RUGBY: There's a time and place for haka

Several years ago a friend in Auckland took me to a restaurant in Manukau City.
Flat out on a Friday night, the restaurant staff struggled to get the three-course meals prepared in time. "The soup's not ready, sir," said a waiter, urging us to go straight for the main course and to settle for the soup soon after.
After oohing and aahing, my friend and his wife gave in but I wasn't having a bar of it. I didn't see the point in gorging myself on the main fare and then accommodating the broth just before the dessert.
The waiter suggested some garlic bread while I waited for the soup and I accepted, until he had the audacity to add that he would bill me for it.
To my friend's embarrassment, the waiter checked with his boss before conceding that the restaurant was inconveniencing us so it was only proper that the entree should be on the house.
Now I know how the passionate, singing Welshmen felt when they were told there wasn't going to be a haka before the All Blacks versus Wales test match on Sunday morning. I also know how the New Zealand rugby players and their supporters felt, too.
The haka has always been the hors d'oeuvre to any All Black or major Pacific Island nation team's test match. No, not before the national anthems or between them. It has always been performed minutes before the game kicks off. I find most national anthems a trifle boring but realise the significance of building up a sense of patriotism before a match to get the countries behind their respective teams.
As a matter of fact, I believe a haka tends to create a greater sense of belonging and camaraderie among the players than national anthems would and that it definitely jolts spectators out of a slumber of back-to-back anthems. As a Fijian, I found the Cibi war cry always got my hair standing on end when I watched it performed at home or on television. (That was when I had hair).
It was interesting watching New Zealanders on TV the other night saying that many people enjoyed the haka more sometimes than the match itself, especially if the game petered out to a dreary, one-sided walloping.
Not surprisingly, the nation seems divided - if TV One's Close-Up programme is anything to go by - over whether the All Blacks were right or wrong in not treating the passionate Welshmen to their traditional dose of Maori culture. Frankly, I believe the host nation should have the right to air their national anthem after the visiting nation's one. But, please, do not try to spear-tackle tradition by telling the visitors to perform the haka before their anthem.
If the Welshmen, or the Scots for that matter, wish to counter the haka then they should come up with something cultural of their own - the Welsh wiggle or the Highland Fling - to match the war dances.
The Australians twice answered the All Blacks haka - once with a rousing rendition of Waltzing Matilda with great success and another time they took to the tackle bags and kept the New Zealanders waiting in an attempt to take the sting out of the haka.
If anything, the sad conclusion to the Welsh haka saga is the inability of both the New Zealand and host unions to come to a compromise.
Ultimately, the spectators are the lifeblood of any sport and their needs must be met first.
In his biography Crossing the Line, former All Black Marc Ellis emphasises the need for a cultural identity, even if it's at regional level. He raves on about the passion Hamiltonians show for Waikato when they line the streets to the cacophony of cowbells as floats glide past.
Perhaps it's time for the Hawke's Bay Rugby Union to conjure up such a cultural identity, even if it means embracing a haka that is reserved for matches against the East Coast.
If the Coasters work themselves into a frenzy through a haka every time they lock horns with the Bay, imagine what the Magpies could achieve at the height of haka-driven passion.
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