Splendor in the Grass: Rugby in New Zealand

(This article was first published, in Spanish, in the magazine H. Photos and text copyright Nacho Hernandez. All rights reserved)

Traveling across New Zealand, the first thing that calls my attention is that the whole country looks like an impeccable lawn. An immense, perfectly mowed rugby field. I wonder if the country already looked like this when the rugby pioneers brought the sport. It would not have been difficult to find places to play and practice.

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Rugby was invented in England in 1823 when, according to legend, William Webb Ellis, a student at Rugby school, grabbed the ball during a game of football and started running with it in his hands. The sport was introduced in New Zealand forty seven years later, when Charles Monro, a student from New Zealand at Christ’s College in Finchley, organized the first game in Nelson in 1870.

New Zealand as a country has sometimes been described as an experiment to transplant an idyllic British society in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean. At least with regard to rugby the success was complete, for the sport in New Zealand developed strong roots, started to grow fast and soon took a life of its own. Although invented in England, rugby fits New Zealand like a glove. Without knowing the sport’s origins, one would think that it evolved organically from local traditions and games until it  became what it is today. The population mix in New Zealand also seems designed to create powerful rugby teams. The first New Zealanders who played the sport not only had inherited the love and penchant for sports from England, but they were also a very tough and rugged people. Settlers and farmers used to hardship. The sport suited them. The Maori were also perfect for rugby. Tough, fit, warring people who saw the sport as a battle (which, in reality, it is). Finally, an influx of people from Polynesia added playfulness, speed and a bit of freewheeling anarchy to the game. All these traits are still very present in New Zealand rugby, at all age groups and levels. Combine them in the right doses and the result can be explosive.

Trying to find out more about the pioneers of rugby in New Zealand I head to Palmerston North. This city was put on the map when Monty Python's John Cleese declared that "if you wish to kill yourself but lack the courage to, I think a visit to Palmerston North will do the trick". The city responded by naming a local dump "Mount Cleese", but that is another story and only proves that Kiwis have also kept the motherland’s sense of humour. I went to Palmerston North because it hosts the Rugby Museum of New Zealand. I thought that I might be able to get a nice shot related to early rugby in the country. In particular, I was hoping to find some memorabilia from Charles Monro, the father of New Zealand rugby. When I arrived at the small, old museum, a very nice gentleman, probably in his eighties, welcomed me. I was the only visitor so we chatted about rugby for a while, which in New Zealand is the norm and always a pleasure. When I explained that I was a photographer shooting a story about rugby he was very sorry to inform me that they were moving to a better, more modern building and that all their best memorabilia had already been put in boxes (the rugby museum has since opened at their new location). I was starting to feel like John Cleese. I mentioned how much I had wanted to take photos of some of Charles Monro's items, which would have worked nicely for my story. At that point, a woman rushed out of the back office. “Hola, ¿cómo estás?” she said. Argentina was playing in Palmerston North during the first phase of the World Cup, so she had been brushing the little Spanish she knew. “If you are interested in the history of rugby in New Zealand”, she said with a smile, “you will want to know who this gentleman's grandfather was”. There was my Monro “item”. I had been talking to him for the last 20 minutes. His own grandson.

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These casual encounters happened to me often while travelling in New Zealand. Being such a small country, it is not rare to bump into people who are part of the sport’s history. Only a few days after I arrived in Auckland I called a local rugby club, Ponsonby, to ask if I could go take some photos. This is one of New Zealand’s most famous rugby clubs. Besides being one of the most successful, it was instrumental in the integration of players from Polynesia into New Zealand rugby and society. Its President, a Bryan Williams, picked up the phone and told me to go visit them any time I wanted. Later I realized this was the Bryan Williams: a rugby legend who played with the All Blacks in the seventies. He is the perfect example of many things good in New Zealand rugby: commitment, fidelity to a club, giving back and, overall, extreme love and respect for the sport.

Bryan “BeeGee” Williams started to play rugby as a kid at Mount Albert Grammar School in Auckland and played club rugby for Ponsonby, where his brothers and father had played before him. He played 113 matches with the All Blacks and at the time held the record as top scorer in the history of the team. His highest point as an All Black was the 1970 tour of a racist South Africa where he, of Samoan descent, scored 14 tries in 13 matches. Like a modern Jesse Owens in Berlin, Williams became the sensation of the tour while ridiculing the apartheid system that until then had forbidden people of his ethnic background to play in that country. Today, completing a full circle, the sixty year old Bryan Williams is President of Ponsonby, he teaches rugby to the kids at Mount Albert Grammar School, and has recently been appointed President of the New Zealand Rugby Union. He has two sons who play for Manu Samoa, the Samoan national rugby team which he successfully coached in the 90s.

When I asked him about his best memory as an All Black, he said it was the very first time he put on the All Black shirt, the day he fulfilled the dream of every kid in New Zealand. At that point he could finally say, “I’ve made it”. I asked him if he thought that becoming an All Black is the biggest possible honour in New Zealand. His answer, without hesitation: Yes. Most men in the country would probably agree with him. Everyone who has ever played for the All Blacks carries his identification number for life, and after. Since 1903 only 1,109 numbers have been given. One of the most select clubs in the world.

