Maybe you were one of those people who wrote them off because, for five seconds in their illustrious history, they dropped a couple of games. Maybe you’ve been busy budgeting your $60-a-week grocery bill.
But here we are, organising our snacks and drinks for the early morning lead-up and much-anticipated kick-off that will follow.
If you’ve been following combat sports like me, a highly tuned athlete with the wisdom of four talking turtles and at least one clever rodent, you witnessed everyone’s Whanganui cousin, Israel Adesanya, relinquish the UFC middleweight title not long after the NZ release of his movie Stylebender.
I was sitting on that special seat one day, you know the one. That one where we conjure up our most intelligent thinking, scroll through the funniest videos and replay and re-strategise our best comebacks from weeks gone by. Yeah.
So, I sat there and said to myself, “Self. Why do you invest time, energy and even money into something that could disappoint you?”
It was a great question. I could be a professional question-asker one day, who knows?
But what I do know is this, I love supporting our All Blacks. Like many people in Aotearoa, I support them quietly. Buy a jersey. Watch the game at home. That sort of thing.
Yes, I was a bit slack with my support this year. But just quietly, I was … scratch that. I am confident these guys can get it done. And against one of our biggest foes no less.
I don’t know about you all, but I am expecting one of two things from this matchup between the ABs and the Boks. If we run rampant in the first five minutes and score tries, we will run them over like they’ve never been run over before.
Or it will be the nail-biter everyone deserves and we win in the final seconds via a drop-goal from the heavens, both scenarios in lieu of any mention of referee Wayne Barnes because he will have no bearing on the outcome. (Please refer back to this article around 10am this Sunday to witness the second coming of Nostradamus).
Back to my cousin Israel Adesanya from up the river though. Man, I was gutted with that loss. But what I like about watching this man do his thing and also what I have learned from that and seeing the great and inspiring movie Stylebender is that we can take that loss and find the lessons.
We can learn from those lessons to grow and develop and we can win again. In life and in our chosen area of expertise. So what was my answer to the question while sitting on the “you-know-what”?
The short answer is, “I dunno.” But the not-so-short answer is this: There is so much in life that is so much more important to be disappointed about.
We don’t need to feel guilty for enjoying our rugby or combat warriors entertaining us while achieving their goals. But we should be cognisant of the really important things happening in our lives and around the world.
With that, I mihi to the babies and whānau affected by the conflict in Palestine and Israel. I mihi to the people of the Congo subjected to what amounts to modern-day slavery and exploitation of Mother Africa.
I mihi my Aboriginal brothers and sisters for having to endure such ignorance on their own land and I mihi to those here who struggle to house and feed themselves and their whānau here in Aotearoa.
Some things are broken in this world, no doubt. But even a broken clock is correct twice a day.
