The All Blacks’ ignominious defeat by the French has plunged New Zealand into mourning because our national psyche has been wounded, mental health experts say.
Tears of a nation spill over
Don’t take it out on anybody else
So much more than just a game
‘Smell of death’ in All Blacks dressing room
9 thoughts on “A Nation Mourns”
Comments are closed.
Times like this, I’m glad I moved to Australia! Can talk about other things…
Er, people are getting depressed over the loss? Gosh.
🙂
I got depressed over the loss.
I thought it was funny. Getting depressed over people you’ve never met losing a game involving tossing around a pig’s bladder that’s played on the other side of the world is surely a sign of mental illness!
Has anyone bothered getting depressed over – say – the current situation in Myanmar? 😛
Our losing the test gave me a really nice experience, actually.
The waiter at my favourite French restaurant, “Le Metropolitaine”, was just so *happy*.
He was a bit dishevelled, as if he’d stopped partying only seconds before starting work, and I think a French flag was involved somewhere in his clothes. He was glowing.
He played ‘Ta’ with Ada, too.
Well worth our team losing if it makes stray French waiters that happy.
You missed one:
Women suffer rugby backlash
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10468736
Women’s Refuges are filling up as all those rugbyheads taking out their sense of frustration and impotence on their partners and children…
Re the domestic abuse, I remember seeing a link indicating this sort of thing (in a US context), while intuitive, actually may be a myth. Found link here:
http://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/superbowl.asp
Interestingly, there’s a suggestion abuse rates may actually go up following a victory, and the consequent ego boost and self validation.
Not saying the women’s refuge aren’t been called upon of course, but I wonder if the media are simply putting an all-black-tinged magnifying glass on a problem which has baser causes.
My mother works at the urgent end of the mental health system. She rang seconds after the end of the match, and said: “You probably don’t care much about the match, but it’s going to make a hell of a lot of work for me.”
It’s weird being over here in this time. We are so defined round the world by the all blacks. I was Lyon for the Portugal game with my all blacks top on (there are some very feral Nz’ers at these games I can tell you most just sit there and enjoy the atmosphere) and I got stopped in the street while shopping so often by kids and parents going “ka mate, ka mate….”. They didn’t stop and go “for Gondor…. “
It was nice, cause in reality “it’s just a game”, but over here it is a real cultural symbol for us. We latch onto that symbol of home. You feel proud. No one cares about our politics, our GDP, abuse and suicide rate, America’s cup win or anything like that but they do care about our rugby. The French were wearing a lot of all blacks’ tops at the pools games and cheering us on.
And it’s become more than a game; it’s about our small country, that no one really gives a toss about, making a real mark somewhere. It’s hard to hold your head up here when the only thing your country is really known for, is so dismally played by your team. It was like losing NZ. Like home no longer exists.