THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 2, 1994 TAG: 9411020587
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: THE VIEW FROM DOWN UNDER
Sarah Miskin is a Fulbright Professional Exchange Scholar from New Zealand
working as a reporter for The Virginian-Pilot and the Ledger-Star.
SOURCE: BY SARAH MISKIN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 117 lines
Two weeks before I came to Norfolk my home province, Canterbury, won the Ranfurly Shield, the national first division rugby trophy. That's as big as it gets.
Overnight Christchurch, the region's main city, became a riot of red and black, Canterbury colors, as thousands of fans welcomed the shield ``home'' to its rightful place.
Rugby is such a national passion at home that I was stunned to find only about 400 others watching the local champions, the Norfolk City Blues, demolish their opposition in the state finals in Roanoke on Sunday. The last Canterbury game attracted 38,000 fans. Our belief that only our team deserves to win has earned us the name ``one-eyed Cantabrians'' because we don't see the other side.
Louis S. Leland Jr., author of ``A Personal Kiwi-Yankee Dictionary,'' comes close to describing the fervor we feel for our top rugby team, the All Blacks (named for the color of their jerseys, not their race):
``Take the World Series winners, combine them with the Super Bowl champs, add the prestige of a victorious Olympic team, and you have a faint idea of what this carefully chosen national representative team of New Zealand's best rugby players means to the nation.''
The Norfolk Blues' weekend achievement, their 15th state championship in 16 attempts, rated an 11-line brief on page four of this paper's sports section. This is in stark contrast to the pages of coverage New Zealand newspapers devote to rugby.
At home, rugby, an amateur sport, is a matter of local and national pride to the point where I initially found it difficult to cheer ``Come on, Blues'' for Norfolk. Blue is the color of the dreaded Auckland team, which managed to keep the shield from us for eight years.
In the United States, professional sports reign supreme with individuals paid millions of dollars for their skills, something New Zealanders find difficult to comprehend. None of our teams is professional and the concept of our sporting heroes being on strike over money is bizarre.
Like the men of the Norfolk Blues, our ruggers play for the glory of the win and the sport, not millions of dollars. Their funding comes from sponsorship and gatetakings, neither of which the Blues have.
To us, football (or what we call ``gridiron'' to distinguish it from rugby football or soccer) remains a mystery. Where rugby is two 40-minute, nonstop segments of grueling physical combat between two teams of 15, gridiron seems to be a stop-start game involving more talk than play.
Why does play stop so the players can chat? What are these people talking about that can't be resolved in the locker room? And how come half the team comes off to rest during the game?
I am not a rugby fanatic. But like all Kiwis, I am a great armchair referee.
During the Virginia Rugby Union championship tournament, the Norfolk Blues (like Canterbury) gave a superb example of a cohesive team with the physical stamina to last 80 minutes of a fast-paced ball game. No substitutions or half-games for these hardy lads.
The scores tell the story: Blacksburg was defeated, 59-14, Charlottesville, 50-5, and Richmond, 34-7. The state title was also the Blues' 300th win in A-side (top level) matches and gave it a 300-94-7 record.
Such was the confidence in the team's ability, the Blues man responsible for returning the Ed Lee Cup to this year's trophy table ``forgot'' to bring it with him. He swears he was too busy getting his small son ready for the two-day weekend. But more likely he knew it would just take up space in the car on the way home.
While the style of playing varies slightly from in New Zealand, with players occasionally showing elements of the gridiron learned in their misspent youth, the motivations for playing are the same.
President and coach of the Blues, Billy Wilson, expresses the view of his team when he calls the challenges of rugby an ``addiction.'' ``For physical fitness and athleticism, there is no sport that matches rugby.''
Rugby is an interactive spectator sport. It is hard not to wince as a player is brought down in a flying tackle or gasp in awe at the power of the Blues as they push back the scrum. It reminded me of the All Blacks when they were world champions. (An unmentionable team from not too far to the west of New Zealand is the current World Cup holder.)
Gridiron and rugby supporters each allege the other game is more violent or more dangerous, and the truth is somewhere in between. One Blues player cheerily told me the difference was there were more flesh wounds in rugby and more joint injuries in gridiron. It could also be that the beer quaffed after the game may have carry-over effects the next week as an anesthetic.
Basking in the sun in the beautiful setting of Roanoke in the fall, I watched some of the most enthusiastic, if not the best, rugby I have seen for a while. It is a shame so few others turned out.
It makes me more determined to be on the sidelines at Norfolk's Lafayette Park on Nov. 12 when the Blues play Fort Bragg in the team's final match before contesting the East Coast regional playoffs in Charlotte on Nov. 19 and 20.
I will even take off my one-eyed Cantabrian eye patch long enough to yell a few ``come on, Blues.''
Just don't tell the red and blacks. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
VICTOR VAUGHAN/Landmark News Service
Mike Coyner, outside center for the Blues, breaks through four
Richmond defenders. The Blues won the state title at this weekend's
tournament.
Norfolk City Blues lock John Hamilton, left, contests a line-out in
the Blues' 34-7 victory over Richmond.
Photo
VICTOR VAUGHAN/Landmark News Service
The Norfolk City Blues contest with Richmond for possession of the
ball in the traditional scrum.
by CNB