England's crusade continues

RobC and I have recruited Diggercane to help us write an even more controversial article than the one on marsupials.

We did not alienate enough readers. So this is a religious meditation.

A thousand years ago, European knights and their retinues trekked south and east to far-off lands at the bottom of their known consciousness, to try to take back what they thought was their birthright.

This month, their ancestors have waged holy war on southern rugby heathens. They were trying to return the union’s ruling mantle back to its rightful place in Europe, after a disastrous convocation last year.

The Home Nations are the self-appointed owners of the original true rugby religion. They have the power of the press. They have the messengers. They proselytise sinners from around the world to their moneyed altars and academies.

There is no bigger zealot than the converted. A high priest with a low-brow, Eddie Jones, switched hemispheres to wear the knights’ colour, white, to battle crass boganism in the southern hovels. Fat friar Dylan Hartley, another convert, donned saintly robes, flanked by Dan Cole in his hair shirt and a Southern beast, Mako Vunipola.

When the Crusaders arrived in the Holy Lands, they were not just up against squeaky Moor(e)s with shaved heads. They faced Israel himself. The Lost Tribe of Folau.

Saint George’s attack game plan was simple: keep your armour on and if moving, only thrust forwards and backward, with the Australian natives in the missionary position.

Rugby bears aspects of religion. Fans raise their hands in adulation at a miraculous offload, the haka participants beseech the heavens for strength while the observers solemnly watch careful not to cause offense, referees must be propitiated, beer is sipped in the stands as if it is a sacrament, the DJ at Kiwi stadiums plays ritualised hymns, and Richie McCaw is without sin.

Most cultures long to believe life is not accidental. This search is both intellectual (what does it all mean?) and emotional (what higher power can I turn to for help?)

We see evidence of this search in the burial grounds of La Chappelle-aux-Saints, La Moustier, the Viking homelands, Machu Picchu, Les Eyzies and Puente Viesgo. We see it in Ardie Savea’s hair, which reaches high like a Gothic cathedral, as if to touch the hand of God or Brodie Retallick, who would not look out of place as a gargoyle, watching over a sacred site.

One reason for the Wallabies’ demise was while the English came on crusade, with one doctrine, one faith, and one tradition, which allowed them to move as one, the home team was all over the map.

Scott Sio played like a Sikh. Sikhs touch their foreheads to the floor when entering temple. There are only 12 million Sikhs in the world, small for a religion, and they migrate: Sio migrated to the turf and destabilised the scrum.

Stephen Moore tried to follow a new religion: boganism: But he simply cannot rock boganism, which requires devout allegiance to a heavy metal band long dead, a favoured whiskey or a motor vehicle manufacturer.

He cannot grow the obligatory and ritualised hairstyles of the bogan, and his faux non conformance with middle class thoughts did not ring true to the referees.

Greg Holmes is a Zoroastrian. This faith system includes a lot of fire: to test mankind, to reveal the truth. So far, he has been on fire; as in, burned up. Toasted.

The Wallaby locks are sort of Islamic, but they seem to be Shia and Sunni in the lineout: battling over succession and history and even language. The prophet Cheika had a vision for them, which he dictated, but then he banished the most respected lock, and now there is only strife.

Deepening the problems in the Wallaby pack, it seems the Prophet Cheika has chosen Protestant loose forwards. They are an unwieldy Holy Trinity. All three of them are trying to be the Holy Spirit, after David Pocock was crucified. Nobody has a clear role. They disagree about the role of the ruck, too. Too often, they are roaming aimlessly in the backline, and nailing their grievances on the Prophet’s door.

The Wallabies’ halfback is apparently an atheist. Nic Phipps does not believe in a fast, simple, clean, accurate pass, which in rugby terms makes him an extreme skeptic as to rugby doctrine. Phipps prefers to argue all the time, with the ref, with the Moor, with his RAF Lt. bomber pilot Bernard ‘Tally Ho’ Foley. This freedom of thought and expression is slowing down the Australian attack.

Foley seems to be playing like a Buddhist. He holds four great truths: the well-timed pass is unsatisfactory, the Wallaby wings have too many desires, which must be cooled or ceased, by Foley staying on a solo path. Although he is a bomber pilot, he is staying on the ground and trying to find the right ways of understanding, thought, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration. He is very non-violent in his tackling.

Folau isn’t really playing in a Jewish way, with its laws. Folau is more of a Shinto. Shintos love intuition. Shintoism does not ask as many ontological questions as other faiths: less theology, more experience and feelings of kami (there is no clear definition of this, but it may be an overall consciousness of nature), and sensitive recognition of mystery. This is why he never kicks for clearance, and his passes are so general in direction.

The K-Centres of Australia are playing according to principles of Hinduism. They seek supreme bliss, run as if they’re doing yoga, and pass tantrically.

The wings of Australia are playing very Zen. They stand at the side, deep in meditation, thinking about the concept of diffusing the high ball, but not the reality.

Meanwhile, south of this carnage, the All Blacks play a genealogically connected religion.

In the beginning there was a void (Te Kore) followed by the Night (Te Po), and finally the World of Light (Te Ao Marama). The Sky Father (Ranginui) and the Earth Mother (Papatuanuku) were locked in an eternal embrace until one of their children, Tane (God of the Forest) pushed them apart (and created woman for good measure). Other significant Gods were Tangaroa (Sea), Tāwhirimātea (Wind) and Tūmatauenga (War).

They say that the man with mana (holy power) can prevail over fate.

The English just march, saving their Queen. The Australians are playing for fifteen different reasons.