena,' which, predictably, ruffled a few feathers down here.

Sir Pita Sharples was first out of the blocks, labelling the performance by former England halfback Matt Dawson and his Battersea Ironsides clubmates as shameful and insulting.

Sir Pita is programmed to be insulted, and we are used to seeing him leap to the defence of Maori culture whenever anyone is insensitive enough to mock it (or indulge in it without paying a royalty). But stone the crows, this time even the NZ Herald jumped on board. It editorialised that the English rugby community had once again embarrassed itself and shown how much respect it had for the finest team in the world.

Readers might have scoured the editorial for evidence of irony, but there wasn't any. This was serious stuff. The English, it seems, should bow before the mighty All Blacks at every opportunity, not make fun of them or the traditions that they/we hold so dear. And the Herald has a memory. "Just last year" the haka was described by The Telegraph's Oliver Brown as a 'circus display,' and in 2010 BBC commentator John Beattie said it was a 'silly one-way exercise in threatening behaviour'.

In 2015 the offending 'dance' was set to the tune of "one of the worst songs ever written". Is that an insult?

The All Blacks generally are the best team on the planet, and it's no wonder that others, not least the English, delight in seeing them beaten. They do not deserve to be presented to the world as the guardians of New Zealand culture, however, or beyond parody.

The best advice to the writer, and anyone who agrees with him, is to grow up. The All Blacks weren't fussed about the hakarena, despite the fixation of the English media and their efforts to endow it with more meaning that it warranted, and neither should we be.

The editorial got it right though, sadly, when it suggested that the manure would have hit the air conditioning had Matt Dawson and his mates dished out similar treatment to native Americans. That would have been a parody too far, but here is a chance for us, Maori, Pakeha or any other form of New Zealander, to show a little maturity, to enjoy a joke if we find it funny and to ignore it if we don't. Unless, of course, Sir Pita and the Herald intend to ban all forms of parody in this country. Goodness' knows how we must have hurt the feelings of other cultures in the past with our shameful and disgraceful references to their cultures.

We can probably exempt Australians given that they don't have a culture per se, but when was the last time Morris dancing was portrayed in this country, even by the English themselves, in some context other than taking the Mickey?

Maori, Sir Pita excluded, tend to have a robust sense of humour and enough self-esteem to endure a bit of ribbing from time to time.

All we achieve by reacting with outrage is to make ourselves look silly and precious, and most of us are neither.

Attention switched from the hakarena to an even more egregious slur from a British television commentator during the England/Fiji game. Fijians, he said, would no doubt be huddled around their television (singular) and praying their generator didn't fail them.

We all know that Fiji is a little more advanced than that, although the remark might well have had some validity in some parts of the country.

Whatever, it didn't deserve the response it got, although it was largely the rest of the world that took offence on Fiji's behalf.

There will be more before RWC 2015 is over, sure as eggs. One might confidently predict that a referee will at some point embarrass himself and show how much respect he has for the finest team in the world by penalising the All Blacks.

We know in our hearts that everyone's out to get us. We revel in our belief that we and our culture command respect, however we might, unwittingly perhaps, insult others.

Of course there must be no more talk in this country of Frogs or Poms, and we should destroy all evidence that Billy T James, Fred Dagg and David McPhail ever entertained us.

We have long disgraced ourselves with disrespectful references to others, especially the English, and it is surprising that Sir Pita hasn't picked up on this.

Surely he cannot sleep easily knowing that there are people in this country who embarrass themselves and show disrespect for other cultures on a daily basis.

In fact television is rife with disrespect, and the Poms, sorry, the English, are the worst offenders.

They've made an art form of lampooning other cultures; in Ronnie Barker they even ridiculed those with speech impediments. It is to the shame of us all that they got away with it for as long as they did, and of even deeper shame to those of us who laughed, but we know better now.

In future we shall show respect to all people and every culture, perhaps with a reminder from Sir Pita now and again to ensure we don't crack a joke without intending to.