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    RWC 2011

    Which illustrates the problem with Reed's "no one else is allowed to do anything" question.

    The fine to the French is chickenshit, though.

    Comment


      RWC 2011

      Here's the story about the Trinity Trojans of Euless, TX:

      A Tongan war dance enlivens football in Texas
      Thursday, November 16, 2006
      By J. Lynn Lunsford, The Wall Street Journal
      BEDFORD, Texas -- For as long as anybody can remember, the stereotypical Texas high-school football player has been the saddle-tough son of the West Texas prairie.
      So imagine a recent evening when the Odessa Permian Panthers, whose historic dominance of Texas football inspired the book, movie and TV series "Friday Night Lights," looked across the field and saw the rival Trinity Trojans doing a Polynesian war dance.

      At the sound of a tone blown over a large conch shell, 17-year-old senior defensive tackle Alex Kautai threw off his helmet, freeing a mane of curly black hair. He shouted several sentences in a foreign tongue and waved his arms as 93 visibly agitated teammates gathered behind him on the sidelines.

      On cue, they dropped into a wide, crouching stance and began the ritual known as the haka. "Ka Mate! Ka Mate! Ka Ora!" (We're going to die! We're going to die! We're going to live!), they chanted in unison as the fans went wild. For the next 60 seconds, the players acted out an ancient battle in which a big hairy man saves the life of a Maori chieftain.

      With each phrase, the players slapped their thighs, arms or chests. They stomped back and forth, symbolically thrusting and jabbing at the enemy. At the end of the dance, Mr. Kautai jumped in the air and landed on one foot, his right fist in the air and his tongue lolling out of his mouth as he sneered fiercely.

      Few other high-school teams could pull off that routine without looking silly. But at Trinity, the war dance embraces the culture of a growing population of immigrants from the island kingdom of Tonga, in the southwest Pacific east of Fiji. An estimated 4,000 people of Tongan descent live in Trinity's hometown of Euless, a city of 52,900 whose boundaries include about 2,800 acres of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

      Tongan community leaders say that most of the Pacific Islanders were drawn to the area over the past 20 years by jobs at the airport, where many of them work as baggage handlers or service employees. For those with airline jobs, company flight privileges have made it easier for them to fly home regularly.

      Most of the 24 players of Tongan descent on the Trinity football team weigh between 250 and 308 pounds and stand at least 6 feet tall. Besides that, they are quick, so the combination makes Trinity an intimidating force on any high-school field. The Tongan players helped transform Trinity into a Texas football powerhouse.

      Last year, Trinity won the Class 5A Division 1 state football championship. It went undefeated in this year's regular season and administered an old-fashioned 40-14 whupping to the Permian Panthers. Trinity begins the first round of state playoffs Friday night against nearby Arlington Martin High School.

      "We do the haka to ignite the breath of competition. It means that I've got your back and you've got mine," said Mr. Kautai, who stopped shaving and let his hair grow long this season to make himself look even more intimidating than he already does at 6-foot-2 and 280 pounds. He likes to splash water on his face and hair before the haka so it will fly off in a mist as he performs the movements.

      Trinity first performed the haka two years ago after one of the Tongan players saw a video on the Internet of New Zealand's All Blacks rugby team doing the war dance before one of its games. The haka is more than 200 years old and originated with New Zealand's Maori people. Since then, it has been adopted by a number of Polynesian cultures, including that of Tonga.

      Several of the players, including Mr. Kautai's 19-year-old brother, Richie, went to a nearby park to work on the moves without attracting unwanted attention. Practice was rained out a couple of weeks later, so they persuaded Coach Steve Lineweaver to let them teach the dance to the rest of the team. "When we all dropped into the crouch for the first time and did those first steps, it made the hair stand up on everybody's arms," Richie Kautai recalls.

      After consulting with local Tongan community leaders, Mr. Lineweaver agreed to let the team demonstrate the haka at a dinner for the football boosters. "I can't even wrap my West Texas tongue around some of the words, but every boy on that team has made it a point to learn it," Mr. Lineweaver said.

      The team first performed the haka for fans at the beginning of the 2005 season. Concerned about seeming to taunt opponents unfairly, the coach restricted the haka performance to the sidelines at the end of the field where most Trinity students sit.

      It was an instant hit. Today, the stands closest to where the team performs the chant are full an hour before kickoff. An eerie silence falls over the stadium as soon as the tone is sounded on the conch shell as fans strain to hear the haka leader urging on the team.

      Fans wave haka signs and wear black "Got Haka?" T-shirts. Rather than race to the parking lot to beat the crowd at the end of the game, hundreds of people routinely wait 20 minutes or more for the team to do the haka one more time.

