From the Observer:
MADRID (AP) — New Zealand's national rugby team has been awarded Spain's Princess of Asturias prize for sports in recognition of its success and for representing the values of solidarity and racial and cultural integration.
Organizers said Wednesday the two-time defending world champion All Blacks are a global icon in rugby and one of sport's most successful teams.
They highlighted the team's contribution to unifying New Zealanders of different origins, best symbolized by the popular Haka tribal dance it performs before each match.
The 50,000 euro ($56,000) award is one of eight Asturias prizes handed out yearly by a foundation named for Crown Princess Leonor. Others categories include art, social sciences and scientific research.
http://www.sobserver.ws/en/25_05_2017/r ... -prize.htm
All Blacks named Princess of Asturias
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rowan
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All Blacks named Princess of Asturias
If they're good enough to play at World Cups, why not in between?
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rowan
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Re: All Blacks named Princess of Asturias
Well deserved. For a long time the sport was blighted by its ties with South Africa and acquiesence to the demands of the Apartheid regime. But within New Zealand itself there was never the slightest hint of racial prejudice, not even from the outset.
The 1888 Natives were actually a team of New Zealand-born players and included a number of non-Maori - though Maori were in the majority. At that time NZ's population was about 400,000, with just over 10% Maori. The Maori population has been estimated at between two and three hundred thousand prior to the New Zealand Wars (which not only involved fighting the British, but also inter-tribal warfare as the British supplied muskets to friendly tribes, who then proceeded to wipe out their mutual enemies).
Indeed, a member of that Natives teams, Thomas Rangiwahia Ellison, would become New Zealand's first national captain. He also became an administrator and rugby author and is credited with designing the prototypical All Blacks uniform, among other things. Though he only lived to age 37. His great-grandfather was a tribal chief and his progeny include 3-time Super Bowl winner Rikki Ellison and 2012 All Black Tamati Ellison, currently with the Rebels.
Other ethnicities were embraced as readily, notably 1908-1914 All Blacks Ranji Wilson, of Afro-West Indian ancestry, who played alongside his two brothers for the Wellington provincial team and later became an All Blacks selector. A star of the 'Trench Blacks' during WWI, Wilson hung up his boots immediately after the war when excluded from the nation's first ever tour of SA on racial grounds.
So while the game remained free of prejudice and undoubtedly played a major role in racial integration within New Zealand, it gradually fell out of favour with an increasingly enlightened general public due to the South Africa factor. In the major metropolitan centers of Auckland and Wellington both Maori and Pacific Islanders seemed more inclined to play league, and by the early 1980s the 13-man code was beginning to pose a serious challenge to its top dog status - while foreign league clubs gleefully raided the union ranks.
It all began to change with the advent of a spectacular and highly successful inaugural World Cup in 1987 and complete break with South Africa until the end of Apartheid. Pacific Islanders were readily embraced, and although it undoubtedly took a while to convince the redneck brigade both at home and abroad, this basically reflected the changing demographics within New Zealand society and had relatively little to do with poaching from the islands themselves.
There was also a degree of white flight as parents cringed at the sight of their little darlings being crunched by much larger Pacific Island opponents. But among the player community in general there was never any resistance to Pacific Island participation.
By the time the game turned professional and Super Rugby began, the transition was complete and rugby's status as the national sport of all New Zealanders was no longer in question. In fact, the Pacific Island contingent far exceeds its demographic proportion, while Maori players are significantly more prominent than they were toward the end of the amateur era.
The 1888 Natives were actually a team of New Zealand-born players and included a number of non-Maori - though Maori were in the majority. At that time NZ's population was about 400,000, with just over 10% Maori. The Maori population has been estimated at between two and three hundred thousand prior to the New Zealand Wars (which not only involved fighting the British, but also inter-tribal warfare as the British supplied muskets to friendly tribes, who then proceeded to wipe out their mutual enemies).
Indeed, a member of that Natives teams, Thomas Rangiwahia Ellison, would become New Zealand's first national captain. He also became an administrator and rugby author and is credited with designing the prototypical All Blacks uniform, among other things. Though he only lived to age 37. His great-grandfather was a tribal chief and his progeny include 3-time Super Bowl winner Rikki Ellison and 2012 All Black Tamati Ellison, currently with the Rebels.
Other ethnicities were embraced as readily, notably 1908-1914 All Blacks Ranji Wilson, of Afro-West Indian ancestry, who played alongside his two brothers for the Wellington provincial team and later became an All Blacks selector. A star of the 'Trench Blacks' during WWI, Wilson hung up his boots immediately after the war when excluded from the nation's first ever tour of SA on racial grounds.
So while the game remained free of prejudice and undoubtedly played a major role in racial integration within New Zealand, it gradually fell out of favour with an increasingly enlightened general public due to the South Africa factor. In the major metropolitan centers of Auckland and Wellington both Maori and Pacific Islanders seemed more inclined to play league, and by the early 1980s the 13-man code was beginning to pose a serious challenge to its top dog status - while foreign league clubs gleefully raided the union ranks.
It all began to change with the advent of a spectacular and highly successful inaugural World Cup in 1987 and complete break with South Africa until the end of Apartheid. Pacific Islanders were readily embraced, and although it undoubtedly took a while to convince the redneck brigade both at home and abroad, this basically reflected the changing demographics within New Zealand society and had relatively little to do with poaching from the islands themselves.
There was also a degree of white flight as parents cringed at the sight of their little darlings being crunched by much larger Pacific Island opponents. But among the player community in general there was never any resistance to Pacific Island participation.
By the time the game turned professional and Super Rugby began, the transition was complete and rugby's status as the national sport of all New Zealanders was no longer in question. In fact, the Pacific Island contingent far exceeds its demographic proportion, while Maori players are significantly more prominent than they were toward the end of the amateur era.
If they're good enough to play at World Cups, why not in between?