‘Although the use of haka by the ABs… has made one type of haka familiar, it has led to misconceptions. Haka are NOT exclusively war dances, but were traditionally performed by men.

I perceive most Kiwis as seeing the more familiar ‘Kamate’ version as a challenge. The words, I believe, ask whether the people encountered by the Maori are; ‘are you friend or are you foe?’.

It could therefore, not entirely unreasonably, be argued that it’s the opposition who dictate what the haka actually stands for & not necessarily the Maori or ABs.

Some hangi food for thought?

The ‘blatant and cynical foul’ was punished. End of, except it wasn’t. The continuous, prolonged booing, esp @ the end when RM tried to conduct his interview, drowned it out, was nothing other than venomous Poor form & disrespectful in the extreme. This isn’t telling yr lot not to do it, but a comment on yr base, crude lack of respect for others.

I wonder how you & yrs would have reacted had Haskell been accorded the same treatment by the oppo for the same offence. Would you have been equally magnanimous? Not bluddy likely.

As for yr ‘going to support (you don’t already?) anyone who plays them, because I can’t stand that sort of sanctimonious claptrap’, merely smacks of d. stnds & is infantile.

I’ve come across a few like you in my time. You just want to see the ABs lose, don’t you? Talk about bitter. Get rid of the chip & stop looking @ the empty glass.

Now that is telling you what to do, but you’ll feel better if you take heed. Honest Injun.

Toodle pip.

Although why you appear to stick up for the English as you do & did in the past a couple back with yr unprovoked & personal attack, still somewhat baffles me.

Enoch must be incensed… but good luck anyway. Wales have had little enough of that in recent weeks for sure.

Clearly…

Kudos to New Zealand for responding by whupping our butts in the following rugby match (a correct and proper response). Balls to them for their whiny, moany legalistic response to the then IRB (a childish response).

The England player you are thinking of was Haskell vs France in the last 6 Nations. He was sent off for it and roundly pilloried for his stupidity by both the fans and the media.

As Leon says the booing was bit panto and the crowd probably got carried away with it but I very much doubt if it would have happened had it been any other player than McCaw and any other team than the ABs. That’s what you get with being favourites I’m afraid. The booing, of course, would not have happened had he not commited an act of blatant cheating

As for people singing Swing Low – god forbid you should hear that sung at a rugby match in England!

See Brighty’s excellent comments below on the fetishisation of the haka

PS – think you need look up the meaning of jingoistic

Best Haka ever was the one where france lined up on the halfway line 2 yards away and started a staring contest to show they were not imtimidated. Result France fined and AB start doing the haka on the 10m line instead

France response next time they start on the 22m line and walk in a V formation up to the halfway line. Result France fined and everyone told to stand still on their 10m and face it without doing anything

England response fans sing over it. Can’t fine the fans so AB fans get outraged and indignant instead

If the teams were allowed to respond to it the fans wouldn’t feel the need to

Now, there is only 1 team in the world who can be described as above. So there is only one team in the world who can be called chokers.

Simple. It’s not double standards. It’s the truth.

In the end the scoreline flattered Argentina as 2 balls were dropped over the line and another wild pass was thrown when there was a huge overlap, all in the last 20 minutes.

As for the booing RM, i think people got a bit carried away, but you have to bear in mind he is a bit of a pantomime villian. He gets away with a lot of technical infringements and is famous for being the best cheat in rugby history (best in that he rarely gets caught). This was a blatant act of insanity and he still nearly got away with it because the ref wasn’t looking. I cheered very loudly when he was red carded but the booing was too much and went on far too long. As i said people got carried away thinking they were at the panto every time his face was shown on the big screen.