Times are changing in a once rugby-obsessed nation, writes Paul Rees.
New Zealand and World Cups have tended not to go together in the past 20 years but, if the All Blacks are usually installed as favourites to win the rugby union version only to implode, the country’s football side, who were dubbed the All Whites in the build-up to their only other appearance in the World Cup in 1982, have never been encumbered by expectation.
Yet the All Whites coach, Ricki Herbert, believes football has overtaken rugby in the popularity stakes in New Zealand, as it briefly did 28 years ago when the team’s Spanish sojourn coincided with a disenchantment with the oval-ball game. The year before a contentious tour by South Africa was bedevilled by anti-apartheid protests, one of which forced the cancellation of a game in Hamilton.
The tour divided families as well as opinion: players received death threats and were spat at on the streets. Rugby had been regarded as New Zealand’s national sport all century, but not only was it seen as attempting to bolster a loathsome regime but also a number of mothers were concerned at its endemic violence on the field, where scars were regarded as badges of honour, and they saw football as a safer pastime for their sons.
Rugby’s dominance is again under threat even though the All Blacks are ranked No.1 in the world while the All Whites are 78th. Referring to Saturday night’s game against Ireland, Paul Lewis of the Herald on Sunday wrote: ”The 2011 All Black World Cup campaign begins on Saturday. There has probably never been a more important 15 months in New Zealand rugby history. A great deal more is at stake than usual. Never before has the future of New Zealand rugby been so clearly threatened. Some say the 2011 World Cup represents a last gasp. That’s maybe overstating it. But will rugby continue its long-term grip as the pre-eminent sport in New Zealand?”
It is a question Herbert is happy to answer. ”The reaction to our qualifying for the World Cup finals has been staggering,” he says, ”even more so than in 1982. Since we qualified for South Africa, soccer is not third- or fourth-ranked in popularity in New Zealand. It is probably No.1 at the moment. What the players have done for the nation is to bring football back to where it should be.”
The All Blacks have some leading players in their positions in the world, even if the number is shrinking, but none of the All Whites, who start their World Cup campaign against Slovakia in Rustenburg on Tuesday, would be in contention for football’s fifth-best XI and few of them are known outside their country. Their captain, the Blackburn defender Ryan Nelsen, is an exception. ”This year will be different to 1982 because we are a mainly young side that will be stronger in four years,” he says. ”Public and media interest have picked up and if we were to play Australia at home now I doubt there would be a big enough stadium to hold the crowd.”
The All Blacks are playing three internationals this month: the 66-28 win against Ireland and meetings with Wales over the next two weekends. Despite staging the matches at relatively small grounds in New Plymouth, Dunedin and Hamilton, the New Zealand Rugby Union have struggled to sell all the tickets.
”Rugby still has its fans and there are a number of exciting events on this year,” says Paul Dalton, the NZRU’s commercial manager. ”The [football] World Cup will be over for most teams in a fairly short space of time and you always face these things, whether it is the Olympics or anything else. If you look at the viewing figures, the football market is very much in Wellington. The two sports are not mutually exclusive as a fan base: there is no need for aggression and we do not need to fight each other.” Wellington Phoenix, the only New Zealand club in the A-League, averaged nearly 17,500 spectators this season, more than 2000 more than the average attracted to the Hurricanes’ Super 14 matches in the city.
”The 1981 Springbok tour markedly damaged rugby in New Zealand,” wrote Robin McConnell in his book Inside the All Blacks. ”It no longer served as a certainty of New Zealand society, nor did it reflect its fullness. It has probably passed its peak as a way of life in the country. Other sports are improving their international standards and getting extended television coverage, cutting into rugby’s domination.”
A national survey in 2008 found that more than 185,000 people in New Zealand over the age of 16 took part in football, while nearly 145,500 players were registered with the 26 provincial rugby unions. Rugby expects a boost next year when New Zealand host the World Cup but Lewis, in the Herald, said the game was being seen as fighting for its life, battling to prevent its best players moving abroad: all the champions in Europe this year – Toulouse, Cardiff Blues, Leicester, Clermont Auvergne and Ospreys – had a New Zealand influence.
Football senses its chance has finally arrived again. ”We must not sit back like we did in 1982,” says Stu Jacobs, a former All White who coaches in Wellington. ”A big difference now is that when you talk to young soccer players, they go on about Ryan Nelsen, Chris Killen and Leo Bertos, not Dan Carter and Richie McCaw. Opportunity is within reach when it used to be a long distance away. We have to make football boom.”