This Irishman gets it....

On this forum I often feel underskilled in explaining to others from the Northern hemisphere, the way us kiwis approach our rugby (and league), how we learn it as a life skill through school, how we create team cultures and the responsibility of being a member of a team, and our obligations to our teammates.

It was with wonderment (and pride) I found this brilliant piece written last week by former Irish International Neil Francis...This Irishman gets it.

Have a read:


http://www.independent.ie/sport/neil-francis-courage-under-fire-is-the-kiwis-greatest-gift-29779545.html

I was talking to a chap today who said his friend was some kind of assistant coach to Ireland a little while ago. He said in the dressing room everyone understood the game plan and their role. Then then went on the field....

It is a very well written piece, thanks Luarie

nganboy wrote:I was talking to a chap today who said his friend was some kind of assistant coach to Ireland a little while ago. He said in the dressing room everyone understood the game plan and their role. Then then went on the field....

Under pressure players will always revert back to what they know. The fundamental difference I believe is the grassroots, not at professional levels of the game - core skills can be refined later on but they need to be learnt at schoolboy level. NZ have better systems and rugby there is more competitive at every level of the game, so its not surprising they are so good under pressure.

Neil Francis is a clown but not a bad piece I suppose.

And those grassroots are founded upon a system (or culture) of:

- a now modified, mid-19th C work ethic - part hard-working Protestant (strong mix of English/Scottish/Irish/Welsh spirit & capabilities in the emerging industrial world)
-  pioneer based progress on the other side of the Empire... which produces a special type of character. Alone and lacking resources - they had to improvise and take very high risks to 'get anywhere' - but if they succeeded; the rewards were also very high. You either lived well or you died! The stakes were very high.
- Then add the war-like warrior spirit of the southern Pacific Ocean dynasties and you have a rather potent mix. (note: Oz indigenous got into scraps too but less emphasis on war and feuding... more on spirits and dreaming)

When you simply think about how the countries of NZ, Oz and SA developed over the last couple of hundred years (from almost "Nothing-ness" to properly organised, relatively sophisticated western nations) there are many common drivers which characterise our people/cultures/attitudes on the field of sport or in a war situation.

It's like we understand you only get one crack at it - so it better bloody work.

Interesting comment from Rommel. He respected the ANZACS.

Word even filtered through to another Field Marshal, Erich von Manstein on the Eastern Front, about their reputation and apparently he was left in admiration too; pondering the question of what possible motives do these people have to throw everything (i.e. their lives) for a 'cause' which did not directly affect them in their homelands?

He didn't understand the strength of the links within the Empire and had no idea that many of our forefathers would jump at the chance to lock horns with enemy and risk everything to succeed. The chance to prove oneself against all odds. The Kiwis are addicted to it.

Meh. Lovely writing, but I don't buy it.

To me it's dangerously close to trying to vindicate the widely discredit eugenics concept. Made infamous via nazi propaganda and then luckily hidden away from vulnerable minds until a bizarre 10 minute BBC Olympics time filler where the host tried to convince us that black people made better sprinters because their ancestors were probably slaves who had somehow evolved into super-beings due to compressed Darwinian evolutionary pressure. Before none other than John inverdale reassured us that it was "incontrovertible science - just look how many black people ran under 10 seconds". Sigh.

http://bellaciaoliberta.wordpress.com/2012/08/10/eugenics/

Here it is in all it's cringeworthy glory. Out favourite host too:

https://youtu.be/VAw_UeILgeY

I believe the truth is more prozaic. There are just as many players in the NH (possibly more, through populace) who would make fine All Blacks and show this expressed ruthless awareness and what-not, but their style and ability is not nurtured in a rugby culture that prefers torrid arm-wrestles and percentages over audacious expansiveness. And the fact is the higher caliber raw athletes are drawn to sports where there is more money, greater "cultural reward" and qudos locally.

On the Rommel thing, it disgusts me, rather than making me proud that NZ suffered the highest Casuality rate per capita and were repeatedly sent in first to the most bloody battles. The empty words of praise from some back line general protecting his own countrymen. Sickening stuff, and even sicker to lap it up as badge of honour. Sending in foreign conscripts first to soak up the casualities was long loooong a tactic of the British army and buying into their historical reinvention is patronising and misguided.

