"WHADDARYA?"

RUDOLF BOELEE

ALL BLACK RUGBY

Dedicated to the memory of my mentor,

the late Edward (Ted) Bullmore,

artist and rugby player.

ALL

BLACKS

"WHADDARYA?"

RUDOLF BOELEE

A PICTORIAL STORY ABOUT

ALL BLACK RUGBY

ISBN 978-0-20758-8

"Whaddarya?"

Art works, texts & design: Rudolf Boelee

*Publisher: Crown Lynn New Zealand Limited

P O Box 32092

Christchurch 8147

New Zealand

*In association with Germinal Press, PO Box 330, Sydney NSW 2042

Essay: Andrew Paul Wood

Poem: Jeffrey Paparoa Holman

© Rudolf Boelee, 2013

I started working on material for "Whaddarya?" during 2011. My wife Robyne

Voyce and I were displaced from our house in Christchurch, due to the February

22nd earthquake, and my only way to make any work at all was with a little old

Dell laptop. New Zealand was in the midst of Rugby World Cup media hysteria,

with the 'weight of history' hanging heavily over the team and their coaches. This

made me think of all these players who came before and how they would have

reacted to this situation (in the professional era). In first instance "Whaddarya?"

was a Facebook project, because we were continuously travelling and the only

way I could gauge if there was any interest in what I was trying to do,

was through regular posts from virtually every public library in the South Island. I

like to thank Andrew Paul Wood, Tony Carr, Eugene Huston, Johnny Lardner,

Jeffrey Paparoa Holman, Jim Wilson, David Boyce for their very useful comments,

Tony Carr for giving me the script of Greg McGee's "Foreskin's Lament" and most

of all Michael Williams who gave me the idea for this project in the first place.

Rudolf Boelee

ALL BLACKS

RODCHENKO - STEPANOVA – DELAUNAY – FEININGER – GROSZ -

DELAUNAY

SPORT

MODERNISM

SOME BACKGROUND

The Roaring Twenties is a phrase used to

describe the 1920s, principally in North

America, but also in London, Berlin and Paris

for a period of sustained economic prosperity.

The phrase was meant to emphasize the

period's social, artistic, and cultural dynamism.

'Normalcy' returned to politics in the wake of

World War I, jazz music blossomed, the

flapper redefined modern womanhood, Art

Deco peaked, and finally the Wall Street Crash

of 1929 served to punctuate the end of that

era, as The Great Depression set in. The era

was further distinguished by several realities of

far-reaching importance, unprecedented

industrial growth, accelerated consumer

demand and aspirations, and significant

changes in lifestyle and culture.

SPORTS

The Roaring Twenties was the breakout

decade for sports across the modern world.

Citizens from all parts of the country flocked to

see the top athletes of the day compete in

arenas and stadiums. Their exploits were

loudly and highly praised in the new "gee whiz"

style of sports journalism that was emerging;

champions of this style of writing included the

legendary writers Grantland Rice and Damon

Runyon in the U.S. Sports literature presented

a new form of heroism departing from the

traditional models of masculinity. High school

and junior high schools were offered to play

sports that they hadn’t been able to play in the

past. Several sports, such as golf, that had

previously been unavailable to the middle-

class finally became available. Also, a notable

motor sports feat was accomplished in Roaring

Twenties as driver Henry Seagrave, driving his

car the Golden Arrow, reaches at the time in

1929 a record speed of 231.44 mph.

BERTOLT BRECHT

German poet, playwright, theatre director and

the Brecht Collective with their attitude of

'Neue Sachlichkeit' (or New Matter-of-

Factness), their stressing of the collectivity and

downplaying of the individual, and their new

cult of Anglo-Saxon imagery and sport.

Together the "collective" would go to fights, not

only absorbing their terminology and ethos

(which permeates Man Equals Man) but also

drawing those conclusions for the theatre as a

whole which Brecht set down in his theoretical

essay "Emphasis on Sport" and tried to realize

by means of the harsh lighting, the boxing-ring

stage and other anti-illusionistic devices that

henceforward appeared in his own

productions.

START

For a whole generation god was only twice as high as the posts. We who know

our history by itineraries – the cold war of the ‘50s you say? Oh yes, we remember

it well, those front-row problems, Skinner and Bekker. ’59? A mélange of O’Reilly’s

creamy thighs, Jackson’s jinks, DB’s size 13s, and a sheep-dog retrieving the ball

in a cow-paddock in Morrinsville. Froggies in ’61, Poms again in ’66 –bloody awful!

– those artistes of ’68, Villepreux and Jo Maso, a Pinetree bestriding the ‘60s with

a sheep under each arm, the Bokkies in ’73 – the ones that didn’t come, that

nevermore will come . . . there was one thing we knew with certainty: come

winter, we’d be there, on the terrace, answering the only call that mattered –

c’mon black! . . . While the nectar flowed till you could almost see the reflection of

your youth in its dregs . . passing . . . passing. I know the lore, I know the

catechism.

