I went to two rugby matches at the big local sporting stadium this week that I enjoyed a great deal, in spite of the outcomes not being good ones for the home teams.
After two and a half years of plague times, it was novel to be amongst the throng at a sporting fixture. The buzz of the crowd is hard to recreate.
The pre match entertainment was a rather startling melange of kapa haka, marching girls, and drag queens. The theme I think was acceptance, so all good with me. I didn’t recognize the MC but he was wearing a golden suit of sparkling sequins, and he walked with a crutch, so that seemed to fit the theme quite nicely. I’ll try and find a photo to show you. (Ed’s note no luck so far which surprises me.)
The crowd were generally good humoured in spite of their disappointment with how the game was going. There was no abuse aimed at the highly visible Irish supporters – easily spotted wearing green. Even the Irish team didn’t get much of the verbals, apart from someone behind us questioning the sexual proclivities of the kicker, which I suspect would be actionable if printed. Some of the crowd’s displeasure was aimed at the ref, Chris Barnes, who has a bit of history for All Blacks supporters. “I’m blind, I’m deaf – I wanna be a ref!” was one amusing refrain I heard from the stands on this topic.
But the main target of the ire of local supporters was the coach, Ian Foster. I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes just now. There were many calls for Razor, does this mean we might be seeing this if the All Blacks do well at the World Cup in France next year?
