Smart alec fails to wrong-foot us

Jared Smith

Maybe it's only because we have vague interest in what they say every two years or so, but the English press sure know how to push a Kiwi rugby fan's buttons.

Most of it is such a snooty rinse and repeat from previous November tours that we wonder why we give them any credence - the All Blacks forwards are old, Richie McCaw is a cheater who the IRB protects, they play so often they won't "want it enough", yadda yadda and so forth.

But in searching for some angle other than the obvious - that this English team has lost four-straight to New Zealand since 2012 and have no test footy recently while the All Blacks, despite playing eight games, are still fit and keen - The Telegraph's Oliver Brown decided to make a song and dance ... about our song and dance.

"To grasp the anomalousness of the haka, it helps to transplant it beyond a rugby context," was how his drivel started.

Because the United States basketball team seemed confused about the Tall Blacks version of Ka Mate at their recent World Championships, somehow proved that despite over 125 years as an ingrained rugby tradition, the Maori challenge is scarcely more than a circus display these days, Brown opined.

"One might argue that the acrobats of Cirque du Soleil could induce much the same reaction, just without the contorted faces."

For those of you wondering, 'anomalousness' is defined as being "inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected", credit: Merriam-Webster Online.

Brown's making it the sixth word from his soap box makes him a 'Widdy' - "someone who flexes their intellect in an attempt to make people think that they are cleverer than they actually are", credit: Urban Dictionary Online.

The scribe went on to moan how poor old England cannot take a "righteous stand" because IRB has rules banning them from approaching the haka, lest the ever-so sensitive All Blacks become offended.

"It all adds to the suspicion that the haka is, for all its vibrancy as a spectacle, scarcely more than a circus display these days," Brown drew from his cultural expertise.

"Its sheer stage-management is of a piece with the creeping commercialisation of the All Blacks."

Name me one-time Buck Shelford or Norm Hewitt got their panties in a bunch because an opposing player was willing to stand in front of them as they growled in te reo that this meeting on the field of honour "Tis death! tis death! Tis life! 'tis life!"

Fortunately, England coach Stuart Lancaster, who let's just say for argument's sake probably knows more about the 15-man code than Brown, acknowledged the haka for what it is, and what it does.

"The boys are inspired by it.

"It's an important part of New Zealand's culture and history and heritage, and I think we should respect it.

"I think the boys enjoy facing it and I think the crowd will enjoy it."

Still, Brown has got the runs on the board when it comes to grasping at straws.

He is the reason security has been beefed up around the team after slipping into the Lancaster Suite at Kensington's Royal Garden Hotel last year and scribbling down the motivational sayings left on the New Zealanders' whiteboard.

Ah, those All Blacks must be so desperate if the coaches have to write up "We are the most dominant team in the history of the world" on the wall, Brown gleefully crowed.

He used this week's haka-slashing column to defend his illegal entry at the time. Again, these All Blacks are just "remarkably thin-skinned".

"I have even been condemned as a 'snoop' by the slavishly obedient Kiwi press corps," he wailed. Aw, you poor thing.

"The reality, though, is that the so-called security left a double door to the team quarters wide open. It was a lapse that could easily have been laughed off."

Awesome, dude, your water-tight defence was "nobody stopped me trespassing, so I did it".

I'll be at several events from Victoria Park to the Castlecliff Golf Club this weekend and I'll be sure to check all the cars just in case one of them has been left unlocked. Not my fault. Free ride home.