David Kirk: I think, therefore I am an All Black devotee

David Kirk holds the Webb Ellis Trophy after New Zealand's win in the 1987 World Cup final.

Opinion

Our first World Cup-winning captain, David Kirk, muses on New Zealand’s rugby theology.

From time to time rugby in New Zealand is referred to as a religion. It occurred to me to ask, if this is the case, who is the god or gods around which this religion has been formed?

I think there are two options - the All Black players of the day or the abstract notion of "the All Blacks". The two options have very different features.

The first option creates a religion not unlike the ancient Greeks and Romans had.

Multiple gods each with their own specialty, ruled over by the all-powerful Zeus, who in the current day version of the New Zealand Olympus would be Richie McCaw.

The gods in this case are part-mortal, part immortal (body and spirit so to speak) and importantly are not infallible and not devoid of human faults.

The second option is very different. If the New Zealand rugby god is "the All Blacks", an abstract unity that persists through time, albeit with multiple attributes, the New Zealand rugby religion is monotheistic and, as all monotheistic religions must be, is ruled by a single infallible, all-powerful god persisting through all eternity.

I think the second option is more likely. Gods you can see and touch and compare height and weight to and have conversations with are hard to believe in. In India of course cricketers are conceived as and treated as gods but then the Hindu religion consists of so many gods one or two more seems neither here nor there.

Besides, in the rugby-playing countries generally and in New Zealand in particular, we are used to a monotheistic religion. I think it is a safer bet to accept that the rugby religion of New Zealand has a god akin to the religion most known to most New Zealanders.

Here is the question that really interests me and which it is highly relevant to ask on the eve of a World Cup final. If we assume that the rugby god of New Zealand is the idea of the All Blacks, how then should we think about the relationship of the current players to that god and is this relevant for their likelihood of winning the World Cup?

First we could propose that they are apostles. Men living and modelling the values and practices of "the All Blacks" that have been revealed to them and adapted by them according to the circumstances of the day.

I think this is true. The All Black players and their coach do set out to demonstrate the values of the "the All Blacks" and are not above proselytising. They wish to emphasise in their words and actions the values of hard work, humility, fraternity and acceptance of fate. The virtues of stoicism come to mind.

But what can we say about the inner relationship of each player to "the All Blacks"?

Here is Steve Hansen quoted in a New Zealand newspaper before the semi-final: "It [the way we behave] is driven by that's how we want to live. That's the identity we believe the legacy of the All Blacks has demanded from us. It is really important to us that we live that way - that identity and those values all the time."

So for Steve and his players it is a question of identity. They define their identity in relation to what it means to be an "All Black", that is, in relation to our rugby god.

When we start defining identity in relationship to a god, we are confronted immediately by an age-old philosophical dilemma. Does essence precede existence or does existence precede essence? This question is not as complicated as it sounds.

The question is: do we come into the world (i.e. begin to exist) and then create ourselves by our thoughts and actions and social engagements, or is our essence as a human being determined prior to our coming into the world i.e. given to us by a god or gods.

Putting this question into the context of the All Blacks and the World Cup final we ask will the identity of the players - their essence - be determined by the result tomorrow or has that essence already been determined by virtue of their relationship to our rugby god "the All Blacks"?

We all want the players to be as highly motivated as possible to win tomorrow and this perhaps leads us to hope that the players believe that their existence precedes their essence.

That is that their identity will be created one way if they win tomorrow and another if they lose.

But if we have a rugby god this cannot be. We may all be, as the existential philosophers tell us, thrown into the world and abandoned to our fate, but for the All Blacks who will represent their country and "the All Blacks" tomorrow, their essence, their identity, who they are as people, precedes and will succeed their existence as World Cup winners or losers.