Wynne Gray: Nothing like a bit of humour before the serious stuff

COMMENT

There are still 41 days until the All Blacks play their opening game at the World Cup and 70 days until they will encounter a tough opponent in the quarter-finals.

That is a generous interval and screeds of serious opinions will be delivered in that stretch about the anticipation and expectation of this island nation's chances.

The tournament is momentous, but it also can provoke the sort of irrational behaviour seen in New Zealand when the All Blacks were beaten in the last competition.

So it is a pleasant counter-point when humour hits the event.

Like the Australians wailing about not being able to sing Waltzing Matilda at their own event.

For a nation which delights in cracking sheep jokes about New Zealand and baa-stardising our accent, it is strange they should get so patriotic about Banjo Paterson's ballad to a suicidal sheep thief.

The song re-emerged only a few years ago, an orchestrated campaign by the ARU as the Wallabies looked for some way to counter the All Blacks' haka before tests.

Now the Ockers seem to have got their jumbuck in a dreadful stew about the possible ban on the song at the World Cup.

They wheeled out all sorts of indignant politicians, luminaries and former players, and even a bloke who was described as a Waltzing Matilda scholar.

All 20 nations going to the World Cup will hear their national anthems played before matches and some will be allowed extra performances like the haka if they have cultural significance.

As it does in this electronic age, the issue enticed rapid global reaction and a rash of suggestions about pre-match rituals for other nations. Some pre-match displays accepted by the International Ritual Board were:

* England would chat about the weather before moaning about how they invented the game and how it's not fair that everyone thinks New Zealand are the best team in the world.

* Italy would arrive in Armani gear, sexually harass the female stewards and then run away.

* France would declare they had new scientific evidence that the opposition were mad. They would then park lorries across the halfway line, let sheep loose in the opposition half and burn the officials.

These ideas are all fanciful and the result of people with too much time on their hands.

But what do you expect when the manager of the Waltzing Matilda Centre (apparently it does exist) wrote a protest letter to the IRB saying the tune was "arguably the world's most recognised national musical signature?"

So recognisable that the ARU has to run the words on the giant video screens at Telstra Stadium, hand out wordsheets to spectators and hire some ageing crooner.

Maybe the song is as enduring as the naming rights for the venue that has been called Stadium Australia, Olympic Stadium, Homebush Stadium and Telstra Stadium in recent years.

Now whatever happened to that song I Still Call Australia Home?