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Lineage is very important in New Zealand rugby, something it has probably absorbed, like many other things, from the Maori culture. Even today, Maori tribes can trace back their ancestry to the first waka or canoes that around 1250 carried the Polynesian navigators who became the first inhabitants of Aotearoa, the land of the long white cloud. The Maori explain the importance of genealogy or whakapapa using the ubiquitous fern, which in its silver variety is also the symbol of the All Blacks. “As one fern frond dies, one is born to take its place”. In New Zealand rugby, family dynasties of players are frequent even at the highest level. Remembering and honoring those who were there before is part of its culture.

I am travelling to Rotorua, in the Bay of Plenty. A city you smell before you see it. Rotorua is famous for its natural sulphur sources (hence the smell), geysers, hot mud pools and spas, but it also has a strong rugby tradition. I visit Waikite rugby, Rotorua’s oldest team, where members of the Ngati Whakaue tribe have played for decades. At their training grounds, in one of the poorer areas of the city, I watch the youngest players practice under a glorious sunset. Five or six year old kids training with the same intensity and fire in their eyes I had seen at a practice of the uber-professional Blues at Eden Park. The following Saturday I go watch a game of the older kids. Taiwere is twelve years old and the fourth generation of a family playing for Waikite. His uncles, both grandfathers and great-grandfather played before him for the team. When he jumps to the rugby field he is carrying the weight of tradition on his small shoulders.

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Rotorua is also home to one of New Zealand’s most laureated school teams, Rotorua Boys High School. I go see one of their practices. The intensity of the training sessions that these kids undergo is impressive. The team’s second coach, James Porter, discretely points out one of his players. Only fifteen and already playing with the school’s first team. He is already in the radar of the All Blacks scouts and a probable All Black one day, James says proudly. A stellar performance during a game two days later tells me he is probably right. This is another of the keys to success of New Zealand rugby. The All Blacks are only the tip of the iceberg. Below them there is a very well organized pyramidal structure with a huge base of kids who start training and playing rugby at around the time they learn how to walk. From there, the best continue improving and going up the ladder, until the very best crop reaches the top.

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In training, as in many other things, rugby has changed since the old days, and particularly since it went professional in 1995. The legend that puts one of New Zealand’s greatests, Colin “Pinetree” Meads, going up and down a hill in his farm with one startled sheep under each arm as part of his training might well be just that, a legend, but the truth is that in the old days Kiwis were tough mostly because of their lifestyle. Some members of the old school make a distinction between farm-strong and gym-strong and question if the new generations, while perfect athletes with gym-sculpted bodies, are at par with the old ones when it comes to roughness, resilience, endurance and sacrifice. A journalist once asked Sir Colin Meads what he thought of the habit of modern-day rugby players of drinking water and isotonic drinks from bibs anytime there is a small interruption in the game. He quipped that, in his time, you were lucky if you got half an orange during the break. And you had to fight real hard with your teammates to get it.

In Ruatoria, a small town in the East Coast, I watch a friendly match between rugby veterans. The Southern Spikers is a team of farmers from the Southern Island, led by former All Black John “Jock” Ross. The hosts are the East Coast Legends, a team made mostly of Maori players. The fact that it has been raining without pause for two days and the field is a pool of mud does not prevent both teams from playing with great strength and verve, even though most of the players are already in their fifties and sixties. The reflexes, the physical form or the hair may not be there anymore, but the drive and the fire in the belly certainly are. The game ends with both teams embracing under the rain, rubbing noses in pure Maori style. The merriment will continue for hours at the social club and, later, at the Maori temple where they will all sleep together. A cook with a Spanish family name, descendant of a sailor that jumped off a whaling ship when it was near the coast and ended up marrying a Maori princess and founding a Maori dynasty, will prepare the feast. But that is another story.

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One of the identity symbols of New Zealand rugby is the Haka, a traditional Maori dance. It has been performed by the All Blacks since the first international games, but in the past it was a half-hearted affair, more cute than threatening. A Maori player from Rotorua, Wayne “Buck” Shelford, is credited with having transformed the All Blacks’ Haka in the late eighties, when he became captain of the team. Nothing explains Shelford’s character better than the episode that secured him a place in the pantheon of All Black gods. The year is 1986 and he is playing his second test with the All Black shirt. The rival is a bellicose France wanting revenge from a recent defeat. During a “ruck”, a messy phase of the game which in those days was more violent and less controlled than today, a French boot rips Shelford’s scrotum, leaving a testicle hanging loose. The agony from his groin probably masked the pain from having lost four teeth in the same action. Not wanting to abandon his team during what would go down in history as “the battle of Nantes”, Shelford nonchalantly asks the doctor to stitch his private parts so that he can jump back into the field. The doctor obliges and Shelford continues to play until a new blow in the head makes him leave the match for good. To this day he has lost all memory of what happened in that game (and he doesn’t want to remember it anyway).

