The haka hoopla

The IRB’s heavy handed stance on teams facing the All Black haka at events like next year’s Rugby World Cup has brought a predictable, and in some cases outraged response.

It came to light during the recent IRB Womens World Cup when the Australian Rugby Union was fined because their team, the Wallaroos “advanced” on the challenge being performed by the Black Ferns.

The message is clear…any teams doing so during next years tournament will face similar action.

As a New Zealander I find it absurd, and frankly embarrassing that it should come to this, and I just hope that the All Blacks or the New Zealand Rugby Union have had nothing to do with it.

The haka has been part of New Zealand rugby since the tour by the 1905 Originals.

That ‘O5 team wanted to show the “mother” country just how far their far flung prodigal son had come, by performing well….winning, on the field. The haka also showed we were developing our own identity, and emerging from the coat tails of Britain. It provided some of the mystique for a team that swept through the tour playing great rugby, drawing massive crowds and losing just one game.

The loss came against Wales, and there was a remarkable scene beforehand. The All Blacks did their haka….from what I’ve seen on the few grainy seconds of film of that tour it was pretty loose….more “hula” than haka!

The Welsh players responded by singing their wonderful anthem “Land of my Fathers”, and with the crowd joining in it provided a massive boost to a Welsh team that went on to win a famous, much celebrated match, and thus the tradition of national anthems before rugby matches was born.

The haka has been part of NZ rugby pretty much since. It is frequently seen before school matches, where each college has its own version, either a traditional one relating to their area, or one composed by themselves. Up to a thousand supporting school mates on opposite sides of the field performing the haka is a great sight.

The All Blacks used to only do it on tours, and for a time around the 1970 tour of South Africa didn’t do it at all.

It was when Buck Shelford became an All Black that the haka was transformed from a comparatively comical ritual into one that did justice to its Maori origins. Ka Mate, the traditional haka is the story of a famous chief faced with a choice of life and death, who takes refuge from his enemies, but then comes back to face the sun and to meet his challenges. Buck’s belief was if they were going to do it they should do it properly.

Then a few years ago, ahead of a classic All Black Springbok test they came up with Kapo A Pango, a haka they were involved in writing themselves.

This was the haka that produced the infamous “throat slitting” gesture, which was a bad look, in my opinion. Learned people I spoke to said it should have been the hand being drawn across the heart and lungs, but some of the players took it on themselves to do it across the throat, and that has now thankfully been stopped.

The main complaint about the haka has always been that teams have no way of answering it in a meaningful fashion, although there have been some fascinating examples of people having a go.

At the RWC 1987 final, the rugged French flanker Eric Champ yelled at the All Blacks during the haka…everyone thought that was great. A couple of years later when the All Blacks played Ireland at Lansdowne Road the Irish linked arms around their captain Willie Anderson and advanced on the haka…some ridiculed it, calling it Paddy O’Haka, but Buck Shelford saw nothing wrong with it at all.

Before their win over the All Blacks in the 1991 RWC semi-final David Campese chose not to face the haka and went off and booted the ball to himself in the in-goal area. He then went out and cut the All Blacks to shreds, so that worked for him. However when the whole Wallaby team turned their back on it in 1996 they were subsequently taken apart.

And then there were the recent stoushes with Wales. In 2005 the ABs agreed to a change of procedure so the haka could precede the anthem, as it had done 100 years earlier. This was done on a handshake on the condition that it was a one-off basis, but a year later when Wales tried to re-neg on that agreement the All Blacks did it in the dressing room.

When pictures of them doing it went up on the big screen the crowd were angered, feeling they’d been short changed.

Last time the All Blacks were in Cardiff they did do the haka on the field and the Welsh then engaged them in an eye balling standoff which was one of the most spine tingling moments I have ever witnessed.

And therein is the quandary of the haka. It is part of the history of the game, and the crowds seem to love it, but others feel it somehow gives the All Blacks an unfair advantage.

It has never seemed to bother the Springboks. Brian Moore, the feisty England hooker turned myopic commentator, once said he found no greater motivation than to stand up and face the haka…that he actually fed off it, and I believe it is the same with the Boks.

The French are another country who seem to really latch onto it. They will whistle at the All Blacks when they run out, but will sit in silence for the haka.

But there is a different school of thought in England, where they are always prepared to turn it into an opportunity to bag a team they have had a great deal of difficulty beating in recent times, and to sling off at one of their former colonies.

This week a writer in the Daily Mail let rip, referring to the haka as a “cynically stage managed circus, full of squabbling and hand wringing….” And so on.

For a start I do agree that the All Blacks have little right to demand exactly what their opposition must do in response, especially when they are on foreign soil.

Their expectation is based on the cultural importance of the haka to New Zealanders and in particular the Maori people, but it may be asking too much of the Brits to understand that, given their history of imposing their own culture on others and trying to crush that of the indigenous people they colonised.

That lingering snobbery was more than evident in the Daily Mail story, which also fell down on factual inaccuracies, particularly with relation to the Welsh incidents.

However I do agree that the IRB stance is a complete over reaction, and as I said earlier, I desperately hope it has not been prompted by New Zealand.

It would be fascinating to learn what the swell of opinion is about the haka internationally.

Clearly there are some who feel it should be banned. Presumably Fiji, Tonga and Samoa would also not be allowed to do their own challenge as well, and surely then rugby would be missing out on something special.

If it were to be the case I’m sure the All Blacks would simply do it in their dressing room. It is too much a part of who they are.

Personally of course, I hope it stays. To me it is one of the things that makes rugby different, and is such a part of the tradition of the game it would be sad to see it go. But I also hope the IRB directive is booted into touch, and short of starting a brawl, teams should be allowed to answer the haka in the way they see fit.

UPDATE: Since this story was filed the NZRU has told me that neither they nor the All Blacks were involved, or tried to influence the IRB in relation to how teams respond to the haka.