ALL AUSTRALIA is wrestling with an overwhelming question. Who do you cheer for in the final of the World Cup — England or New Zealand? It is nothing less than a crisis of nationhood. Victory for either would be a disaster, but which would be worse: the arrogant Poms or the cocky, humourless Kiwis?
This, of course, is jumping the gun a bit. For reasons best known to themselves, there is a general feeling here in Australia that the French (who have looked the best side in the tournament) will get beaten by England (who have looked the weakest of the four remaining sides) in the second semi-final on Sunday.
Those Australians who have a bit of perspective to go with their patriotism (and there are more than you think) are resigned to losing to New Zealand in the first semi-final on Saturday. Eddie hasn’t got it right, they think, meaning Eddie Jones, the hard-talking, hard-tinkering coach. The team has been all over the place, it’s got nowhere to go, but hell, we might as well give the boys a cheer.
The Australia team itself would have it otherwise. I caught them in a press conference yesterday — they are staying six hours away to the north, in some kind of Antipodean Bognor called Coffs Harbour — but we got a video link down here in Sydney, where men are men. It was the England team’s dialogue with Australian accents: we’ve showed anxiety, we’re a fair way off from where we want to be, we need to improve our performance but once a couple of passes stick, it’s a different ball game.
The Aussie public are not buying this en masse. And having been beaten by the English (and seen the English beat the All Blacks) a few months ago, they can’t believe that the English will fail to make the final.
Australians feel that it’s just not their turn this time around, which is the sort of thing you can only say if you have won 50 per cent of all the World Cups played. So they are preparing for England v New Zealand. Satan versus Beelzebub. Lord Sauron versus Lord Voldemort. Darth Vadar versus the Daleks. The Dark Side versus The Dark Side. And considering the dreadful choice that lies before them.
Once, it would have been no decision at all. As the old Scottish saying has it, they are not narrowly patriotic — they don’t care who beats the English. And besides, there was that old Anzac togetherness business: naturally you barrack for your friends and neighbours against anyone but yourself. But things change. Perhaps it is partly because sport has got so wildly out of proportion these days. Sport matters too much. And over here, New Zealanders are seen as particularly intense about it. When it comes to rugby, New Zealanders just haven’t got what New Zealanders themselves call a sunts of humour. Well, how many New Zealanders does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: thut’s really sully, it only uvva tykes wun mun . . .
There is also the suggestion that the New Zealanders would get more satisfaction from beating England than actually winning the World Cup. We English know all about that idea, having, as we do, Celtic neighbours. We are inclined to find this view of the world a bit narrow. And it is also something that the more worldly Aussies can also be a bit patronising about, as if they had gone beyond all that. Which is to forget an energetic anti-Pom insults campaign at the start of this tournament, but never mind.
And, of course, New Zealand and Australia were supposed to be co-hosts of the World Cup, but New Zealand got kicked out after an endless row about advertising. The New Zealanders were not too pleased with this, particularly as the Australians chose the occasion for the standard anti-Kiwi insults. Throw in the uneasy relationship that always exists between the big nation and the small nation that exist side by side, at least in the eyes of the world.
Actually, New Zealand is nowhere near Australia; it’s nowhere near anywhere. It is an independent ocean state. New Zealanders pride themselves on that. And they don’t do what big nations tell them these days. They will tell anybody to get stuffed if they threaten to bring nukes within sniffing distance of the Pacific. The Australians aren’t altogether happy with that: neither with the policy nor with the independence.
And, oddly enough, New Zealanders don’t see themselves as an unglamorous, down-market, provincial version of Australia, any more than they see themselves as a nation that takes a lead from the Big Brother across the water. Australians don’t entirely care for that, either. Which makes old knee-jerk Anzac solidarity something of a thing of the past.
But barracking for the Poms? That’s still a pretty substantial leap to make, especially for the older Australians. Perhaps one of the problems is that the team sport Australia excels at are bound up in the old Empire. But things change even here. In cricket, Australia’s dearest ambition is no longer to beat the Poms, but something a trifle more challenging, to beat the Indians in India. Australia also has the world’s outstanding individual athlete in Ian Thorpe.
He doesn’t beat the Poms, he beats the world. Such matters can make a chap forget about the provincial concerns of a former colony.
But the whole issue is balanced on a knife-edge. Will Australia revert to the atavistic chippiness of a colonised nation and root for the brother dominion across the sea? Or will they show themselves a deeply progressive nation and root for their former (albeit a long time ago) rulers? We will see. And it may never happen, for it assumes, somewhat wildly, that England will beat France.
Me, I wouldn’t be surprised to see England meeting Australia in the third place play-off. I think I can guess who will get the cheers if that comes to pass. And the boos. Australia: progressive ma non troppo.
