Great – the All Blacks win RWC – can we get back to far more important issues now

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Yay! We’re best at a game barely anyone else plays! If only we could put in the effort for 305 000 kids in poverty that we do for rugby. We can ‘feed the backs’ but we can’t ‘feed the kids’.

Some might find my comments too ‘political point scoring’ – which is funny because this is actually ‘political point scoring’…

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…as is this…

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…and this…

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It’s not that I don’t appreciate the skills required in rugby – running, kicking, catching, throwing – all fine skills, but in the totality of life, a country that places too much of its national self esteem and psyche into a game isn’t much of a nation.

From a cultural point of view, I thought Lorde’s performance at the AMA’s was one of NZs finest moments this year, winning a game only 5 million people play worldwide pales a tad when you consider 10 million play scrabble.

But best wishes to the All Blacks though, good for them, they are world champions, now if we could get back to 305 000 children in poverty, affordable housing, inequality, privatisation of social services, education, health and the 200 NZers detained in Australia we could get back to the issues that actually matter, not the bread and circus that keeps us distracted from them.

At times in NZ one gets the feeling that Climate change needs to get 30 blokes on a field kicking a ball around for 80 minutes if it wants to get taken seriously.

 

34 COMMENTS

  1. the NZ Rugby Union has long been a Boer like Nat fortress of defacto tory organisation

    just watch the “Key Love” club milk this RWC win for months, including spruiking “John & Richie’s” flag in the approaching referenda

    don’t rain on the ‘boys’ parade? well one positive of an All Black win was predicted some time ago–violence on woman and children would not spike as it has previously following defeats

    • There is little hard evidence that domestic vilolence peaks as a result of All Black Test losses. There is a little evidence that after sporting events in general around the world there is an increase in violence both domestic and general however this seems to be more related to excessive alcohol consumption than anything else. Given the fact the games have been played early morning in NZ this will be a far more limiting influence this time around.

  2. Couldn’t agree more Martyn. Seeing Key ‘get down with the boys’, in the changing room with the AB’s is absurd. Next he’ll be in the showers being the number 2 clinker-cleaner.

    I cringe every time I see him making political capital out of it. But it won’t stop there – there’ll be knighthoods and civic parades for Key and the media circus. And since when did the PM preside over the doling out of knighthoods?

    It’s a disgrace, but the best comment came from the Prime sports announcer Scotty Stevenson, at 264 minutes – who said “It’s a good thing Richie doesn’t have a ponytail, it’d drive him [John Key] crazy!”

    Richie is a great and humble, legendary AB Captain. He shouldn’t have to put up with sycophantic clinker-cleaning PM’s in his changing sheds. There was a comment made about Kevin Mealamu telling Richie and Dan to go upstairs and get their shirts on for breakfast, because it’s “not the done thing for All Blacks”.

    Who is going to stand up and take the lead and tell the PM to ‘stop using the All Blacks for political point-scoring, “not the done thing for All Blacks”?

    • Hey cuz – take a chill pill. Things aren’t as bad as you think.

      But, it could have been, if the rumoured protests about DC being man-of-the-match were true.

      Mainstream media here in England, were convinced that John Key was in with a chance of man-of-the-match and should have gotten it.

      • By clinker-cleaner, do you mean the PM getting rid of the human equivalent of sheep daggs?

        If so, the image is repugnant. You people have no respect for the PM and the high state of his office, a man above his peers and a jolly fine fellow.

        And to think that an elderly lady like Winnie would try to link a political figure with sport like this is a terrible indictment on people her age. People have fought and died to give New Zealand its democracy and to have sport and the PM linked like this is abhorrent to the good centre-right voters of New Zealand.

        I gave some opinions on another blog at this site about young people being ineligible to vote because of their age, I believe that people of the age of Winnie should have their right to vote annulled if they keep denigrating the office of the PM by linking it with unpleasant sporting imagery.

          • If you want satire – look at the way that the biased left-wing media dealt with my centre-right namesake’s faux pas:

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7plURl4sx4

            This is the sort of bias that should be banned from Youtube. I have written to Youtube asking them to ban this video because it denigrates a fine up and coming centre-right politician.

            • Warning.

              Satire alert.

              Park up all vehicals.

              Do not drive past Parliament House.

              Proceed on foot to your nearest YouTube channel and await further instructions.

              • Ah the good old days of satire like McPhail and Gadsby, but these days they’d have to cope with the threat of losing their jobs for being “left-wing bastards”.

                Even Tom Scott’s gone awfully quiet and mainstream these days. Maybe his pencil’s been monitored by GCSB?

                And Spitting Image, what would they make of John Key and his love affairs with ponytails, royals, Richie and Nearly Sir Steve with his armies up his sleevies.

                Even The Civilian http://www.thecivilian.co.nz/ took itself too seriously when it tried to get elected to Parliament at the last elections. Apparently Civilian’d next venture with Duco will promote fight for life contest between David Seymour and Colin Craig.

