This past weekend, a huge shadow of sports doom descended upon Australia.
The first blow was the Bledisoe Cup match between the Wallabies and All Blacks on Saturday night. The Wallabies are Australia's rugby team. The All Blacks are New Zealand's rugby team. And amongst the many rivalries between those two countries -- sports or otherwise -- this one takes the cake. New Zealand may be a bit more rugby-mad than Australia, but Australia still loves it plenty. Imagine USA-Canada in ice hockey... except pretend that the US still actually cared about ice hockey, just a little. It would be kinda like that.
Anyway, I was fortunate enough to score some tickets to the match. So out to the Olympic Stadium I went, looking forward not only to what is generally a great match, but also to New Zealand doing the haka, a Maori dance that was traditionally performed before a battle in the hopes of scaring the bejesus out of the enemy.
Based on the premise of this post, you already know this ended poorly for Australia: All Blacks 19, Wallabies 18. And even though it was close, with New Zealand taking the lead for good in the last few minutes, it was actually pretty non-eventful.* I mean, relatively speaking. If I was expecting a 9, I got a 7. So, you know, I was let down a bit.
*In rugby union, teams will often score many of their points off of penalties. And that's pretty much what happened here. 30 of the 37 points in the match were scored off of penalty kicks. Imagine an NBA game in which 81% of the points were scored off of free throws, and that's what you have here.
Even the haka wasn't great. If you scroll ahead to the 5:10 mark of this video, you can see it. But in my mind, the gold standard for the haka came in last year's Rugby League World Cup, when New Zealand and Australia faced off in the final:
Now that's a haka.
The second calamity of the weekend actually didn't come until late Sunday night, when Australia officially lost the Ashes, one of cricket's most celebrated rivalries, to England.
Australia dominated the tournament from 1989 to 2003, winning every single time. And even after losing the Ashes in 2005, they promptly won them back in 2007. So going into this year's contest as the #1 ranked team in the world, it was widely expected that they'd win again. After four test matches, the series was tied at one apiece (with the other two being draws). Starting the fifth and final test match, everyone thought Australia had the momentum. They didn't. And late Sunday night in Australia, England won back the Ashes. Which would be that tiny little urn that Ricky Ponting, Australia's captain, is holding in the picture. Yeah. That's what they play for.And the final sports catastrophe of the weekend? Let's go back to New Zealand and my ice hockey comment. For in a match that I'm sure no one even knew was happening, New Zealand took out Australia for the first time ever in ice hockey. Is that really necessary, after a weekend that will live in infamy? I think not.
2 comments:
That haka was hardcore. Seriously. That was awesome. I like the Australians answer to it though. A wall of solidarity.
That trophy is absurd. It's a joke, right? It's supposed to be funny that they're playing for something that small?
I didn't realize those two countries had ice hockey teams. I think the original premise of Cool Runnings centered around the New Zealand national hockey team, actually.
Don't worry, Robert. No one here knows that have ice hockey teams either! In fact, if you said "hockey" to an Aussie, they'd assume you were talking about field hockey. Because they're actually sorta into that.
And yeah, that trophy's for real. It's supposed to contain the ashes of the wicket that England burned when Australia beat them for the first time in cricket back in the 19th century.
Here's another funny picture with the trophy. See that guy in the middle clenching a little brown thing? Yep. That's what they're so psyched about.
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