As the 2022 Women's World Rugby Cup begins tonight in Auckland, Cherida Fraser reflects on a personal turning point - from loathing to loving rugby and becoming a club manager
I drunkenly drew a parallel the other week when All Black Jordie Barrett played for the first time at No 12 to help bring home the Rugby Championship 2022 – that the blood streaming down his face was the blood of "the curse". A curse of masculinity. The weight of the nation was resting on their shoulders and they were required to heroically put their bodies on the line, lest we lose our national pride. Jordie's flowing blood was a symbol of this effort – the curse of being a man, or a curse of masculinity in Aotearoa that sees domestic violence increase when the All Blacks lose.
It was this masculinity that always put me off rugby. I grew up in 80s Invercargill, a bogan with a hint of goth who never played team sports. Then I moved to Wellington and hung out with artists and those who hovered at the fringes, rather than the mainstream. Rugby symbolised drunk lads, misogyny and violence; and if there was a game on we would huddle somewhere around Cuba St, listening to some indie punk band while mocking rugby culture.
The first time I watched an All Blacks game I was 30 years old and living in Paris. New Zealand was touring France and my Parisian friends assumed me to be patriotic and know WTF was going on. Most of them were migrants from football-loving African nations but they still knew more about rugby than I did.
Five years later I fell in love with my partner to a backdrop of the 2011 Men's Rugby World Cup. It was an exciting time as All Black wins punctuated our honeymoon phase. He loved rugby and I was going along for the ride but still preferred to watch the graceful flow of a football rather than the blunt stops-and-starts of rugby. Honestly, what is the point of a scrum?