The Orange

As an introductory comment, it’s great to see a sports portal emerge in NZ which provides a place for incisive, thoughtful and analytical blogs (and also this one).

So big ups to the team at NZsport – now, do I get any prizes for the most gratuitous plug for another site??

While I’m at it, it was also great to come across a decent NZ rugby site (from the same above source) that provided some decent grass-roots analysis of rugby issues – the Silver Fern.

Bartman recently wrote about the NZRU decision to can the Maori AB’s in 2009.

Frankly, the NZRU seems to have got away with the proverbial by planning to put the Maori AB’s into cotton wool this year.

As Bartman notes:

watching the Junior All Blacks is like watching the second XV at school – only mums, dads and girlfriends turn up.

Mind you, over the professional era, the Maori have consistently struggled to get access to their number one team.

One of the main criticisms of NZ rugby over recent years has been the willingness to sacrifice rugby’s heritage over dollars.  To be francis, in the main, I tend to accept the need for change but this is one of those occasions where common sense should have been applied.

Beyond the playing field, The Maori team has a pivotal part to play in the politics of rugby.

The sad and embarassing willingness of NZ’s acceptance of white rugby teams touring SA has to be balanced with the frankly bizarre tradition of NZ Maori playing SA, including the infamous 1981 Tour.

The inaugural tour by the Springboks in 1921 featured a game against the NZ Maori (ironically in Napier where the 1981 team also played) leading to a South African journalist to send a cable back home:

BAD ENOUGH HAVING TO PLAY OFFICIALLY DESIGNATED NEW ZEALAND NATIVES, BUT SPECTACLE THOUSANDS EUROPEANS FRANTICALLY CHEERING ON BAND OF COLOURED MEN TO DEFEAT MEMBERS OF OWN RACE WAS TOO MUCH FOR SPRINGBOKS WHO FRANKLY DISGUSTED.

OK, so that was almost 90 years ago.

Things are definitely going to be a lot tougher in terms of economic measurements.  Gee, some of the AB’s won’t be drive new Fords!

But to risk throwing away the legacy of the NZ Maori in the name of short term cost saving doesn’t make cents or sense.

Filed under: Rugby