>One thing I've found interesting in the whole league/rugby thing is the
>differing class base of the two codes. While probably more diluted than
>previously the equation still seems to hold that league is a working class,
>and in New Zealand, Polynesian game while rugby is more dominated by the
>white middle class.
Interesting that this seems to follow the British model where league is (was?) also very much more working class and union much more hooray Henry (apart from Wales I think). League never really took off in SA although there was an attempt some 20 - 30 years ago to start it.
On the NZ rugby crisis, I forward a bit of a post from someone else:
I also think the All Black selection is quite bizarre. For instance, Canterbury has won the Super-12 two years running, which is an absolutely massive achievement, far greater than winning the NPC (the NZ national rugby trophy), because the Super-12 involves the other two best rugby countries in the world - South Africa and Australia. Last year Canterbury won 8 or 9 Super-12 matches in a row; in one match they were something like 20 points behind one of the South African teams (the Bulls or the Cats I think) and ended up winning the match by 40 points!
And yet Hart and the All-Black management consistently refuse to put the Canterbury captain, Todd Blackadder, in the All Blacks or to select some of the most inspirational Canterbury players, notably 'Stormin' Norman Berryman. Berryman is a working class Maori guy from Northland with long hair, one of the most fiery and fanatsic players in NZ rugby, but he doesn't fit the corporate image. Blackadder is also a bit rough around the edges. So instead they have Taine Randall, who is Maori enough to look good, and who is a suit and pretty smooth, but who just can't cut it as captain. And they have more Otago players in the team than any other province. Admittedly they have a lot of Canty players as well, the second largest amount of current All Blacks are Canty, but considering Otago's main achievement is one NPC final win in the last two years and canterbury has won the Super-12 both years (and could have won the NPC except the bulk of the Canterbury top players, apart from people like Toddy and Norm, were away with the All Blacks during the whole NPC).
The other drawback is that Hart, the coach who has totally dominated the All Blacks for the past few years, was never a rugby player. He was afraid of tackling (he said this himself on TV a year or two back). So they have a commander who has never been in a battle and yet who totally dominates them. Thus, one disastrous year (1998) and one so-so year (1999).
You might not notice this by looking at the all blacks
>but even a cursory glance at the administration shows a decided lack of
>brown faces - perhaps this explains the difficulty experienced by pacific
>island nations in getting a team(s) into the tri nations or super 12 comps.
On NZ volunteers in SA Bill wrote:
>I'd be interested to know what you mean by this, not because I've taken
>offence or anything like that but because I have been involved in the
>left/anti racist movement here for sometime, and work with guys who have
>been involved with running courses in SA for various unions in the recent
>past, and felt we mostly had a good rep overseas. Consequently I'd be
>worried if my erstwhile comrades where marauding about doing 'ugly
American'
>imitations.
Being in the backwoods, I can't really comment on people out here working with the unions - they would mainly be in Johannesburg I think. The people I'm referring to are volunteers with various NGOs. While technically quite competent, many of them have an excessively paternalistic approach and a proselytising zeal in pushing their lapsed Labour right wing line. They slot in well with the current local fashion for chopping state social service provision and increasing "welfare" for business. Ironically many of them are probably volunteers because they lost their jobs in various exercises for slimming down local government and social services in NZ.
Regards
Russell