In my mind the Irishman does not get it, at all.

Ha I surprised a Neil Francis article is proving popular. He is usually Irelands answer to Stephen Jones. He is often very provocative but he was one of Irelands greatest locks of the last 30 years and usually shoots from the hip so I like his articles.

Meh, still waiting for some prose there, GE. You can do better than that, surely?

Arm wrestles and percentages over audacious expansiveness are not mutually exclusive - you can have all 4 you know.

The last sentence is not necessarily true either - there are high caliber raw athletes involved in sports where the rewards may be less financially but choose to pursue their chosen sport and still receive adequate "cultural rewards" (for less money). I'm not talking about eugenics or race here, you understand. More of a just follow the heart, laissez-faire approach where the player is more content in loyally serving a particular team/nation and has no desire to play for someone else offering "a better deal".

I also find it distasteful the assertion that all the great ideas are British, and so ipso facto these brave noble colonial savages must just have some unparalleled genetic trait that makes them superior.

It's a shocking bit of pseudo-intellectual garbage which is frankly apologetic of the genuine man management failure that keeps English specifically, and European rugby in general, hindered.

It's a fairly horrific exercise in some unpleasant cultural stereotyping and I'd wager almost utterly without merit.

My greatest outrage is again reserved for the comparison between rugby and trench warfare. Trying to make this parallel is both naive and insulting.

You've been reading to many Labour Man Management Manifestos, mate!

Yes, the one that really gets me is Shane Watson smashing a cricket ball against a change room full of defenceless lockers... and calling that some form of war which he will take to the field against his opponents.

Maybe some can understand the analogy whilst others are greatly offended by it.

People who equate war to sports know nothing about either, I suggest.

Anton Oliver always used to prattle on about it, irritated the hell out of me.

Good reason to dump the Haka I'd say. It's an insult to those fallen.

Linebreaker wrote:Good reason to dump the Haka I'd say. It's an insult to those fallen.

Don't really see what that has to do with anything. But you know, divert away please, to take us from the rank awful offensiveness of the original article.

Isn't the Haka a call to arms? I'd say so.

It's certainly not an invitation to dinner - more of "I bags the winger's thigh meat please - you can keep the head for your whare porte-cochere".

That's war.

GunsGerms wrote:Ha I surprised a Neil Francis article is proving popular. He is usually Irelands answer to Stephen Jones. He is often very provocative but he was one of Irelands greatest locks of the last 30 years and usually shoots from the hip so I like his articles.

He COULD have been one of Ireland's greatest locks if he wasn't such a lazy lump.

Linebreaker wrote:Isn't the Haka a call to arms? I'd say so.

It's certainly not an invitation to dinner - more of "I bags the winger's thigh meat please - you can keep the head for your whare porte-cochere".

That's war.

A challenge is different to a declaration of war.

Franno is uniquely qualified to write such a piece. He had plenty of ability as a player but not the drive to use it. He was part of the Ireland team to get beaten twice by Namibia and should be able to empathise with those running for cover rather than holding ground.

Bill Maclaren on the other hand commands nothing but the utmost respect, so it is unsurprising that the most important point of the article emanates from his quarter.

Of course Ireland showed that they weren't lacking in courage last Sunday, typified by Best continuing to play on with a broken arm, but rather it was rugby ability at the end of the day where they were found wanting.

Well said Ausker. He's essentially calling the Irish team cowards with no vision. Don't think that's fair at all.

GloriousEmpire wrote:

Linebreaker wrote:Isn't the Haka a call to arms? I'd say so.

It's certainly not an invitation to dinner - more of "I bags the winger's thigh meat please - you can keep the head for your whare porte-cochere".

That's war.

A challenge is different to a declaration of war.

Not really. So why are they dressed for war then?

Linebreaker wrote:

GloriousEmpire wrote:

Linebreaker wrote:Isn't the Haka a call to arms? I'd say so.

It's certainly not an invitation to dinner - more of "I bags the winger's thigh meat please - you can keep the head for your whare porte-cochere".

