Blue
Andrew Slack (58)
Agree with all the above but this is my personal perspective.
I grew up right smack bam in the middle of the bastion of Afrikanerdom. We pretty much got taught that we were right and everyone else was wrong (not just about segregation but just about everything else). The attitude was that if you don't sell us weapons or fuel fuckit, we'll make our own. Everything foreign was treated with suspicion and scorn. Even though were were a republic we still held a grudge against the Poms (and for your average narrow minded Afrikaner a Pom, Welshman, Irishman, Scotsman they were all English as far as we were concerned so fuck'em). So even though we wanted to beat the shit out of Poms in rugby, it wasn't the same prized scalp as the ABs. It was driven by hatred.
As for Australia, most of us knew preciously little about Aussies other than they spoke funny, wore funny hats and the whole place was a desert. We knew of XXXX beer and Kangaroos. That's it.
So what I am getting at we really didn't give much of a shit about anyone else.
Except the All Blacks.
The physicality of their game was probably one of the reasons and strangely there was some sort of affinity for the big farmers from an island afar. We had this view of them as hard men that explored and conquered a far away hostile land. That was something we could (rightly or wrongly) hang a hat on.
My three most prized possessions as a youngster in the 70's were:
- An All Black Rugby ball (which some fuck stole and I cried for a week)
- A long play record that documented the last official tour to SA in the 70's (in Afrikaans). The final bit was the sound of a plane taking off overlayed with the Haka. Eventually I had played this bit some many times that it was stuffed.
- A journal of AB vs SA rivalry going back to the first test match played between the two countries.
When we were taught mauling at school our coaches more often than not would talk about how the All Blacks did it. Rucking was spoke of as something that you wanted to do as well as the ABs.
We had a muddy batch at the end of one of our rugby fields at school. It was called New Zealand and if we screwed up in practice we had to go and scrum in it until we were all covered in mud.
I am sure that I am not alone in this experience.
(Getting sick as hell of losing to the bastards these days I have to say
I don't think there is much of a rivalry with Aus. Most SA fans don't like Australia. They can't really tell you why. They might mumble something about Shane Warne but not much more.
Your average Aussie fan sees these Saffers and dumb, thuggish lumps of Afrikaner meat who play the game all wrong. All this kicking and driving isn't real rugby.
Mild disdain is how I would describe it
I grew up right smack bam in the middle of the bastion of Afrikanerdom. We pretty much got taught that we were right and everyone else was wrong (not just about segregation but just about everything else). The attitude was that if you don't sell us weapons or fuel fuckit, we'll make our own. Everything foreign was treated with suspicion and scorn. Even though were were a republic we still held a grudge against the Poms (and for your average narrow minded Afrikaner a Pom, Welshman, Irishman, Scotsman they were all English as far as we were concerned so fuck'em). So even though we wanted to beat the shit out of Poms in rugby, it wasn't the same prized scalp as the ABs. It was driven by hatred.
As for Australia, most of us knew preciously little about Aussies other than they spoke funny, wore funny hats and the whole place was a desert. We knew of XXXX beer and Kangaroos. That's it.
So what I am getting at we really didn't give much of a shit about anyone else.
Except the All Blacks.
The physicality of their game was probably one of the reasons and strangely there was some sort of affinity for the big farmers from an island afar. We had this view of them as hard men that explored and conquered a far away hostile land. That was something we could (rightly or wrongly) hang a hat on.
My three most prized possessions as a youngster in the 70's were:
- An All Black Rugby ball (which some fuck stole and I cried for a week)
- A long play record that documented the last official tour to SA in the 70's (in Afrikaans). The final bit was the sound of a plane taking off overlayed with the Haka. Eventually I had played this bit some many times that it was stuffed.
- A journal of AB vs SA rivalry going back to the first test match played between the two countries.
When we were taught mauling at school our coaches more often than not would talk about how the All Blacks did it. Rucking was spoke of as something that you wanted to do as well as the ABs.
We had a muddy batch at the end of one of our rugby fields at school. It was called New Zealand and if we screwed up in practice we had to go and scrum in it until we were all covered in mud.
I am sure that I am not alone in this experience.
(Getting sick as hell of losing to the bastards these days I have to say
I don't think there is much of a rivalry with Aus. Most SA fans don't like Australia. They can't really tell you why. They might mumble something about Shane Warne but not much more.
Your average Aussie fan sees these Saffers and dumb, thuggish lumps of Afrikaner meat who play the game all wrong. All this kicking and driving isn't real rugby.
Mild disdain is how I would describe it