Funny idea, which crossed the often laughing mind of Joe Marler two weeks ago, an English pillar with a crested and feathers, his words often high and his jokes not always in good taste. Between two grimaces and a burst of laughter, the guy with 95 caps with the Rose therefore threw this out, on his social networks, where his fingers often go faster than his common sense: “the Haka must be deleted, it's ridiculous .” Does he like it?
We don't really know if Marler was serious, or if he just had a good laugh throwing a bone to the pack who are eager to fight, on said networks. He pleaded the second option, a few minutes later, and “the desire to generate interest before a big rugby match”, when torrents of insults flooded his accounts. Too late: from the spark a fire was born, where the New Zealand sports minister even allowed himself to respond to the provocation with the invective: “I met a few pillars with a high IQ, but very few . Maybe that’s the subject…”. So imagine.
Far from making such a judgment of intellectual value on the ashes of a simple word, good or bad, we have therefore looked at the problem in reverse. Let's ask ourselves the question for two minutes: should the Haka be abolished, or rather, the right given to Pacific nations to practice this rite, before international rugby matches?
It is a question of fairness that engages us here. That of a unilateral right, which the New Zealanders have often been able to turn to their advantage. We are talking about psychology, about this moment which belongs to them and reduces the opponent to the rank of spectator, immobile and quasi-victim, a few seconds before starting the standoff.
We thought about it, yes, about this idea that the All Blacks use their Haka to mark the opponent's psyche before a match even kicks off, and that this ultimately took a rather unfair turn. We thought about it, and we finally said to ourselves that it was really stupid. Because we don't just go to rugby to watch thirty bodies crash into each other, admire a few beautiful passes and, on a lucky day, applaud a restart from the back of the goal by the Ntamack-Jaminet trio -Dupont. We come as much for everything that is around, the folklore, the fraternity, the culture.
Even scripted and “marketed”, doesn't the Haka remain the most beautiful standard of all this? This Saturday evening at the Stade de France, French and New Zealanders will throw themselves body and soul into a fierce battle, which we hope will also be beautiful. But that's not all: around, a few hundred kids, if they have seen the match, will have especially admired a Haka with their eyes for the first time in their lives. This is what they will keep as a precious memory of this match, above all else. This is the part of the dream. This is what you absolutely must not touch.
