To Haka or Not to Haka...

[The Flash]

I know exactly where your coming from. I respect the All Blacks, the Haka and our country's heritage are the most absolutely unique and wonderful part of being a New Zealander.

Of course, not everyone is a New Zealander, and as much as if someone asked me to respect all latin dancing, I'd say just what you said. Why should I?

I mean, wonderful if you do respect it, even better if you enjoy it, but there cannot be a gun to other country's heads on honouring our traditions.

Although, because I can be objective about things I tend to get shot to bits by a few fellow NZer's who don't know the meaning of the word circumspect.

I now await the usual (sigh) verbal attack, and so should you.

 

[SaintsFan_Webby]

why the f*** should anyone respect the haka, people do it out of choice, its a great tradition, and one im sad not to have witnessed on saturday but nz doesnt have a devine right in rugby. and they were playing on our turf, if you ask me it was just nz flexing there muscles again, id hate to see them become the chelsea of rugby.

and to add, yes i think the national anthem as a response was the wrong call, but its just irritates me that new zealand think they can call the shots, if they want to throw there dummy out of the crib then so be it.


i mean who sais the all blacks perform the haka last thus getting themselves fired up and having a psychological edge on there opponents, there no law in the irb which sais "the haka must be performed after the anthems just before kick off" its bullshit, we let the all blacks keep there tradition. in other sports this tradition would have died in the 70's, its only the good rugby folk who sit back and let nz march into there country and have the last word before the game starts.
[/b]

I agree with every word you say.

How odd.

:bana:

 

[loratadine]

bring it on suckers i dont give a flying ****. ill say what i think, and i say the same as you why the f*** should everyone else be expected to acknowledge the maori dance. why should everyone one be expected to sit there in silence and watch as nz get geed up.

f*** tht, if the haka had been performed i would have been singing over the haka. its not our tradition, and be f***ed if im gunna sit there and wtch as richie mccaw goes nuts and gets fired up.

if the games in the ms, we should give our boys the last bit of motivation they need, we dont need our lads going in after seeing jerry collins going nuts.


get of your high horse nz, as ive said, any other sport and your beloved haka would have been dead a long time ago.

 

[The Flash]

Ok.

Thats stronger than I'd ever have put it, lol.

So, I'm going to slink away from this subject now.

In my place, I leave the affable unifier of world rugby, you know him as well as I do.....mothers, lock up your daughters.......the one, the only.......Loratadine!!!

(Thanks Lora, I needed a human shield!)

 

[loratadine]

i like a good rumble, so bring it.

seriously now.

 

[Dumbo]

Funny... the ORIGINAL problem was that the AB's did not want to perform the haka BETWEEN the national anthems... who the hell would have a problem with Wales singing their national anthem again when the AB's are doing the Haka AFTER the national anthems? Not me thats for sure... if Wales wants to sing their National anthem while the AB's are doing the Haka - damn fine, perfect responce!

Guy's try to keep it on focus... the problem was with Haka being performed BETWEEN the national anthems.

 

[wykydron]

On a personal level, nothing to do with IRB, i do believe it would be better to the pre match psych up in the sheds. first of all the atmospere is just your OWN team, no matter where you are from or who you are playing for these other people in the room are the ones you have to answer to. Not the fans, not the opposition and certainly not paper pushers. At the root of it all the people in that room are the ones you want fired up when you go out on that field. Then when you run on the feild the intensity rises higher as the crowd joins in and finally you are reminded that you are playing for your country, the ultimate honor. My parents tell me that the haka is calling forth ancestors spirits to help you in battle (mums mother and father were maori)... this to me sounds like the thing to do with your teamates in a situation that empowers them as well as yourself. Despite the fact it is an awesome spectacle to see i can't help but feel it being commercialised in the manner it has been in the past was tolerable, now wanting to dilute it within the national anthems is wrong.

 

[shtove]

If Ireland can let England play God Save the Queen in Croke Park then anything is possible
[/b]

Like, Ireland-30 England-00?

The reception GStheQ gets in Croker will be real interesting. About a quarter of the Ireland fans are duty bound to join in - and some of them will, just for the hell of it! The atmosphere will be hard to anticipate, so just pray that England get a thumping.

