Memo Britain: We play rugby in colour now

Fourteen years ago, noted journalist Warwick Roger wrote a book on the 1956 Springbok tour of New Zealand.

Old Heroes is excellent, fascinating for its look at the influence that visit had on New Zealand life through 11-year-old eyes.

It was the first time New Zealand had beaten South Africa in a rugby series in 35 years of trying.

Roger talked to many of the players and heard how they remembered the tour. It was, and I'm sure still is, the most graphic example of rugby holding the nation in an iron grip.

If you want to stretch the point, it united a large chunk of New Zealand in a common goal: defeating the enemy.

And if you are to believe many British rugby people and writers, that depth of emotion awaits the Lions in a few weeks.

Try this from former Lions and Irish hooker Keith Wood: "Everybody in the [New Zealand] street will tell you your arm is in the wrong place when you are binding or throwing into the lineout. Or why the scrum is being skewed. They all know it, almost intimately." A nice line, but utter rubbish.

Or Nigel Melville, who made a couple of appearances as a halfback on the 1983 tour and writes wide-eyed that: "In New Zealand rugby is everything. It's not only the national sport, it makes the front, back and inside pages."

A bit like soccer in the United Kingdom then.

Or Ian McGeechan, twice a Lions tourist as a player, including 1977 here, and three times a coach including the 1993 trip: "We're not just taking on the All Blacks. We're taking on an entire country."

Let's be clear. This year's Lions tour is easily the biggest sporting event in New Zealand and the most significant rugby event on the planet this year.

But these sort of comments hint at an outdated image of New Zealand. If you look hard you can still find the old line about the cities shutting down for the weekends doing the rounds. Having tried in vain to find somewhere to eat in Manchester at 11.15pm one night during the Commonwealth Games three years ago, I feel a pot and kettle line coming on.

The face of New Zealand in 2005 has changed markedly since the Lions were last here 12 years ago, and is unrecognisable from the grey, buttoned-down 1950s.

Hands up those who'd buy a CD of the radio commentaries of the three tests? In 1971, the album of Bob Irvine's calls was a hit.

Take a stroll down Dominion Rd, Lambton Quay or Colombo St, enter a restaurant and ask the waitress who Brian O'Driscoll, Lawrence Dallaglio or Stephen Jones is. I'm picking the answer would dent this idea many Northerners have about New Zealanders obsessing over the old game.

This week it's been revealed how many tickets for the Lions' eight non-test tour matches remain unsold. About 60,000 were not picked up through the New Zealand Rugby Union's ballot system. Does that sound like an obsessed nation?

The public didn't buy the warnings to get in quick or miss out to the hordes of British Barmy Army-ites on their way here.

Perhaps the prices were too high, or perhaps punters thought they'd leave it until closer to game time. Maybe TV has more appeal for a tour when every match will be played under lights. Invercargill on a June night? No thanks.

Does this sound like a rabid nation slavering for a munch of Lion pie?

Balancing that, there's no question that, ranging from mild to passionate, more New Zealanders have some degree of interest in rugby than any other sport.

Yes, it'll be fun and there will be a fervent desire to see the All Blacks win among the fans. Yes, there is a multitude of reasons to be proud of what New Zealand has given rugby, and vice versa.

There will still be fury on the phone lines if the All Blacks don't win. Players will plunge from champs to chumps in a flash. Some of it will be nasty, vindictive stuff, too.

But as the world has shrunk you'd like to think New Zealanders have a wider range of interests and are a bit more worldly than the tunnel-visioned image painted of us elsewhere.