The All Blacks and The Rooster

Jeannie and I agree there is no feeling quite like being one with the local energy. There is something about becoming unified with a cause (especially when it is not previously your own) that is particularly liberating. When we woke up on Saturday morning we decided to be loyal All Blacks followers—the name of the beloved New Zealand national rugby team. The team name is derived from the jerseys, or kits, the athletes wear on the field—black from head to toe. There is a passion here for the sport that rivals the football fascination in Europe and Brazil. The heart of the country seems to beat with the All Blacks. So we bought tickets to the international match, and synchronized our hearts to the same beat.

France traveled to Wellington for the meeting, bringing with them a congregation of high-brow fans, touting red, white and blue, and carrying on in a Napoleonic fashion. (I said we were unified). We even saw a group of women all costumed as Mary Antoinette—only the French are brazen enough to travel to the opposite pole of the earth dressed like that. (You can see how it was easy to be unified).

When we thought the flag-waiving francophiles couldn’t be more audacious, they committed an act that outdid any sort of sporting insolence I’ve ever witnessed. They delivered the ultimate disrespect on foreign turf. Just before the starting whistle, a rooster was tossed to the pitch from the front row of the field level section. Its erect tail feathers were painted a brilliant blue, its midsection was pure white, and from the neck up it was blood red—a living, breathing, extremely frenetic embodiment of the French flag. The rooster, surely flabbergasted after being sprung from a smuggled sack, dashed and cut from side to side, darting up and down and across the field—80,000 eyeballs fixed on its painted plumage.

A brute squad was quickly formed. Six security guards in neon yellow vests chased the bird from sideline to sideline. The French supporters jeered with delight. The match officials watched at first with amusement, but as the rooster continued to avert capture, it was easy to detect their impatience. Had one of the guards not grabbed hold of a wing in the next moment, I think one of the defenseman for the All Blacks might have tackled the rooster himself. With the cock caper put to an end, and the Antoinette impersonators sufficiently rallied, the match finally got underway.

By halftime, the rooster had been all but forgotten, as the All Blacks jumped out to a ten point lead. Fans rose from their seats to visit the concession stands, in search of fish and chips and cold Steinlager. I was preparing to do the same, when a collective gasp filled the stadium air. The rooster was back. Back in black. Like the dark knight, it paraded proudly across the pitch. No one chased it now. It strutted like only a rooster can—washed clean of its tricolor paintjob, and redone in a monochrome black. It had a new attitude. The crowd went nuts. The All Blacks, and the Kiwi supporters, had exacted their revenge.