      The team has performed the haka at elementary-school assemblies in order to fire up the children before state-mandated tests. It has performed for the City Council. Before last year's championship game, one fifth-grade class learned the haka and performed it to cheer on their newfound heroes. "It's amazing that a little chant has that much power," said Trinity principal Andy Cargile, a lanky Texan who is quick to point out that he sometimes wears a printed Polynesian skirt known as a lava-lava around the school.

      One convert is Charlotte Swords, a 1979 graduate of Trinity's local archrival, Lawrence D. Bell High School in nearby Hurst. "I had five brothers and sisters, and we all grew up in a house where Trinity was the enemy," she said. Today, Ms. Swords's daughter Jennifer is a senior in Trinity's band "and I'm screaming at the top of my lungs every time those guys do the haka."

      Ilaiasi Ofa, executive director of the Voice of Tonga, the organization that serves as a local advocate for Tongan immigrants, said the haka has become a source of pride for a community that hasn't always been sure of its place in Texas. Shortly after the team first began performing it, Mr. Ofa showed a videotape of it to a group of older Tongan residents. Their attention immediately gravitated to the white players standing in the front row, performing the war dance alongside their Tongan teammates.

      "I had two older men with tears in their eyes tell me afterward, 'After seeing that, we know that our future generations will be accepted here,'" Mr. Ofa said.

      Although he thought at first that the haka was a passing fad that would last just one season, Mr. Lineweaver says he wouldn't dream of trying to discontinue it. "Little first-graders are learning how to do the haka before they learn to block and tackle," he said. "If I tried to stop it now, I'm afraid I'd get run out of town."

      First published on November 16, 2006 at 12:00 am

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        RWC 2011

        I didn't see that. I just saw a bunch of white kids doing it. I thought it was in Pennsylvania, but maybe I'm just misremembering that.

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          RWC 2011

          All the Pacific Island teams are allowed to do a ceremonial dance prior to kick off should they wish. For some it's a haka; I don't know the native tongue names for all of them, but it sticks in my mind that one is called the sipi tau

          @Reed John - you're not thinking about the Utah case where two of the crowd - who were performing a haka AFTER the game got gassed by the police?

          Comment


            RWC 2011

            Isn't "Ka Mate!" a specifically Maori haka though rather than generally Polynesian? It's not just one dance, they are written for specific purposes and it can't be right to just appropriate it because it looks cool. The Tongan community surely aren't in a position to give permission to the school to perform Ka Mate.

            Reed, Bringham Young and University of Hawaii performed/performs a haka I believe. The University of Hawaii now perform a Hawaiian war chant which makes much more sense.

            Edit: Also the US schools seem to also perform it after games for the crowd which seems a bit odd.

            Comment


              RWC 2011

              Everyone should do their own thing. England should do a Morris dance, the Scots dance a reel, the Welsh should do a choral number, the Australians masterbate themselves furiously whilst shouting that they're going to win etc.

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                RWC 2011

                For the Kiwis' attitude towards criticism of the haka, think Gollum's attitude towards those who would try and take away the Ring from him. The silly buggers even did one in the changing rooms when Wales asked them to do it between the national anthems instead of before kick off. Here's arch-twat Ali Williams doing his usual stupid facepulling.



                And now for Pool B

                Argentina

                After the 2007 triumph, this was always going to be a hard act to follow, especially after Dr Phil got injured. I think they seriously need to look at their style of rugby to progress, but their participation in the new Four Nations tournament will help. Quarter finals was about par.

                England

                Panto villians of the tournament, with dwarfs, kissing the bald headed captain, insults to hotel staff and complete shit on the pitch, we were a rabble. A few players can be pleased with their contributions, the rest should look hard in the mirror. A total overhaul of playing and coachign staff is needed but with the RFU involved its latest Night of The Long Knives, fat chance.

                Scotland

                As ever, if they had a clue how to score tries against decent opposition they'd be a force to be reckoned with. Overall they should be disappointed with their efforts, out in the pool is not a good tournament.

                Georgia

                Massive pack and backs who also appeared to be flankers in numbers 12-15, they gave everyone a hard time and have come on in leaps and bounds. One man wrecking crew Mamuke Gordgodze was a joy to watch for fans of the hard yards.

                Romania

                Improving from the awful state they were in after the deaths of several players back in the revolution and the collapse of their funding, the Mighty Oaks seem somewhere on the start of the road to recovery, thankfully without the sponsorship of an evil dictator.