                Ah the good old days of satire, See-More, Sam and Wild Katipo, whither have they gone?

  3. This game was the lead story for a whole 3 minutes on Radio NZ’s noon news broadcast. The second item was some less important piece about more than 200 passengers losing their lives in an air crash in the Middle East.

  4. Good article Martyn. It says a lot about this country’s superficiality, lack of compassion and anti-intellectualism when rugby rouses passion and concern in people, yet many of those people resent the suggestions that a) we actually have poverty in NZ, and b) we should, as a society, do something to support vulnerable people, particularly children.

    Again, I see that the two usual John Key / National sycophants have downvoted intelligent comments on your post. Instead of just inanely clicking thumbs down, why don’t you two have the courage to post something so that we can enter into a proper, mature debate? Grow up and get a life.

  5. Key will get off the All Black train shortly and get into to the important issues.

    Important issues like the flag and knighthoods for the rugby players that is.

    • And Key will milk the hyperbole of winning the old mug again as a springboard to tell the toxic TPPA when we all are high non AB’s victory so brace yourself for Key TPPA Hyperbole.

  6. Would just be better for us all if jk kept out of the ABs dressing room. Helen Clark was and hopefully still is a huge fan of our Silver Ferns but she was sensible and political enough nevef to invade their private space or use them for her own political ends. Take a lesson from that jk and get out of their face. You are not part of the support team.

    • Last time I looked, Key was the Patron of the NZ Football Association. How much time does he spend around the All Whites? Does he even bother to attend their matches?

    • Looking again at these photos the question is: did John Key or the National Party pay for these obviously staged photos or has the Rugby Union firmly thrown there hat in with National?

    • Helen Clark is all over Social Media congratulating the ABs and good on her. Several tens of thousands of likes on her FB page about the game. There is far more about being a Kiwi that we share, (left and right), and to win in politics surely you need to bring the people with you. Lecturing and getting all puritan (no Christmas, birthdays or Easter for you you happy little git), or eat a mountain of greens before a teaspoon of desert is plain old shitty.
      We love our rugby and sport, it’s good for us to be involved and it unites us. A good politician (thanks Andrew Little!!) knows this and gets among it. He’s gone up in my estimation for getting to the game.

  7. I think watching jonky slithering around big handsome men for fun and profit is as cute as seeing someone else’s phlegm on the footpath. He does have that kind of freshly coughed sputum quality about him doesn’t he ?

    A golem I’d go so as to observe.

    In Jewish folklore, a golem (/ˈɡoʊləm/ goh-ləm; Hebrew: גולם‎) is an animated anthropomorphic being, magically created entirely from inanimate matter. The word was used to mean an amorphous, unformed material (usually out of stone and clay) in Psalms and medieval writing.[1]
    The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late-16th-century rabbi of Prague. There are many tales differing on how the golem was brought to life and afterwards controlled.

    And… the manifestation of off-shore corporate puppetry which will result ultimately in the loss of our sovereignty of our beautiful NZ / Aotearoa.

    I think the All Blacks / Jonky thing ? It’s just one more psychological mechanism scripted to facilitate the above.

    Call me old fashioned if you must .

  8. My mind was officially blown when I heard the Prime fucking Minister of New Zealand give a live phone interview on BBC World News about… winning the Rugby World Cup. Giving detailed blow by blow account of the match for 5-10 minutes and basking in the glory. Just unbelievable. My respect for The John Key was already at zero so I’m not entirely sure how its possible, but its even lower now.

  9. Don’t think Richie Mc Caw has been enamoured of the PM .John Key went into the dressing rooms where the team was celebrating,singled out Mc Mcaw ,butRichie shook his hand and excused himself to go back to his friends,Key looked very downcast, believe he thought he would invited in to be one of the boys.More photo op but they ignored him.

    • Good spotting ELLE, Key is a puffed up jerk.

      He is an embarrassment to the ASB’s and the country.

      Key simply doesn’t know what grace and being humble means, so he comes over as a pompous prick.

      People are getting tired of his self impressions of greatness, as are just his imagination that is twisted and soiled.

      • To paraphrase Otago Daily Times rugby writer in Monday morning’s edition, “Is anyone else tired of seeing John Key in the All Blacks’ changing room?”

  10. David Pocock said the other day he was more worried about climate change than the All Blacks in a story in The Mirror.

    • That’s why the PM visits the All Blacks changing room, not the Wallabies’. We won – they lost. Photo-op.

      Climate change is just too hard and divisive a subject to forget your opinion on, or have memory lapses about – like the Springbok Tour of 1981 eh? Water, ice, CO2, flooding refugees, photo – op knee-deep in water, causal links between greenhouse gases and climate. World Cup is easy. We won – they lost. Photo-op.

