Over the weekend I wrote a story entitled ‘Why the Springboks’ crowd was a disgrace for singing ‘Ole Ole’ during the All Blacks’ haka and there were a number of different reactions reaction strongly to the issue.
There were a number of good arguments made, like the fact that the second Rugby Championship clash between the Springboks and the All Blacks at Cape Town Stadium was completely respectful.
There was also the point made that South Africa should be allowed to counter the haka in whatever manner the crowd pleases.
Others meanwhile, said the haka could be respected without drowning it out.
Haka at Ellis Park 😤#RSAvNZL #AllBlacks pic.twitter.com/nwJ2huCh1u
The passion!
There were also countless suggestions that I was practising shoddy journalism and I was also called a number of bad-words. The passion was fantastic!
However, one argument made by a number of fans totally missed the point. And that was the suggestion that I was in some way discrediting the ability and skill of the current Springboks team.
That is absolutely not the case. The Springboks have won the last two Rugby World Cups in a row and are on course to win the Rugby Championship. This team can easily be regarded as not only the best Springbok team of all time, but best-ever rugby team in history. Period!
The fact that the Springboks are so good though, has been conflated with the fans’ rights to behave as they please. The popular rhetoric seems to be “The Springboks are so good we can sing we are the champions, because we are”.
Not only is this thinking lacking in humility, it’s deeply misguided.
Thankfully, the Cape Town crowd showed the bad eggs at Ellis Park how it should be done, and hopefully the next time the All Blacks take on the Springboks in Johannesburg it won’t happen again.
Let’s Ole Ole after winning the match, not during the haka!
* Michael Sherman is a digital journalist at IOL Sport.
** The views expressed are not necessarily the views of IOL or Independent Media.
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