Kicks, scrums, rucks, mauls...yuck

IT is now accepted that the Fijians are the undisputed heroes of the Hong Kong Seven-a-side annual rugby con test, and also that they shall remain so indefinitely. The Fijians go out of their way to advertise this and the country’s President has graced a few group portraits with the heroes.

Tonga’s Tupou College, every year, sends a football team to tour Japan, Taiwan and Australia or New Zealand.

They always return with many trophies which are proudly displayed and amply chronicled in the media plus, of course, the inevitable group portrait with the King of Tonga. And, every time, one or two of the young players return to Japan or Taiwan, being invited back there by a local school or club to play for them.

The Western Samoans are increas ingly recognised as the up-and-coming rugby nation of the Pacific. They

fielded a great team at the World Cup Tournament in 1991 and shocked many rugby observers by beating a number of veteran teams. The ascendancy of the Samoans is attributed to their association with the New Zealanders and being proteges of the New Zealand masters of rugby. This image of Samoan rugby has spread the Samoan team at the World Cup was unofficially referred to as the New Zealand ‘B’ team.

But what is this game and especially as dished out by the New Zealanders who are thought to be among the best players in the world that has taken the islands by storm? Papua New Guinea, the Solomons, and New Caledonia have been priming players of their own, always with New Zealand as the glowing symbol to be emulated. Let us look at it from the cultural

perspective.

This game originated in a bleak and freezing climate to help generate the body heat levels required to keep people cheerful in the miserable atmosphere. But it was also partly to maintain a public school mentality that headmasters wanted to instill in young people and to awaken in them that aggressiveness and sense of domination needed to buttress and sustain the nation’s imperial interests. None of these things applies to Tonga or Samoa or Fiji or PNG, etc, (though they suffered from the imperialism) except New Zealand, whose climate is right and whose people’s public school mentality is so thick to be quite repellant. In fact, on the score of public school mentality, the New Zealanders have outstripped the Britons, the traditional

guardians of public school spirit!

The fundamental flaw of rugby for islanders, however, is that it is a game of brute endurance and tenacity. These are foreign to traditional ideas of sport in the Pacific. There, the ruling principles of all sports were speed, sharpress of eyes, accuracy, skill and finality.

Many traditional sports were associated with economic activities like catching of fruit pigeons on artificial mounds and bonito fishing on reef fringes. There was not much athletics as we know it today, though there was boxing, wrestling, and javelin or spear hurling contests. But these were organised on

The Island

a different basis altogether. For example, in wrestling matches, as soon as the contestants came in contact one of them had to be thrown down or up.

Otherwise the match was pronounced a ‘foul’ and discontinued. Speed was of the essence of the game. Moreover, in traditional island sports the body and eyes must be disposed in a semi-dancing fashion. In other words sport was also art. This was why tests in endurance were not generally regarded as sports.

This does not mean that Pacific peoples did not have endurance or tenacity.

They had plenty of opportunities to show these qualities when at sea in their frail crafts, or withstanding the battery of cyclones. But they did not create sports out of them. Sports was for excitement and aesthetic satisfaction.

But who, in his right mind, would say there is art in the New Zealand brand of rugby where play between the 25 lines is reduced to a battle for real estate fought

out mainly by kicks, scrums, rucks, mauls and all the rest of the manifestations of dumb brutalism called sports by the British and New Zealanders and now followed in that practice by the islanders. I invite anyone to name a game that is duller, more insipid and revolting than an All Blacks game. For where on earth can one find a game where the backs (to whom rugby truly belongs) dominate play less than a quarter of the whole time, and are not allowed to play in mid-field. And again, where can one find a game where the first five-eight is nothing but a kicker of balls and the forwards nothing but users of heads - in the wrong (and dangerous) way? It is an absolutely disgusting concept of sports.

I call for a rejection of New Zealand philistinism as expressed in their rugby. The islanders must adapt it to suit themselves and their social environment. In fact the Fijians’ success in Hong Kong is due largely to the reduction in number of players, opening up the field for development of tactics of skill and, above all, giving the game an element of greater speed which suit the Fijians better. The British invention must be similarly overhauled to allow what is distinctive in the Pacific character to come through.

I consider that cricket, tennis and boxing would be more in keeping with the nature and experience of island peoples. But they must watch out they do not learn cricket from the Australians who are as bad in it as the New Zealanders are in rugby. Australian cricket has become a matter of waiting out the alloted time. To watch it is to run the risk of death through nausea. There is a team of Tongans playing cricket in New South Wales now. I hope they bring new life to Australian cricket as the West Indians do everytime they tour the continent. The cultures of the islands are oriented to showing off and exhibition, but it is showing off of skills, of sharpness of eye, and of agility. They are cultures of entertainment and this quality is in their sports also. The islanders must never forget this and take steps to adapt introduced games to confirm their native capabilities but not refute them.

Futa

Helu