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An Aussie Haka could really stir Kiwi emotion

5th August, 2011
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Roar Guru
5th August, 2011
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2820 Reads

The crowd at the All Stars vs Indigenous Rugby League game in Brisbane played on Saturday night 12th February, 2011, were treated to a war dance display by dancers from the Aboriginal people. What an awesome sight it was, too.

After falling over themselves to try and show the world how wrong they were on the matter of human rights and having finally apologised to the Indigenous nation for their ‘lost generation’, is Australia learning?

Maybe it’s my scepticism of how I, a New Zealander, views the Aussie who endeavours to steal, infer, declare or simply highjack most things that they lack and then try and convince the world it was, or still is their own.

I also tend to feel that Australians try harder to prove they are the best at everything. Failure appears to be no option.

If you are not a winner (achieved at any cost by fair means or foul) then you and your team are losers, so move over for a winner.

To do this they acknowledge achievement by generally displaying what is considered by many as arrogance, create an inference and then make that inference fact to overcome any loss by them.

This helps them feel they were hard done by and were really the winners even though they lost. Such examples are, “What a great try, pity the All Black pass looked forward and because of it we lost.” Or, “We ain’t gonna lose it now Trev so bowl the bloody underarm.”

Pavalova, Crowded House, Russell Crow and, could it be, the Haka too?

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Aussies on the steal again, is it in their genes?

They have a will to win.

By comparison, New Zealander’s seem to have adopted an attitude that it is alright to come second, that ‘the meek shall inherit the earth, if it is alright with the rest of you’ or, ‘it’s the taking part that is more important rather than the winning’.

Utter nonsense. We as a nation are so obsessed with doing things right, to be seen as fair to all, and are so PC that it has now clouded our brains into believing that all our visuals are to be viewed through tinted frosted glass.

Accordingly, no one tells you that you are a loser (Denis Connor accepted) and we have made any second place (or less) an acceptable choice.

Controversy raged over the winning by the All Whites of the NZ Halberg Awards 2011, because they won, or was it that they came second to others who did win?

Hillary and Tensing were the first on Everest, but who was next? People only remember winners and it’s the ‘mongrel’ that is often said to be missing from New Zealand achievements in sport today.

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We are considered to be the ‘poor cousins of Australia’ yet we refuse to lie in their shadow which is why it makes them try harder and do better than us. The chip on their shoulder is a heavy log.

In 1976, when Australia won no gold medals at the Olympic Games, a mindset gripped their nation vowing that it would never happen again, and that ‘a win at all costs’ would be the national call.

We need to adopt the same attitude, arrogance and sheer tunnel vision that their sportspeople have. We do well but we can do better with more focus and less sickening sugary candyfloss.

Let us stop basking in the glory light of the few and become winners at all things thereby making New Zealand a formidable foe feared by all nations in all sports.

Winning is in the mind and all games are won before they ever take the field. Any team that goes on to a field without this attitude is a loser.

Winners only go on to playing fields to find out by how much they won by, not to see if they can win.

Oh, and by the way, what surprise do the Australians have in store for us at the Rugby World Cup? Singing their national anthem in Aboriginal as well as English? At least they cannot steal our Haka, or can they?

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Do not be at all surprised to see them steal just one more thing from their indigenous brothers before all is forgiven.

A performance of an Aboriginal War dance as a retaliatory answer to nullify our All Black challenge is now more than likely should we meet them on that final occasion in November.

But ye of little faith, fear not.

At last, in the mind of my win at all cost, one eyed, tunnel-visioned, no holds barred, is the bruised and battered All Black mongrel dog, who after twenty four years of waiting has finally taught him that losing will no longer be an option.

Michael Warren is a resident rugby writer for http://www.haka.co.nz

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