England won it fair and square and it's only a game - but our media found much more to say about last weekend's semi final to fill out acres of space in the papers and hours of airtime.
Distressed message: the blunt words on the Herald on Sunday's front page. Photo: PHOTO / RNZ Mediawatch
"Mourning has broken: Kiwis cycling through seven stages of grief" was the headline on the Sydney Morning Herald website last Sunday afternoon above a story about this country coming to terms with defeat in the semi-final the night before.
"The country's biggest newspaper blacked out its front page. The Prime Minister felt compelled to defend the team's honour. And a Union Jack-painted car had its windows smashed in," reported Ben McKay, New Zealand correspondent for Australia's national news agency AAP.
Smashing up an English pub’s mini in Devonport was presumably part of the ‘anger’ stage.
New Zealand’s adults have lived through this sort of thing before, but McKay was thinking of the children.
"Leading into Saturday night, there were 12-year-old Kiwis that had had never seen their national heroes lose a World Cup match. But against the English, the Kiwis couldn't break through an inspired defence, losing 19-7 to begin a country-wide malaise," he wrote.
Ben McKay's story about New Zealand in mourning. Photo: screenshot
The same story riffing on New Zealand's rugby grief appeared in several other Australian papers and news websites - and the outlets of the AAP's New Zealand clients.
TVNZ’s website ran it and the Newstalk ZB bulletin at 3 pm in Sunday was the same - almost word-for-word - but with the words "a commentator says . . ." bolted on to the front.
So not only were we schooled by the English in rugby last Saturday, Australians were writing our news copy on Sunday.
McKay's notion of an entire nation in grief was spot-on according to TVNZ1 News which opened with the words: "The whole country is hurting."
The Herald on Sunday's late edition - as McKay noted earlier - had in funereal all black cover with this blunt message in white:
"The All Blacks are out of the World Cup. If you want to read more go to the sports section."
But rival paper Sunday Star Times tried to lighten the mood with a front-page pun playing on a veteran Japanese avant-garde artist and the fact the game was played in Yokohama.
Photo: PHOTO / RNZ Mediawatch
But just over the page, a colour piece by correspondent Kevin Norquay was headlined: "All Blacks horror show in Tokyo."
The All Blacks were based in Tokyo, so some people there may have been horrified - but the “horror show” was in Yokohama - 30km away as the Japanese green pheasant flies.
Norquay’s piece, mostly written before the result was known, was actually a thoughtful reflection on rugby 'fandom and fanaticism’.
“You may be surprised just who best knows how ‘‘we’’ feel today. Ardent England rugby fans are pretty much just like you and me. They Are Us." he wrote.
"So today, if you need to feel better about yourself, find an England fan and give them a hug. You know you want to.”
Bold call.
In a similar vein, the former Herald sports reporter Liam Napier said in the UK’s Guardian last Monday that New Zealand “has moved in from the hysterical outcry” that followed World Cup failures between 1987 and 2011.
But it seems sports journalists haven’t stopped projecting their own assumptions onto the All Blacks.
"The hurt and suffering that will long linger is etched on the faces of the All Blacks as they struggle to suppress the emotional scars of their defeat to England," Napier wrote.
"The All Blacks captain Kieran Read cut a shattered figure. His inner wounds may never properly heal," he said.
On the the other hand, it is entirely possible they will all recover completely from the intense disappointment of last weekend to be happy, whole and healthy in the years ahead.
England coach Eddie Jones had wound up New Zealand’s rugby reporters before the match by calling them "fans with keyboards.”
But there was an edge to one question for the outgoing captain Kieran Read from one Kiwi reporter in the post-match press conference.
"Did the team turn up with the right attitude?" Newshub's Andrew Gourdie asked.
Steve Hansen's slightly menacing response turned it into a story for New Zealand media by branding the question disrespectful.
"Spend some time outside . . . and I'll give you a rugby education on that," Hansen told Gourdie
Steve Hansen offers to meet Andre Gourdie outside. Photo: screenshot / Newshub at 6
TVNZ’s Andrew Saville assured us Hansen wasn’t serious about taking Gourdie outside, but the exchange was certainly taken seriously by Martin Devlin on Newstalk ZB:
"There has been some niggle going on between some of the journalists who I think are provocatively trying to get the clickbait. It that's how you want to do your job . . . fine," he said on Newstalk ZB.
He wasn’t necessarily wrong about the clickbait. A steady stream of peripheral RWC stories were pushed out online and to phones, even coming thick and fast during the many days on which there were no matches to report.
The Herald's Dylan Cleaver nailed it last weekend when he wrote that it was the end of an era of All Black RWC dominance - but all good things come to an end.
"It stings a little bit -- like undiluted Dettol on an open sore," he wrote.
But it's the end of the World Cup, not the world. Let's give magnanimity a go,” he said
Good advice not just for All Blacks fans feeling sad and sore - but also fellow reporters and editors.