That's war.

A challenge is different to a declaration of war.

Not really. So why are they dressed for war then?

In rugby kits?

No, they are dressed in traditional Maori kit.

I don't really see the link between the article and rugby apart from the last paragraph. NZ are the best team because they run the game smarter than anyone else. Simple as that.

Sport is compared to war all the time. Just be thankful we don't have the same consequences.

I think another place where the article falls down is in the fact that it fails to take other NZ sport into account. Apart from league, which I suppose needs/has the same sort of qualities as union, NZ isn't exactly tearing the world down in other sports (no offence). What I mean is that, if NZ has some sort of super breed thing that leads to the ultimate race of sportsmen then it should be seen in their other sports too, but the soccer team for example doesn't really demonstrate that. Not sure the cricket team has this same never say die warrior attitude as the rugby side. So that's where I disagree with the article a bit.

For me NZ are just very very good at rugby and put a lot of time and resources into what they're good at. I think it helps that the tri nations happens to contain consistently the top 3 teams in the world - competition amongst the top 3 continually keeps the top 3 in the top 3, with the odd slip down as Oz does now and again. You have that advantage of playing each other a number of times a year which I think keeps the best up at the top. If one of you was to leave the tri nations and join the 6N I reckon over time you'd fall to the general levels of the 6N. Just a hunch!

I also think the ABs are the best passing team in world rugby. That's why you are so good. Not genetics. Not fitness. Not warrior mentality. Just the best passers, and with good fitness and skills, the wins fall into place.

Griff wrote:I think another place where the article falls down is in the fact that it fails to take other NZ sport into account. Apart from league, which I suppose needs/has the same sort of qualities as union, NZ isn't exactly tearing the world down in other sports (no offence). What I mean is that, if NZ has some sort of super breed thing that leads to the ultimate race of sportsmen then it should be seen in their other sports too, but the soccer team for example doesn't really demonstrate that. Not sure the cricket team has this same never say die warrior attitude as the rugby side. So that's where I disagree with the article a bit.

For me NZ are just very very good at rugby and put a lot of time and resources into what they're good at. I think it helps that the tri nations happens to contain consistently the top 3 teams in the world - competition amongst the top 3 continually keeps the top 3 in the top 3, with the odd slip down as Oz does now and again. You have that advantage of playing each other a number of times a year which I think keeps the best up at the top. If one of you was to leave the tri nations and join the 6N I reckon over time you'd fall to the general levels of the 6N. Just a hunch!

I also think the ABs are the best passing team in world rugby. That's why you are so good. Not genetics. Not fitness. Not warrior mentality. Just the best passers, and with good fitness and skills, the wins fall into place.

Agree with you Griff. If NZ had some genetic or pyscho-physical advantage we'd clean up the RLWC this afternoon, but it's not going to happen. It'll be Australia by 24 points at least.

NZ's other sporting claim to fame is yachting however, which kind of puts paid to the argument that Britain has a technological advantage. NZ has always prided itself on it's innovation in that sport. The first "plastic fantastic" fibre-glass America's cup yacht. Pioneering the foiling catamaran technology that set the America's Cup alight and saw both finalists boats built in NZ.

The article to me, is a sentimental load of old tosh frankly that does little but make excuses for Irish (and British) sporting failure and rewrites significant historical war time facts in a grotesquely sentimental fashion. Appalling journalism.

I didn't realise NZ's other claim to fame was yachting.

Are you sure you don't mean netball?

We also won the RLWC once.

Oh that's right. My memory must be failing.

What have you done with Laurie?
Have you reported him to the War Ministry yet for misuse of classified historical information?  

Linebreaker wrote:Oh that's right. My memory must be failing.

What have you done with Laurie?
Have you reported him to the War Ministry yet for misuse of classified historical information?  

I'm sure he was banned for not mentioning JPR was also pretty good.

Actually NZ does alright in all sorts of things. But yes I found the article a bit cringeworthy.
On the other hand I was told by a friend in the UN a few years ago that overall Kiwi soldiers were generally respected around the world as being very professional and capable. Good thing too considering how few of them we have and how old our kit must be.