British media, including former prop Joe Marler and Daily Telegraph writer Oliver Brown, have criticised the haka, claiming it disadvantages England and other teams
Despite the criticism, the All Blacks have played England 45 times, won 35, lost 8 and drawn 2
The All Blacks face England at Twickenham on Sunday morning
Paul Lewis is a veteran sports journalist who has written four books and covered Rugby World Cups, America’s Cups, Olympic and Commonwealth Games and more.
OPINION
Poor old Poms. They simply can’t hack the haka, can they?
Even if you were living in a cave, witha sack over your head and singing Tūtira Mai Ngā Iwi at the top of your lungs, you’d still be able to tell the All Blacks were in the UK by the loud, cliched and consistent whining of the British media about the haka.
We can immediately discount the self-admitted wind-up, suggesting the haka be “binned”, by weird English prop Joe Marler. He’s the guy who, a few years ago, was banned for 10 weeks after deliberately handling the penis of opposing Wales lock Alun Wyn Jones in the middle of a test match.
Joe Marler's post saying the haka should be banned. Photo / X (Joe Marler)
Marler sometimes looked like he was a couple of coupons short of a pop-up toaster but also seems to have a need to be in the limelight – hence his admission that his haka jibe was also meeting the needs of his “narcissism”.
Speaking of which, the cudgels were immediately taken up by Oliver Brown, writing for the Daily Telegraph, who managed also to parade his own narcissism while being completely wrong about how to respond to the haka.
Brown lampooned the haka back in 2014, comparing it with Cirque du Soleil, and was delighted to become the lead item on ThreeNews and that Kiwis threatened to rark him up at home at 4am. So delighted with his own cleverness was he that he has mentioned it again, and again ... and again this week.
He said: “It has long struck me as absurd, this notion that opponents are supposed to be mute and reverential while 15-man mountains threaten to tear them to tiny pieces, sometimes adding the Kapa o Pango’s notorious throat-slitting gesture for good measure. Do nothing in response to the haka and you risk giving ground to New Zealand. But do something, anything, beyond meek acquiescence and you are likely to spark a diplomatic incident.”
He has a point about the throat-slitting; it still makes me uncomfortable that some All Blacks perform it with such relish. He’s wrong about everything else, though. The opposition do not have to stand there and submit. World Rugby’s official guide says: “It is not mandatory for the team receiving the challenge to face it.”
In other words, ignore it if you don’t want to pay your respects facing it. Don’t give me this twaddle about causing a “diplomatic incident”. As if that would ever be a consideration.
The All Blacks perform the haka before taking on England at Twickenham in November 2002. Photo / Photosport
No, the real issue is England feel the haka disadvantages them – but have nothing to offer in response; no cultural comeback. What can they do? Morris dancing? No one would hear the little bells as they waved their hankies. The Twickenham crowd tried drowning out the haka with lusty singing of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot until Prince Harry – before embarking on his world tour to maintain his privacy – and former England hooker Brian Moore said the song should no longer be sung because of its slave origins and England’s, ahem, rather poor record in the slave trade.
Just as well – as the real reason Swing Low is a rugby song is that it is performed in rugby clubs with gestures which, in a drinking game that’s been around for decades, mean the person performing the wrong gesture to the lyrics must down his pint. Ah, the culture ...
Also out would be a Europeanised version of a haka depicting the English trading with indigenous people. Here, have a diseased blanket and we’ll have – let’s see, oh yes – your country.
Brown and his ilk will moan forever, disguising it as criticism of some kind of cultural gift granted to New Zealand. They never complain about the Tongan sipi tau nor the Samoan siva tau or the Fijian cibi. No, it’s all about winning, getting under the skin of the All Blacks and/or their supporters. It made me think twice about writing this rather than just ignoring it.
Which is what England could do. The Australians used to ignore the haka but have formed a boomerang shape facing it once or twice; the Irish and the English have adopted team formations designed as a response while facing the haka. The South Africans went a bit far recently by flying a huge passenger plane over the stadium and blasting loud music to overcome the haka (and later apologised).
However, I have to say I personally have no problem with the opposition linking arms, advancing and bristling at the All Blacks while the haka is delivered. It is not my cultural right to say anything about a haka and how it should be delivered or received but, in a rugby context, people come to see a gladiatorial sport and that is an entirely gladiatorial beginning to an international contest.
So if the haka is that big a deal, work out something to respond to it. I have no problem with, for example, a song (that isn’t about slaves) boomed out by the crowd in a stadium, even after a haka.
But it isn’t really about that, is it? It’s more about this: played 45, New Zealand won 35, England eight, two drawn. It wasn’t the haka that won those 35 tests. Best to focus on what it was, no?
