November 14, 2009, an historic day at San Siro?
November 24th 2009 11:17
“There are days when history is made. Today, in the history of Italian Rugby, is one of them”. La Gazetta dello Sport, Milan, Saturday 14 November, 2009.
With a crowd of 80,000 filling the iconic San Siro stadium, with the oval ball invading the hallowed ground of the round and with the All Blacks B team pitted against the experienced Blues, everything seems possible, especially historic moments.
The atmosphere is, to coin a cliché, electric, as the seats fill and the two teams warm up on the rectangle of green below. All the stars are out – the TV personalities, the politicians and the big names of Milan but they are all eclipsed by Jonah Lomu, who dominates the corner of the ground where he talks to a TV journalist at the centre of a circle of cameras.
As the band and singers assemble, the players leave the ground and Jonah makes his way like a juggernaut through the terraces, the mood intensifies. The crowd is on its feet, a bank of waving blue striped with black – confetti fills the air as the teams run onto the paddock and the roar of 80, 000 voices rolls on like thunder. There’s a sudden hush as the anthems begin. The soprano takes the Kiwis to heights we cannot scale. Our voices trail behind her like a thin baaa. On the other hand, led by former Rugbyman, the Italians’ singing shakes the stands. A collective shush follows the anthems. There’s a silence that can only be described as reverent. For Italy, the haka is a highlight of this historic San Siro day.
It’s a great beginning for the Italians who are soon on their feet, a sea of cheering, waving blue. However, it isn’t long before they’re on their feet again, arms thrown up in despair, wailing the classic Rugby lament “Non ci credo” (unbelievable), as their team throw away, or fail to seize, one opportunity after another. Half time brings the possibility of a rally but a pedantic referee steers the game relentlessly to a sorry end.
However, in Rugby there’s always the third half - that wonderful after-match time when the game is re-played in minute detail, the true heroes are identified, the real villain (the referee) is pilloried and the score is settled, once and for all, in the canvass bars of the Rugby Village.
If the first two halves of the game at San Siro were dull, the third half in the Villagio was not. Despite the Italian defeat, despite the indignity of that last long battle near a try-line so close yet so far away, everyone was determined to celebrate.
There to help both the All Black and the Italian fans to bury this game and to look forward to glorious Rugby days ahead was the Maori Tourism Council’s Project Manager for the 2011 World Cup, Nuk Korako. With representatives from Ngati Ranana (London’s famous Kapa Haka or Maori Culture group) he had traveled overland from London in the World Cup 2011 van. As I watched them all graciously posing for photo after photo with an endless stream of delighted Italians and proud expatriate Kiwis, I was reminded of those words from the old Maori Battalion Anthem “take the mana of the people with you” Nga mihi nui ki a koutou katoa. Kia ora hoki ki a koutou katoa. You made this day at San Siro an historic one for many of us after all.
The Haka at San Siro
With a crowd of 80,000 filling the iconic San Siro stadium, with the oval ball invading the hallowed ground of the round and with the All Blacks B team pitted against the experienced Blues, everything seems possible, especially historic moments.
The atmosphere is, to coin a cliché, electric, as the seats fill and the two teams warm up on the rectangle of green below. All the stars are out – the TV personalities, the politicians and the big names of Milan but they are all eclipsed by Jonah Lomu, who dominates the corner of the ground where he talks to a TV journalist at the centre of a circle of cameras.
As the band and singers assemble, the players leave the ground and Jonah makes his way like a juggernaut through the terraces, the mood intensifies. The crowd is on its feet, a bank of waving blue striped with black – confetti fills the air as the teams run onto the paddock and the roar of 80, 000 voices rolls on like thunder. There’s a sudden hush as the anthems begin. The soprano takes the Kiwis to heights we cannot scale. Our voices trail behind her like a thin baaa. On the other hand, led by former Rugbyman, the Italians’ singing shakes the stands. A collective shush follows the anthems. There’s a silence that can only be described as reverent. For Italy, the haka is a highlight of this historic San Siro day.
It’s a great beginning for the Italians who are soon on their feet, a sea of cheering, waving blue. However, it isn’t long before they’re on their feet again, arms thrown up in despair, wailing the classic Rugby lament “Non ci credo” (unbelievable), as their team throw away, or fail to seize, one opportunity after another. Half time brings the possibility of a rally but a pedantic referee steers the game relentlessly to a sorry end.
The Villagio at San Siro
However, in Rugby there’s always the third half - that wonderful after-match time when the game is re-played in minute detail, the true heroes are identified, the real villain (the referee) is pilloried and the score is settled, once and for all, in the canvass bars of the Rugby Village.
If the first two halves of the game at San Siro were dull, the third half in the Villagio was not. Despite the Italian defeat, despite the indignity of that last long battle near a try-line so close yet so far away, everyone was determined to celebrate.
There to help both the All Black and the Italian fans to bury this game and to look forward to glorious Rugby days ahead was the Maori Tourism Council’s Project Manager for the 2011 World Cup, Nuk Korako. With representatives from Ngati Ranana (London’s famous Kapa Haka or Maori Culture group) he had traveled overland from London in the World Cup 2011 van. As I watched them all graciously posing for photo after photo with an endless stream of delighted Italians and proud expatriate Kiwis, I was reminded of those words from the old Maori Battalion Anthem “take the mana of the people with you” Nga mihi nui ki a koutou katoa. Kia ora hoki ki a koutou katoa. You made this day at San Siro an historic one for many of us after all.
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