In doing some research on New Zealand rugby, in advance of the Springboks playing the All Blacks on 5 July, I discovered that the New Zealand Maori rugby union team actually came about primarily as a result of those New Zealanders of Maori descent who could not tour South Africa because of the colour bar.
A prerequisite to be a New Zealand Maori and play for this team is that the player is to be of at least one-sixteenth (i.e. one great-great-grandparent) Maori descent. How they work out that ancestral tree is a topic for another day, but it struck me that here was an initiative that was borne out of South Africa, that we as South Africans could embrace quite easily as a solution to multiple challenges, except that the South Africans will have to open the kimono, as it were, and reveal their heritage going back to some frisky parentage in days gone by.
Now that might be an obstacle to some, but I feel it highlights how colourful South Africans are as a rainbow nation and blows the doors wide open, putting aside sensitivities, and that this whole process would be a fantastic salve to heal all these wounds through rugby while displaying to our nation and the world our South African ancestry and incredible rugby skills.
These New Zealand All Black Maoris are playing their rugby all over the world, quite successfully I might add, against touring nations to New Zealand. And because players of the ilk of Zinzan Brooke, Taine Randall, Carl Hayman, Christian Cullen, Luke McAlister, Carlos Spencer and a host of other recognisable elite players, who come from these ranks, and who have in the past been known to make South Africans in the stands scream expletives when they crossed our line, why should we not put in place an equivalent team?
We started it, and so let’s take a leaf out of that Silver Fern and do it right here in South Africa and pay tribute to our frisky ancestors with our own version of the New Zealand Maoris, and showcase our rugby talent and heritage. We could then watch our players run on to the field and play Wales and Italy as a sequel or prequel to a test match against the Springboks.
So while the All Blacks are playing England this Saturday in Auckland, the New Zealand Maoris are taking on Samoa the same day in Hamilton. The NZRU have got it right and that is why they have such depth and experience internationally.
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