Editorial: Unswerving devotion to All Blacks a thing of the past

Perhaps our national blood doesn't run black. Photo / Sarah Ivey

When Argentina set off on their ill-fated tour to the World Cup, an opinion poll found that Diego Maradona's team would have support from 91 per cent of their countrymen. A high but less-than-universal endorsement.

The fact that 9 per cent would not class themselves as supporters of the national side seemed surprisingly apathetic, even allowing for foreign residents with mixed loyalties or those who detest soccer or sport in all its forms.

On the eve of rugby's first Tri-Nations test in Auckland, an nzherald.co.nz poll has now tested the waters of New Zealanders' support for the All Blacks. It is not a scientific survey, speaking only for the 7300 people who responded.

But the result is almost unimaginable for those marketing the idea of an All Black fan base equalling our entire population, 4 million. Just two-thirds of the respondents rated themselves 'absolute' supporters or supporters of the men in black.

A quarter did not care enough to offer support or antipathy. And about one in every eight Kiwis who answered - a touch more than the figure for recalcitrants in Argentina - declared they were emphatically not All Black fans; they hated rugby.

Despite the cliches about every young boy wanting to be an All Black and our national blood running black, New Zealanders are not fanatical about their national side. Not in the way of South American football or Indian cricket or even Japanese baseball.

Don't put it down to the All Whites' record at the World Cup, or even Steve Hansen popping up again on TV screens. The 24 per cent who don't care about All Black victory and the 12.4 per cent who do not support them are just part of a cosmopolitan, contrarian New Zealand unswayed by an oval ball and all its cultural mythology.