A loss to the Wallabies would play havoc with the simple, convenient dynamics of our transtasman sporting rivalry: you guys can have most things, we'll have the rugby. Photo / Brett Phibbs
A loss to the Wallabies would play havoc with the simple, convenient dynamics of our transtasman sporting rivalry: you guys can have most things, we'll have the rugby. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Rewind to March and a frenzied, floodlit Eden Park. There was Grant Elliott reaching down to lift a stricken Dale Steyn off the Eden Park turf - the image of the semifinal.
Fast-forward a few days to the Melbourne Cricket Ground as the sun dipped below the concrete monolith. There was Brad Haddin sledging Dan Vettori off the field in his last one-day international appearance - an ugly soundtrack to the final.
Those two contrasting scenes from this year's Cricket World Cup also fuel a romantic, if tenuous, narrative when it comes to our view of transtasman sporting sensibilities: Australia are cast as the unlovable bullies; New Zealand the humble and valiant underdogs.
It suits us to play that role, even if it's largely manufactured.
For years, in fact, we spent a zillion wasted man-hours trying to be more Australian. In some sports, like hockey and netball, it still continues.
Take cricket, again. Until the 1990s we played a game more closely aligned to English sensibilities, which is where our few professionals went to ply their trade. Then somebody worked out England wasn't very good.
Rather than trying to create a national identity, New Zealand Cricket hired a bunch of Australian coaches and administrators, started sledging incessantly and talking tough off the pitch. It worked ... for a little while, then it just got embarrassing.
Rather than trying to be the best they could be, NZC was in fact condemning their flagship team to be an inferior version of the real thing across the sea.
But cricket is far from alone. Cycling, basketball, swimming (bloody swimming), they've all, in the past, gone down the route of imitating rather than innovating, with varying degrees of failure. Hockey is deeply embedded in that inferiority complex as we speak and netball, painfully, looks to be following suit.
And then there's the Warriors. Every year, depending on whether the wind's blowing from the west or the east, you'll find people debating whether we need more or less "Australianisation" of the club. For every Steve Price, Kevin Campion, Micheal Luck and Brent Tate, there's been a Manoa Thompson, Dane Nielsen, Jayson Bukuya and Chad Townsend - as the club's approach to signing West Islanders.
After beating South Africa in the Cricket World Cup semifinal this year, Grant Elliott helps up a disappointed Dale Steyn, a gentlemanly gesture not shown by Wallaby George Gregan when his team knocked out the All Blacks in the 2003 World Cup semifinal. Photo / Jason Oxenham
We want Australians because they've been hardened in the furnaces of their junior and development leagues, but the Warriors are forced to overpay for some fairly ordinary stock, who often give the impression that they'd rather be anywhere, even Penrith, than Penrose.
The Australian influence at the club over the years has been inconsistent, much like the team itself.
See, this Australian thing, it's complicated.
Rugby has always stood alone and above that.
The All Blacks have won more than 70 per cent of all the tests they've played against the Wallabies. It's our national sport, a hegemony, while it remains steadfastly the third most popular oval-ball sport in Australia.
When it comes to rugby, we should be the bullies and they should be the pups yapping at our heels, except they don't. They refuse to defer to their superiors and, yes, it irks.
From [David Campese] Campo's baiting to George Gregan's "four more years" to Quade Cooper's cheap shots on The Greatest Player, Nay Man, That Ever Lived, the Wallabies have refused to acknowledge their place on rugby's totem.
"When you look at Australia, in some ways it's different - they're like our brother. You're always scrapping with your brother, your near neighbour. There's always been that one-upmanship," Ian Foster [All Blacks assistant coach] said this week.
In truth, it's not just Australia that refuses to bow down in the face of All Blacks greatness. Sometimes we, the public, take it for granted, too.
"We've become immune to success. We've mainstreamed it," said national sports tsar Peter Miskimmin recently. "What the All Blacks do, in winning 80 per cent of their games over history, is extraordinary and I'm not sure they have really got the credit they deserve for it."
If the All Blacks have "mainstreamed" success, Australians, as a nation, mainline it. They have little respect for those that don't win and aren't afraid to show it - "Second is just first loser, mate," sums up their attitude.
Australia's sporting record is as golden as their soil and the ends always justify the means.
A loss tomorrow and a third world championship to two in favour of the Wallabies would sting - it's not a pebble under the beach towel, but a huge lump of granite with serated edges. It would play havoc with the simple, convenient dynamics of our transtasman sporting rivalry: you guys can have most things, we'll have the rugby.