On topic: the ABs can perform the Haka wherever, whenever and however they want. The officious interference by the WRU was idiotic. And the sight of the boys in black rumbling away in the bowels of the stadium was a vision from hell: Wales needed to be more Vampire Slayer than Frodo and his band of merry hobbits.

The Haka has to go on before kick off, microphones and all, and let the opposition do what it wants in response - at the same time or after. The home crowd singing to drown it out? Good.

 

[Rugby_Cymru]

...no matter where you are from or who you are playing for these other people in the room are the ones you have to answer to. Not the fans....
[/b]

I disagree with that.
You don't have to answer to your team mates, you don't have to answer to your coaches...at international level, surely the people you are answering to are the people of your nation. You're being paid to do a job for the fans, for your nation.
It's all about the fans.
The players are there for US.
We are not there for them. They are OUR entertainment.

In my opinion, if i were to have ever been good enough to play international rugby and in one game i totally mucked up and costed the game i sure as hell wouldn't have been anxious about answering to my team mates or my coaches (or the media)...it's the fans i'd be worried about.

 

[Fitzblado]

its not as if the abs turned up and suprised the Welsh " by the way lads were going to do a war dance" its something that they knew was going to happen.I dont think the all blaks would care what to opposition fans or players would be doing while they were doing the haka.Take up the challenge and stop *****ing!Again its obvious the welsh were ******* themselvs and were looking for any advantage they could get.If the rest of the rubgy world can let the allblacks do the haka before kickoff its just shows up the welsh as petty.

 

[An Tarbh]

Lora, this is why I think you should respect the Haka, if I'm off the mark here don't hesitate to correct me, but my view of the Haka is that it's a challenge that's being laid down and the response is in playing the match surely, or is that too simplistic?

 

[loratadine]

too simplistic, if only it what that simple

why should they have the right to lay down the challenge, and then our response must be to simply turn up and play the game

where not the understudies, we have as much right to do what we want when we want in our national stadium, i love the haka, but the kiwis are surely not that ignorant to think that there the only ones who are allowed to do something prior to kick off.

 

[Cymro]

too simplistic, if only it what that simple

why should they have the right to lay down the challenge, and then our response must be to simply turn up and play the game

where not the understudies, we have as much right to do what we want when we want in our national stadium, i love the haka, but the kiwis are surely not that ignorant to think that there the only ones who are allowed to do something prior to kick off.
[/b]

Lora you have a point there. Wales asked could they reply and they were told they could. I understand that Graham Henry had a part to play in it and Im dissapointed if he disagreed with the decision of having a Welsh National Anthem as a reply. Its dissapointing as the anthem does inspire the team and the nation.

For me a touring nation should respect the decision of a host nation!

 

[An Tarbh]

yes but the whole thing was that last year was agreed as a one off and that things would return to normal the next year, it was the WRU who welched on that agreement which they willingly made in the first place, I agree the host union should have the say but in this case the agreement had been made.

 

[Rugby_Cymru]

Ok. I'm not happy with the way things went on that day, and yes, Wales did know they were going to do their "war dance". I'm not sure why our WRU chiefs were insisting that we put the Welsh national anthem AFTER the haka. Those guys are always trying out groundbreaking ideas (often to their dismay), and i can't criticise them for trying a new method for stirring up the players and fans, but to let it get to the state which it finally got to (AB's not performing it on the field) was unacceptable. And i believe that was the fault of both parties, being too stubborn, too proud and too blind to see that this was going to ultimately hurt 75,000 people in the stadium and however many there were watching on the tv.
Nobody would have lost any respect for the WRU if they said, "Hey, we tried to get the AB's to do the haka BEFORE our national anthem so we could use our song as a reply to their challenge, but it wasn't to be." Nobody would have given it a second thought after it. But now the WRU have lost a lot of respect with many rugby fans and there was no need for that, and in my eyes, the All Blacks have lost some respect also.
I don't think i'll find one person that was happy with the fact that there was no haka.

...the welsh were ******* themselvs...
[/b]

I will have to argue the point (as elegantly as it waws put across) i don't think "the welsh were ******* themselvs". We are a very confident nation, we believe we have a helluva squad and we DID have belief that we could hold the All Blacks close to us for the game and who knows, by the end we could have maybe thrown in that extra effort, and with the home crowd behind us we could have caused an upset.
We genuinely believed an upset was possible.
That's kind of one of our character traits...we have faith in our country.

