NZ rugby legend Waka Nathan. Photo / Photosport
OPINION:
Congratulations to Lisa Carrington (Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki, Ngāti Porou) who was named the most influential Māori sports personality of the last 30 years by Māori Television. The range of Māori sportspeople was amazing, from cricket to league to netball to squash to basketball to wood chopping.
We all have an opinion with "greatest" lists, and for mine, I would have had Portia Woodman higher than her 12th place, even ahead of the top ranked rugby player on the list, the great Zinzan Brooke. As an inspiration to young women playing rugby Woodman is so stunning no marketing team could have invented a more vibrant figure.
On the subject of great Māori sportspeople, if they ever choose the most influential person of all-time in Māori rugby, I believe one man stands alone - Waka Nathan.
As a great All Black flanker in the 1960s, the French called him Le Panther Noir, the Aussies Whacker, and he is possibly the most humble, generous spirited man to ever wear the All Black jersey. More importanty, he's a man without whom it's possible Māori rugby might have died.
He played 14 tests, never in a losing All Black team, and just four years after he retired, still only 30 years old, he took over the coaching of the New Zealand Māori side.
Māori rugby desperately needed a man with his mana and skills. In 1969 a nadir was hit when two tests with Tonga were lost, and several leading players made themselves unavailable for further selection for the Māori team.
Nathan was well aware of the fact opposition to having a Māori team wasn't confined to Pākehā with an anti-Māori axe to grind.
When the Māori team played the Lions at Eden Park in '71, there was a story in the official programme for the game by former New Zealand Māori player Dr Manahi Paewai, saying "the time has come for the phasing out of Māori rugby, at least on the national scene. Māori football, as we know it, is a thing of the past".
Nathan strongly disagreed. To him Māori rugby should continue, if for no other reason, than as an inspiration to young Māori, "to avoid young guys falling by the wayside".
Nathan used the Paewai story in his team talk before the game and sent his team out so fired up they pushed the greatest Lions to tour New Zealand all the way, before eventually losing 23-12.
It was all up from there. The Māori team bowled Samoa and Fiji on tour in '72, and took revenge on Tonga in a two-match series in '75.
They even rocked the All Blacks, who in '73 were on an internal tour. A win in Rotorua was so important to the All Blacks that their coach JJ Stewart swore he'd "bare my buttocks outside the chief Post Office if we lose".
His backside would have been feeling vulnerable after 53 minutes, when the Māori side and the All Blacks were tied up at eight-all, but the All Blacks found another gear to win 18-8.
Waka Nathan is far too modest to make any such claims, but when he stepped into the coaching job Māori rugby was on the skids. By the time he stepped down, in 1977, the team's role in New Zealand sport was again secure.
Bob Dylan once told an interviewer that "the amateur is influenced, the professional steals".
In the same spirit, I'd encourage rugby officials in New Zealand and Australia to shamelessly pinch intact an idea from an old friend in Sydney, Peter FitzSimons, to increase the value of a try from five to six points, and decrease the value of a penalty goal to two points.
Super Rugby Aotearoa is about to benefit from two laws lifted word for word from league, a goalline dropout rather than a five-metre scrum, and a captain's referral to a television match official.
Good on them. Avoiding scrums that are sometimes reset so often you could read a 19th century Russian novel before the ball is freed up? Give that a big tick. Allow a captain on the field to listen to a player who swears he or she got the ball over the line? Great idea.
But in the end what most of us who are rugby tragics want is to see tries.
Looking back the nudging up of the value of a try could barely be called even baby steps. It went from three to four in 1971, and then four to five in 1992. It'd hardly be rushing it to increase by a point again nearly 30 years later.
Being just old enough to remember the uproar when a Lions side scored four three-point tries to none against the All Blacks in 1959, and still lost the test 18-17 when Don Clarke kicked six penalty goals, I'm surprised it then took the masters at the International Rugby Board 12 more years to make a try more valuable.
The problem now with rejigging the points system will be that here, and to an even greater degree in Australia, rugby needs to keep moving with the times, to always remember that in the 21st century sport is a commercial product, which needs to keep looking shiny and fresh.
On the other hand in Britain, especially in England, if Covid ever goes away they'll still be able to pack 80,000 people into Twickenham to watch the sporting version of Mogadon that is the norm for Six Nations tests. And yes, I know there was excitement last weekend when Scotland beat England 11-6, but that had nothing to do with the non-existent spectacle, and everything to do with the irritating Eddie Jones and the most disliked side in the international game being beaten.
It won't be easy at world boardroom level to push for tries to be way more important than they are now, making it harder to win games by putting pressure on up front and having a skilled kicker.
But it shouldn't be impossible. Before the World Cup began there were northern hemisphere officials who swore it'd only happen over their dead bodies. Australia and New Zealand made sure the Cup arrived anyway. They should do the same to make tries, not kicks, the gold standard.
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