Shelford was not one for theatrics or gimmicks, so  when he became captain of the All Blacks he decided that, if they were going to do the Haka, they should do it right. Maori elders were consulted, and the Haka was studied and practiced like one more play from the playbook that had to be memorized and mastered. It began to be delivered true to its origins and, more importantly, it was heartfelt. Suddenly, the All Blacks were doing a war dance before every game. A bonding exercise and a challenge to other teams that gives the All Blacks an edge before games have even started.

The Haka is done country-wide, even by teams with small Maori presence. Colleges in particular love it and perform it often before their important games. I am in New Plymouth, in the Taranaki region, with perfectly-shaped volcano Mount Taranaki presiding over the whole region. New Plymouth Boys High School (NPBHS) is playing at home the maximum-rivalry match against Francis Douglas Memorial College (FDMC), also from New Plymouth. Students from both schools, in their uniforms out of a Harry Potter movie, fill the terraces of the Gully ground, one of the most beautiful rugby fields in New Zealand, carved by hand from the earth by workers, students in detention and the own school’s rugby teams during the depression years. One of New Zealand’s rugby temples.

All the seniors from NPBHS form two lines, creating a passageway to welcome their team. They are all barefoot. The moment we hear the cleats of the boots resounding in the distance, filtering through the trees and giant ferns that surround the pitch, the students start doing a Haka which goes on until the team has passed through. Both teams are now in the center of the field and the match is about to start. Suddenly, the crowd goes totally silent and all we can hear is the shouting of the captain. The team follows. The shouting, hissing, sticking of the tongue or eye bugging continues for a couple of minutes, the whole team moving as one person. These kids under eighteen are really feeling it. This is not a game. The match begins with a tension in the air I had not seen in any other sport, ever, but after a few minutes it increases one notch. To celebrate their first points the whole school, watching the match from the terraces in one side of the field, starts doing an impressive Haka at the unison. Hundreds of students shouting their lungs out. Soon enough, the FDMC crowd across the field is doing its own. At this point the hairs in my nape are standing on end and I have almost forgotten to keep taking photos.

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I am finishing my New Zealand trip in the East Cape. The eastern-most area of a country very much to the East. Near where the new days are born. This rugged area around the East Cape is one of the least touristy of New Zealand. It is predominantly Maori and one of the regions in the country where they have kept more control over their land and lives.

After driving across cliffs and by beautiful beaches, I reach Tokomaru Bay, population 447. A sleepy village by a gorgeous bay, always smelling of sea surf, burning wood and weed. So peaceful I decide to stay for a week.

By the second day people greet me on the street and I have become a regular at the rugby team’s social club. The town has one pub, but the rugby veterans prefer to come here and every evening I am waiting outside in the cold with some of them. The moment the doors open at 5 PM they rush to their designated spots in the bar. Without muttering a word or asking what they want, the barman starts to fill their personalized jars with their beer of choice. They must have been getting the same for years or decades. I can’t follow their pace and have to work hard to finish the jars they keep sending my way. Very soon the conversation is flowing as freely as the beer.

I am talking with Eddie, a member of the Ngati Porou tribe like most people in Toko. A proud Maori and a former rugby player like everyone in the club. Two tours of duty in Vietnam with the ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps). When I ask him if he saw a lot of action at the war he stares into the distance and nods. A tough guy. We are talking about the Invincibles, the All Black team that in 1924-25 toured the UK, Ireland, France and Canada, playing 32 games and winning every single one of them. Every pub, fish and chips parlor, rugby club or shop in the East Coast has a sepia photo of that team, which has reached mythical status in New Zealand. Among its players, there is one the Maori are particularly proud of. George Nepia was born in 1905 in Hawkes Bay, not far from Tokomaru Bay, and kept his roots in the East Coast region. He was only nineteen years old when he joined the All Blacks team that would become the Invincibles, he played every single game in that tour and was key in keeping its immaculate record. Many consider him the best in his position, fullback, in rugby history. When I mention Nepia my new friend Eddie glows with pride, as he even had some family ties with that icon of Maori rugby, who died in 1986. I mention a photo I had recently seen at an exhibition. An almost octogenarian George Nepia is greeting the crowd at a rugby stadium. The story is great. In 1982 Nepia had travelled to Wales accompanying the New Zealand Maori team. Before a game at St Helen’s ground in Swansea the crowd spotted him in the sideline and started to point at him and whisper. By the time the speaker announced that he was present, the whole stadium was already standing, cheering and singing, and gave him a spontaneous five minute ovation. An overwhelmed Nepia, dapper in a dark coat and a scarf, came to the field and tipped his hat to the crowd. He had not been in Wales since the 1924 invincibles tour fifty eight years earlier and most of the 32,000 people at the stadium had not even been born then, but they surely recognized one of rugby’s greatest. Peter Bush, a Kiwi photographer who followed the All Blacks for decades, was there to capture one of the most emotive moments in the history of the sport.

By the time I have finished telling the story of that photo Eddie’s eyes seem to be slightly watery, so I turn to my beer to avoid an awkward moment. When I look at him again after taking a long sip, a single tear is running down his cheek.

See the full reportage and more photos of rugby in New Zealand in my website.