If the rest of the rubgy world can let the allblacks do the haka before kickoff its just shows up the welsh as petty.
[/b]

And don't you dare claim that what happened between the boardroom big-wigs has any refelction on the Welsh fans, players and management. WE didn't choose this outcome. WE were the ones booing the fact that there WASN'T a haka.
We are anything BUT petty.

I try to remain objective, but when someone refers to my nation as petty, i get <--> that close to giving the person a bloody neg rep!

 

[DanCarterite]

It may be really silly but I don't know anyone who objects to the Aussies singing Waltzing Matilda as a response to the Haka, hell most people I know find it more fascinating to see what response the opposition players or fans are going to give than actually seeing the Haka.

I know I for one was anticipating massed singing from the Welsh, and I would have had no problem whatsoever if it had commenced as soon as the first "Ka mate" crossed an AB lip. Having the opposition camp bang on the halfway line eyeballing the AB's is also a great one.

If you ask the players who face the Haka they will usually say it fires them up as much as it does the AB's.

I was at a barbeque last weekend (and a U2 concert), and there was a 6 year old there, his parents are Indian immigrants, he speaks Hindi at home, the only sport his dad watches is cricket, the boy as his party piece did the "Ka mate" haka for us, perfectly I might add, then told us he was supporting the Welsh because his best friend was Welsh.

The Haka is important to New Zealand's sense of self, it pervades our culture and we can get really touchy and overly defensive about it, but only because of how important it is to us.

 

[Gay-Guy]

When Samoa played the AB's for the first time in '93 they started their Samoan challenge during the haka and it was all good Because whatever a team does on THEIR side of the field before kick off is THEIR choice. Once in an international there were players crossing the halfway line towards the AB's during a haka and the ref moved in to say get on the other side of the line. Was that bald aussie ref....can't remember his name...good ref.

The Tongans and fijians also do war dances.....

Hell even the Springboks used to do a Zulu war dance once upon a time!

I say bring on all sorts of cultural variety from different countries before kickoff.....this may be great for the sport of rugby. We should be encouraging teams to issue something towards the oppostion just before kickoff.

The oppostion can do anything they want when the AB's do their haka...they don't even need to watch...in fact if they stand their hurling curses at the AB's then that is ok....as long as it is on their side of the halfway line.

If any country (including the AB's) decide not to perform their cultural whatever it is....then that is entirely up to them...no biggie. The players main objective is to win the game not to win a cultural performance competition.

However leave the traditional nationa anthem singing as it is. Every sporting code does it the same way when it comes to national anthems. That is one tradition we don't want to start messing up.

 

[Prestwick]

its not as if the abs turned up and suprised the Welsh " by the way lads were going to do a war dance" its something that they knew was going to happen.I dont think the all blaks would care what to opposition fans or players would be doing while they were doing the haka.Take up the challenge and stop *****ing!Again its obvious the welsh were ******* themselvs and were looking for any advantage they could get.If the rest of the rubgy world can let the allblacks do the haka before kickoff its just shows up the welsh as petty.
[/b]

Whoa, whoa, whoa there! There is nothing obvious to suggest anything you've just typed. All you've done is just inflamed the whole debate needlessly. The Welsh are far from petty so please, do not generalize please. We are trying to have a debate here not a match to see who can sling the most mud.

Please follow the grand example set by Gay-guy, DanCarterite, etc by approaching this sensitive subject with the respect, decency and level of tact it deserves.

 

[An Tarbh]

When Samoa played the AB's for the first time in '93 they started their Samoan challenge during the haka and it was all good Because whatever a team does on THEIR side of the field before kick off is THEIR choice. Once in an international there were players crossing the halfway line towards the AB's during a haka and the ref moved in to say get on the other side of the line. Was that bald aussie ref....can't remember his name...good ref.[/b]

That was in Ireland in 1989, Willie Anderson leading the charge, singing you'll never beat the Irish, must have done some good, we only lost 23-6. Inspired my sig as well.

 

[SaintsFan_Webby]

The oppostion can do anything they want when the AB's do their haka...they don't even need to watch...in fact if they stand their hurling curses at the AB's then that is ok....as long as it is on their side of the halfway line.[/b]

I guarantee if that happened there would be a huge amount of criticism from All Black fans, and a harranging for whoever delivered the insults.