David Leggat: Room at the table for all heroes

David Leggat. Photo / Supplied

Seven years ago, Ryan Nelsen scored the only goal as the All Whites toppled Australia to reach the Confederations Cup in France.

Next to making the World Cup finals, that tournament represented New Zealand's biggest international achievement.

A day later, a journalist bumped into a leading rugby administrator - still is today - and casually praised the All Whites' performance.

The administrator looked at him and sneered: "Do New Zealand have a national soccer team?" He might have been making a joke, but evidently he disguised it pretty well.

These sad, tunnel-visioned types have sprouted up in the past 24 hours, people for whom one sport must be - has to be - superior in all respects to another? Why must one sport be followed with obsessive, slavish devotion and the other cop a regular booting?

And it's not all one-way traffic.

There are plenty of rugbyheads who could not care less about the All Whites' march to the World Cup finals - just as there is no shortage of soccer folk who have a similarly dim view of the oval ball games.

So - at the risk of going all peace and love, warm and fuzzy - why the problem treating each sport in its own right, instead of as an endless opportunity for comparison?

One weekend newspaper columnist, a former All White, wrote that All Black tests against "one or two of our neighbours" would be known as "friendlies" if they were playing soccer.

And when the 1987 rugby World Cup was won by the hosts on Eden Park "who outside New Zealand gave a toss?"

This column is a great believer that opinions are like noses. Everyone's got one and that's fine. But what's the point of all that? All sports are different, but that doesn't mean they must be mutually exclusive.

Anyone assuming the 35,000 who packed out Wellington's Cake Tin on Saturday night were all soccer fanatics could not be more wrong.

They were New Zealanders wanting to see a national team succeed and make it to the biggest single sporting event on the planet. They were rewarded with a fabulous night of passion, of nerves getting rattled and ultimately a spectacular outcome.

There is no rule which decrees people must follow all sports with equal enthusiasm. But those who get their kicks by slagging a rival national team at its supreme moment are missing the point.

Rugby will be the Big Show in 2011. Right now it's soccer and will again be for a few weeks next year. Rightly so.

For that matter, rowing's world champs are at Lake Karapiro in 12 months, presenting another chance to delight in national sporting success.

So drop the curled lip, there's room for all, and let's enjoy it for what it is.