Game Day

What better way to start out game day than at a museum.












Hmm, it's actually not as non-sequitur as it sounds. New Zealand rugby co-opts a number of Māori cultural traditions. Each Rugby World Cup game begins with a fierce looking Māori warrior calling out the teams with a loud blast on the Pukaea, a long wooden horn with a deep resounding wail, that is inexplicably not followed by the bellowing of "Riiiiicccccccooooooolllllaa!"

The New Zealand team, the All Blacks, actually perform a Haka at the beginning of each game as well. Hakas are traditional Māori dances, some of which are used for lament, homecoming, and so on. When used for battle, they're particularly useful for intimidating your opponent, since part of the dance requires you to show the whites of your eyes as much as possible. The museum gave us a demonstration:













And asked the audience to try it:














We also saw a few traditions rugby hasn't quite worked in yet. As far as I know, rugby players don't greet each other by touching foreheads... although the "scrum" comes pretty close. Rugby also doesn't yet incorporate these swinging white balls (called Poi), which dubious rumors suggest were traditionally used by the men to strengthen their wrists, but are more likely (as in this case) used by the women for storytelling and performance art.














And finally, rugby has not yet incorporated the only exhibit of a Colossal Squid carcass in the world. Though given the opportunity, I have to believe they would, even if it's not technically Maori-related. It was impressive. More impressive than this under-lit photo let's on. The squid was caught when it latched onto a fish already snagged on a hook. For some reason it never let go and took the ride all the way to the surface - no one knows why the squid had to have THAT fish.















The museum actually had a number of other non-Māori related exhibits, which I tended to prefer to the more historical, Waitangi treaty related ones. While Ming was engrossed in the story of how Queen Victoria's settlers negotiated this controversial treaty with the natives, I was reading about the other invasive species that have come to the islands since that time:














Many of the exhibits tried to be hi-tech or game-like in one way or another, where by "hi-tech", I mean on par with the Oregon Trail a couple of decades ago. The game-portions were about as fun as Oregon Trail too, except without the hunting. Ming, however, was enthralled.

Pretty soon I was ready to go. It's not that I don't like museums; I generally do. It's just that they seem to have a very short half-life for me. That is, the first exhibit I see is usually great; the second, pretty good; but my interest decays geometrically from there. This is probably in part because I never save the best for last, and maybe in part because I just get tired from all the walking; but I also have this working theory that writing something on a plaque immediately, and in the squid's case quite literally, sucks the life out of it. You might say I've got the causality wrong there, but there's no arguing with the correlation.

After winding our way out of the museum... okay fine, after dragging Ming out of the museum... we were in search of a late lunch. Martin Bosley's wasn't too far away and was rated the best restaurant in Wellington by someone at some point, so we decided to check it out.













I had the fish and chips.













Ming had just the fish.














The food was pretty good, but the view was better.












By the time lunch was over, it was already well past 3:00, at which point I realized I was going to be late for my nap. I've been going to sleep pretty regularly between nine and ten, which for me is a minor miracle, but I was going to have to kick the habit to stay up for the rugby. Hence the nap.

There were a few more delays on the way back to the hotel to take some photos of Wellington's government buildings. After all, we realized a full 24 hours after arriving, it is the capitol. Here's the Beehive, aka, Parliament.













When we got back to the hotel, Ming went straight to the gym and I went straight to bed. An hour and a half later we were both energetic enough to dart out the door towards the rugby pitch. That's right it's called a pitch, not a field; probably for the same reason the trunk of a car is called a boot... though I have yet to figure out what that reason is.

On the 20 minute walk to the stadium we were shocked to see all the US flags and elaborate red-white-and-blue apparel. Every rugby fan from the US (all five or six hundred) must have converged on New Zealand to watch what would undoubtedly be an embarrassing thrashing for the US of A.

Listening more closely to their chants however, we noticed slight accents on the "A" of "USA! USA!". When we stood up to sing the national anthem, the charade was shattered by a fan who looked a lot like Uncle Sam, but was clearly reading the lyrics from a sheet of paper.













It was explained to us later that the Kiwis (read New Zealanders) are so passionate about rugby that they will buy all the apparel, wave the flag, and sing the national anthem of whichever side they dislike the least, or in the rare case they are truly apathetic, choose a side to root for randomly. After this discovery, we kept our eyes peeled and our ears open for actual fans from the USA... we are still looking.

In the AU-US battle, it appeared that Australia had some particularly ardent anti-fans, making the pro-US numbers significant. Obama himself even made an appearance:












It also turns out that Kiwis dressed as Americans are some of the rudest sports fans I've ever encountered. The guys behind us were wasted when the game began, and judging by the number of times I was sprayed by a clumsily opened Heineken, they consumed another keg, in can-sized increments, over the course of the game.

In addition to the beer, the frat house behind us donated a dollop of ketchup to Ming's coat and a healthy portion of foul language throughout the game. In fact, one Aussie-dressed Kiwi sitting next to us asked them to tone down the language a notch, citing the 5 and 6 year olds around us, but after a silent minute, they realized they had nothing else to say to each other and started up again. The only saving grace of this slurring pack of pseudo-Americans was that they served as a buffer between us and another American-clad Kiwi vomiting between the seats two rows back. With a little concentration we were able to ignore the circus behind us once the game started.












The US rugby team is admittedly second-tier, and tonight we had in our B-team since our top guys wore themselves out in a win against Russia. I think another weak point of the US team is our general intimidation technique. Instead of starting with a Haka, we just stand around in what looks to be a white uniform with a blue speedo on the outside.












Rugby is a funny game in a lot of ways. The most important games are called "tests" and the equivalent of a touchdown is called a "try". Unlike American football, play is continuous... or at least as continuous as can be given that every few seconds ends with a pile of players called a ruck:












The ruck essentially forms a line of scrimmage from which the ball needs to be rolled out backwards to be picked up and then passed to a player waiting to make a run for it. Penalties are pretty much the only way to stop the game (except for tries) - a scrum often forms after a penalty or mistake causes a turnover.












The team with possession rolls the ball in between the two teams and the "hooker" from each team tries to hook the ball back towards their side of the scrum. Once in possession, it's another mad dash for the goal line, or perhaps a "tap" kick upfield in hopes of regaining possession. The game ends after eighty minutes of play or when the seeker catches the golden snitch.

There were times when we put up a certain amount of resistance to the Australian offensive. If not stopping them from scoring a try, we would at least attempt to embarrass them by pulling off their shorts.












There were other times we gave no resistance at all.












The Aussies still made it look difficult though.

























A try, worth five points, can get bumped up to seven if a conversion kick is successful. The guy in red is the ref. The yellow guy is the kicker. I guess the blue guy brought a picnic.












The Americans were feeling and looking dejected.












We did manage to score one try though! Pretty good for our back-up team, though in the end we did lose 5 to 67. At least we try'ed.












Ming even bought a beanie to show her support, a surprising move given her poor record of supporting the US at international sporting events. I guess China wasn't playing though.












So two hours, a dozen "Mexican waves," and only one guy-left-on-stretcher-injury later, we'd survived our first rugby World Cup game - well, our first rugby game period. It was definitely an experience not to be missed.

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Location:Wellington, NZ