All Blacks manager Darren Shand says the French rugby team should not have been fined for confronting New Zealand’s Maori haka or ceremonial challenge in the tense moments before kick-off in Sunday’s Rugby World Cup final.
sport24
As the New Zealand team performed the ceremonial haka, known as Kapa O Pango, France linked arms and formed a ‘V’ formation, then fanned out and marched from the 10 metre line across the halfway line.
The French team has been fined 10 000 pounds because their action breached an International Rugby Board regulation on how the haka should be faced, introduced after previous confrontations.
Shand said in a radio interview on Tuesday a fine was too severe a sanction for the offence.
“They came to play and that was great,” he said. “The culture challenge is that. It should be done and then we get on with the real stuff.”
France captain Thierry Dusautoir said the French team had decided on the morning of the match to confront the haka.
“At one stage we were so close to them that they wanted to kiss the New Zealanders, but I told them to take it easy,” he said. “It was a great moment and a moment we will remember all our lives.”
The NZers and IRB are just to precious over this silly little dance.
It was worth the £10 000, and if that is all the fine is, every team should confront the ballet act so. We give a standing ovation when we see a good performance at the theatre, and this was nothing more than that!
France should simply refuse to pay the fine. The IRB will then be under pressure to publically bring this out in the open and the other rugby unions can then get involved.
This is pretty pathetic by the IRB.
You guys must remember that the IRB is not some alien organisation. The IRB is all the rugby nations. The French broke their own rule that they voted for.
well, get rid of the haka … problem solved!!
well, if i was coach
i would get the guys chairs, drinks and popcorn
and
we could watch the dance at least in comfort if you cant challenge it (according to nzhq, i mean irb)!!
What can a team facing the Haka do to show that they accept the challenge? I personally love watching the Haka, but would love to have a counter challenge allowed. Whether it is walking towards them, or whatever else the opposition deem appropriate. That will just add to the pre match spectacle, but the best will be to klap them big time when you play them.
Well, if 15 guys dressed in black tells me they want to slit my troat i will shoot them with my “double-barrel-hale-gun” 😆
In the face!!!
World media call France haka fine ‘final insult’
Ronay said even the New Zealand team manager, Darren Shand, was among those who had expressed unease about the fine.
”But still the International Rugby Board seems intent on putting about the idea that the only appropriate response is to stand looking vaguely interested, like bum-bagged tourists on a stroll around the Maori museum rugby experience.
”Getting rid of the haka isn’t an option. Nobody wants that. But getting rid of the po-faced and rather precious ringfencing of its sole right to offer a pre-match challenge can only be a good thing. Why not just take the brakes off and offer the Maori war dance the ultimate compliment of taking it at face value, as a challenge that is there to be met in whatever way its opponents can muster.
”Fining France simply for walking along in a line, while opposite them their opponents are miming acts of terrible corporeal violence, just makes the whole spectacle look a little silly,” Ronay said.
Aux armes, citoyens, formez vos bataillons! And even before the opening whistle of the World Cup final, the French rugby team did exactly that, linking arms, forming into a veritable rugby battalion and marching right into the teeth of the All Blacks’ haka.
So that is your tribal challenge? Well, here is ours.
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It was the first sign to the 61,000 strong crowd – of whom at least 56,000 were wearing black – and tens of millions watching around the world that in this match the French had no intention of merely playing “Best Supporting Actor” while the All Blacks took every golden gong going, including the William Webb Ellis Cup.
The French had come to play, like only they can, and so they did, stretching the shocked All Blacks from the first. Even when All Blacks prop Tony Woodcock crossed for a try in the 15th minute, the French didn’t blink. They just kept attacking the All Blacks line, sending the ball wide in attack and playing with the savoir-faire that in this World Cup – like every other one – everyone thought was entirely beyond them, only to be proved wrong once more.
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