      … Mono-racial teams, Blacks, Mandela, John Hart, nails in the pitch, politics and sport …who cares about that stuff eh? Especially because there wasn’t a decent photo op back in 1981.

      • Had the All Blacks lost, what’s the bet Key would’ve made a beeline to the airport from Twickenham and avoided the ABs as if they were Ebola carriers??

  11. What the mainstream media (MSM) present us is in reality only what really interests barely half the population. Like with their choice of prime time news-readers on TV, they pick images, events and “news” that are deemed to uphold the “Kiwi morale” and “Kiwi spirit”, as it is considered of the “traditional type”.

    It is meant to give most New Zealanders the illusion that they are still a collective, united nation of hard working, hard playing, battler type men and women, who do the hard work to keep the nation moving.

    So sports is used like the Romans used their gladiators, to get the masses excited, to feel they are all one, and there for a purpose, of fair competition and deserved wins. Who would ever have thought that cricket game fixing may be rather common, until some revelations were brought to the fore, leading to a court case in London. How do cricket fans feel about that?

    While I suppose that such manipulations are perhaps less common in rugby union, I would not totally rule it out. But in any case, the All Black’s win will have excited and “united” many, no matter how great income and other differences exist between the fans. I have seen the most unlikely people in my neighbourhood dress in black today, just to be “part of it”.

    Prepare for the next few weeks being dominated on the need to give Ritchie a knighthood, on the value of the new flag, while the referendum is approaching, and on speculations about how much we may “gain” economically from the All Black’s success in London.

    Economic 101 will be applied to present us the great likely gains, in more sports tourists coming here, same as entertainment freaks love to come to learn about the places where the Hobbit movies and so were filmed.

    In reality half of New Zealand may at best have felt bored with rugby, or indifferent, due to lack of interest, but as the MSM still sets the tone re what the “masses” are supposed to think and consider important, most will think, they better take note, follow what is presented to them, and ask no questions about what really should matter.

    Remember the recent revelations about Nicky Hager, remember the success Jane Kelsey and some others had before the High Court re Groser’s appalling OIA response, remember the shocking recent environmental report, remember the unresolved housing crisis, remember one John Tully being locked up for alleged murder of WINZ workers for 14 months now, without having been brought to trial yet. Also remember NZ’s appalling reaction to the refugee crisis, remember John Key’s many lies, and what else should matter.

    Have the MSM reported on any of this lately? O doubt it, I wonder why.

  12. THIS IS DAMNED IMPORTANT, MUCH MORE SO THAN A RWC WIN:

    The Office of Ombudsmen is conducting a survey on experiences with and satisfaction with OIA requests and responses:

    https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/OIASurvey2

    This should be of great interest to readers here, especially those who care about our democracy!

    Sadly it does not seem to have been mentioned much by media. Perhaps the MSM have given up on OIA requests?

  13. Although not an ardent rugby follower, I have to say the ABs deserved their win yesterday, playing strong and playing extremely well. Congratulations ABs.

    However, Sonny Bill Williams emerged as the star for me, with his generous and very kind gesture of protecting and giving his RWC medal to little rugby fan Charlie Lines. This is something which should be up there along with the win. SBW and Charlie were the winners of the day.

    Now we wait for FJK to begin milking the RWC win for all its worth, using Richie as his front to promote his dirty political agenda.

    FJK is a gambler. He took the gamble that the ABs would again carry off the RWC and has used the timing to conveniently hold the first flag referendum at the end of this month, while Kiwis are on a high after the win, hoping no doubt, one of his hideous silver fern designs will be chosen!

    The political propaganda will begin any day now.

    Now how will FJK handle the visit of Prince Charles and his wife, arriving in the country this week, considering he wants to rid the NZ flag of its “remnants of British colonialism?”

  14. While the All Blacks were fending off the stalker PM, a Russian passenger plane crashed killing hundreds of people.

    It seems now it was probably brought down by MOSSAD and CIA ,
    report in WAKE UP NEW ZEALAND .

    Any wonder NZ PM is seen as an opportunisic fool by the world ,(if most know he even excists).
    There are escalating problems in the Spratly islands (China) by USA war ships ,a Russian plane brought down, and still JK wants to be seen in all his glory as the person who helped the All Blacks to win,he hindered them if anything, embarrassing the captain Richie Mc Caw by stalking him .
    Real premier stuff,dignity personified, Key tried to make the game all about him,but it didn’t gel with the public,now watch what has probably happened when he was he was all dressed in black overseas, TPP maybe ratified,flag decided on All Blacks win ,black with the fern maybe in honor of a rugby team as the national flag of NZ, maybe!!!

  15. I see the right wing trolls have crawled out of their dark holes, are out and about, taking their thumbs out of their backsides and doing their downsythumbs thingy they do so well.

    Great stuff guys for keeping the visitor numbers up for the TDB. Can only be good for the site.

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