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                  RWC 2011

                  For the Kiwis' attitude towards criticism of the haka, think Gollum's attitude towards those who would try and take away the Ring from him
                  Everything I have seen from the All Blacks about the French one and the Welsh one has been that they haven't been bothered and are happy for other to do what they want. I get the idea it is the IRB that doesn't want anything too intimidating looking.

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                    RWC 2011

                    10^7 guests wrote:

                    Edit: Also the US schools seem to also perform it after games for the crowd which seems a bit odd.
                    The All Blacks sometimes do a celebratory post-match Haka to the crowd, they did one in Sunday, for instance.

                    Fitzpatrick explained it on the coverage as based on the Maori's Haka on returning home From battle to their families/tribes.

                    Comment


                      RWC 2011

                      Pacific Islanders in the US are mad for rugby, even if they play American football because it's a better opportunity for them to go to university. Those kids probably all play rugby in the offseason. New Zealand rugby is especially popular among PIs, who regard it almost as the British Lions.

                      So the kids probably got the haka off watching NZ rugby on TV.

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                        RWC 2011

                        Harry Truscott wrote:
                        10^7 guests wrote:

                        Edit: Also the US schools seem to also perform it after games for the crowd which seems a bit odd.
                        The All Blacks sometimes do a celebratory post-match Haka to the crowd, they did one in Sunday, for instance.

                        Fitzpatrick explained it on the coverage as based on the Maori's Haka on returning home From battle to their families/tribes.
                        Ah ok. Was it a different haka then?

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                          RWC 2011

                          I think it may have been, not sure.

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                            RWC 2011

                            "You are the Ref" style question for sitheref, if he is still around. Posted here, as I don't know of a rugby 'You are the Ref' site/column, although I guess such a beast does exist...

                            So;

                            The blue team are trailing the reds by 11 points with ~5 minutes left, when the blues score a try only a metre in from touch. The blues captain, who happens to be their kicker, instantly regards his chances of making the kick as slim and, knowing his team will need another try regardless, considers attempting the conversion an inefficient use of the limited time remaining. So he asks you if his team can forego the conversion and move straight to kick-off.
                            To complicate matters, the reds captain overhears this and complains, as he was going to use the time during the conversion attempt to give his men a quick gee-up.

                            What do you do?

                            Comment


                              RWC 2011

                              This one's easy.
                              There's no obligation to kick. The law says that scoring the try gives the team the right to try the kick, not the obligation.

                              And not being funny - that's why it's called a "try".

                              Comment


                                RWC 2011

                                If I'm not mistaken, there was a time when a try was worth no points, and all you got was a free kick at goal. This was true of the early versions of American football too.

                                Comment


                                  RWC 2011

                                  You can try a quick drop goal conversion, can't you? I'm sure the All Blacks scored one late in the '99 RWC semi-final I was at which confused me as I couldn't remember seeing one before.

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                                    RWC 2011

                                    Mandatory in sevens, optional in fifteens

                                    Comment


                                      RWC 2011

                                      Reed John wrote:
                                      If I'm not mistaken, there was a time when a try was worth no points, and all you got was a free kick at goal. This was true of the early versions of American football too.
                                      Correct. I think that's why it's called a try - as in you got a try for a shot at goal.

                                      The review continues!

                                      Pool C

                                      Ireland

                                      The Irish have a very curious history at World Cups, in that they will often come into them in one vein of form and then perform in entirely the opposite once they reach the tournament. The win over Australia was a great highlight but yet again they failed to win come the knockout stages. Certain players must now be hanging up their Test boots.

                                      Australia

                                      Never really got going; possibly a tournament too soon for a talented young side but one still, as ever, lacking in forward firepower. Rocky Elsom continues to live off his season at Leinster and Quade Cooper looked completely at sea at times. The loss of Kurtley Beale also really hurt them, he is a key player. They will be a big threat come 2015.

                                      Italy

                                      Sadly, utterly unmemorable in all departments. I can't remember anything about their tournament, they slipped away from the whole thing leaving an indelible black.

                                      USA! USA! USA!

                                      Getting better. The usual "if only we could get them interested" line that's trotted out for football applies here, but the award of 7s to the Olympics should pique some interest. They won the tedious Cold War Reference match against Russia and, Australia apart, put up a good fight in their other games.

                                      Russia

                                      By all accounts, fan favourites who made lots of friends off the pitch without hurling vertically challenged persons. Scored some nice tries and their winger, Artemiev, has now bagged 5 tries in 2 games for Northampton which is encouraging. The game certainly has the macho qualities that appeal to Russian manly men, so who knows?

                                      Comment


                                        RWC 2011

                                        USA is probably no better, if not worse, than they've been since 1999.

                                        They had the usual bags of heart and big hits but little skill combination.

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