Tidying up the All Black image

Press, 27 December 1979, Page 16

Tidying up the All Black image

First reports of a successful trial with the new low-calorie, low-alcohol All Black have been welcomed in the international rugby world as a big step towards eradicating the uncivilised and regrettably enjoyable behaviour that has besmirched the game's name since Captain Mathew Webb first ripped off the gym mistress’s oval Patent French Hernia Truss and Party Surprise on the playing fields of Eton and swam the Channel with it, thus establishing the new code. The new style of All Black was given its first public airing in the recent tour of Britain, during which a concerted effort was made to break away from the old image of a rugby player as someone with a sports bag crusted with the dried remains of a recent meal, and containing incriminating garments of an intimate nature belonging to person or persons only dimly remembered, enough beer to float a frigate if only we had a frigate that would float, and perhaps some sports gear.

The traditional rugby beast, his sick, wild brain ever ready to hurl out obscene and chauvinistic “songs” about a mad halfworld populated by creatures from an alleged Wild West Show, fiendish devices of steel powered by huge wheels, and the marital prospects and activities of a half-back’s daughter (if he was the marrying kind), is now, thankfully, becoming a thing of the past.

The last All Blacks were voted “Most Charming Chaps in Chepstow on Monday, July 21” by a street poll of senior citizens, and their general behaviour and demeanour were described as “impeccably boring” by a source close to the committee that finally decided they should all be made honorary members of the Society of Chartered Accountants for services to earnestness and tedium above and beyond the call of duty.

The All Blacks’ manager. Eric “What Can I Do?” Watson, was typically outspoken when asked to comment on the new format.

“Of course, some of

them are just not up to it,” he said. “I had to talk very firmly to one of the younger members of the team who was discovered sucking shandy from a barmaid’s apron when he was supposed to be in the team room learning to do the new, complicated cables stitching we are hoping to incorporate in the up-to-date training ponchos the forwards are knitting.

“But that was a rare exception. Some of our opponents were a bit surprised at first that we didn’t join them in the traditional after-match childishness, but I think our match record has shown that screening “The Sound of Music” in the dressing •room before every game was a good way of stopping our boys getting all worked up and overexcited. The spelling bee at half-time, the tour of the botanical gardens and nat-ural-history museum after the game before being tucked up early with a moist rusk and a glass of milk, all greeted with scepticism, have paid off.

“As for the boys’ kit, well, I think the 1979 All Blacks proved once and for all that a player plays well when he dresses well, and, if I were asked to name just one reason why the new-type All Black is a civilised, non-chauvinist credit to his country, I would have to say it is the pride that comes from sewing all your own kit. There’s a lot of handstitching in just one silver fern, you know. No player’s going to risk his eyes working late into the night on that lot, and not give his all in the game.” The New All Black will bp up to 20 per cent less calorific than his predecessors, according to early publicity releases on the change of format, and, on

average, 25 per cent less drunk under any given set of conditions.

Forwards are expected to fine down gradually in coming seasons to the stage where the average prop will weigh approximately 30 kilograms and will be expected to have completed at least seven credits towards a doctor of divinity from at least one correspondence college in Alabama. Backs should be able to cook for and entertain a minimum of a party of 12 at short notice, and should exhibit a wide knowledge of wines and the great cheeses of Europe. An ability to comment critically

on the revised descant part in the “Ave Maria” while under pressure is something of a must in the heady intellectual world of the New Rugby, as is a reserved manner bordering on catalepsy. Asked to comment on his plans for the future with the new model, Eric “What Can I Do?” Watson, the manager said: "What can I do? Of course, some of them just aren't up to it. “Give me the tools and I’ll finish my job,” said Mr Watson. "But, what can I do? Some of them just aren’t up to it.

“What we’re hoping for eventually is to develop a sports bag that contains

enough advanced freezing equipment to put each newstyle, low calorie, low-alco-hol All Black into suspended animation between games, thus eliminating the distressing need to talk to and mix socially with our opponents. Admittedly, some of the AH Blacks in the past have been as close to suspended animation as it was considered possible to get, but scientists have moved on since then. [ "Not that I blame previous coaches for letting, their teams go to parties : and chat with the home! sides after the game. After I all, what could they do? Some of them just weren’t ’ up to it.”