- Greg McGee, Foreskin’s Lament, 1981

START

The whistle blew, there was a glare of sunlight, and we were

outside going out onto the field, right out in the open. A roar

from the crowd rolled around us enveloping us. A cold

easterly breeze blew through our jerseys as we lined up for

the photographers, squinting into the low sun. The Southern

players looked broad and compact in their black and white

jerseys. We gave three cheers and trotted out in the middle.

The turf felt fine and springy. We spaced ourselves out. I took

some deep breaths to get charged out up with oxygen for the

first ten minutes. A Southern player dug a hole with his heel

and placed the ball.

'All right Southern? All right Varsity?' called the referee.

Both captains nodded. He blew the whistle. The Southern

man ran up to kick.

'Thank Christ,' I thought. 'The game at last.'

- A. P. Gaskell, “The Big Game”, 1947

THE BIG GAME

START ONE

TWO

THREE

and the claret

flowed

without

abatement…

What the tango is to Argentina, rugby is to New Zealand, with all of

its attendant national mythology, strict rules of masculinity, and

nostalgia for an amateur past when men were gladiators who

trained with the sheep in the paddock (although the backbone of

New Zealand rugby has always really been urban, not rural), and the

claret flowed without abatement. Our image of it is mostly

mythological, first as a myth of nationalism, second as a myth of

corporate marketing. It is a religion with all of the dogma,

catechisms, gospels, creeds, cultus and schismatic heresies of a

religion. Its language is martial…

Rugby football is a game I can't claim absolutely to understand in all

its niceties, if you know what I mean. I can follow the broad, general

principles, of course. I mean to say, I know that the main scheme is

to work the ball down the field somehow and deposit it over the line

at the other end and that, in order to squelch this programme, each

side is allowed to put in a certain amount of assault and battery and

do things to its fellow man which, if done elsewhere, would result in

14 days without the option, coupled with some strong remarks from

the Bench.

- P. G. Wodehouse Very Good, Jeeves (1930)

Rugby football was introduced to New Zealand from England by

Charles Monro in the late 1860s; first recorded game in New

Zealand took place in May 1870 in Nelson. Canterbury was the first

union, formed in 1879. In 1882, New Zealand's first internationals

were played when the New South Wales team toured the Dominion.

Two years later the first New Zealand team to go overseas toured

New South Wales; New Zealand played and won eight games. The

first tour by a British team took place in 1888 when a team toured

Australia and New Zealand.

Rugby is a beastly game played by gentlemen; soccer is a

gentleman's game played by beasts; football is a beastly

game played by beasts. - Henry Blaha

Only in New Zealand and Wales did rugby

evolve from a public school elite game to a

mass sport. It came to reflect an intensely

passive-aggressive, conformist, patriarchal

and colonial society influenced by the ideals

of Victorian upper and middle classes. Rugby

has been a means of promoting male

exclusivity, but also been a means of cultural

integration and patriotic nationalism. Rugby

emerged as a democratic space of social

mixing, mutual respect and common purpose

at the same time as the Industrial Revolution.

This tribal physical combat of controlled

violence translated into character, manhood,

mateship, and other assorted stoic frontier

martial virtues, complete with epic battles,

transcendent victories, crushing defeats,

heroes, villains, and operatic drama.

RUGBY IS A BEASTLY GAME

PLAYED BY GENTLEMEN

Rugby is a good occasion for keeping thirty bullies far

from the centre of the city.

- Oscar Wilde

From the first 1905 tour until the anti-Apartheid riots sparked by the

Springbok tour of 1981, rugby promoted Empire and Commonwealth

solidarity, and projected an image of New Zealand manhood that was

virile, naturally dextrous and athletic, adaptable and sharp. From the

1970s, however, the loyalty within the amateur game began to crumble as

the players increasingly were unable to finance their rugby careers in the

face of high inflation and the increasing pettiness of the NZRFU over

finances (nothing new there). The professionalization of rugby in 1995

brought the belle époque to an end.

“Today's All

Blacks pale in

comparison to

the "tree” The Guardian, 4

November 2002

Each photograph

has that classic

look, those tell-

tale aesthetics

and semiotics

familiar from many

a Rugby Annual.

COACHES

It is slightly unexpected to see

All Blacks depicted in art this

colourfully – black, after all, is

nearly synonymous with New

Zealand art through the

auspices of Colin McCahon and

Ralph Hotere.

CAPTAINS

Sir Graham William Henry KNZM (born 8 June 1946 in Christchurch) is a

New Zealand Rugby Union coach, and former head coach of the country's

national team, the All Blacks. He played rugby union for Canterbury and

cricket for Otago in the Plunket Shield. Henry was heavily criticized

following the All Blacks quarterfinal exit at the 2007 Rugby World Cup and

was controversially reappointed. He was vindicated, however, when the

All Blacks won the 2011 Rugby World Cup final and is one of the most

successful coaches to have ever coached the All Blacks. On 1 November

2011, Henry announced he would be stepping down as All Blacks coach of

140 matches in a career that included a series victory over the touring

British and Irish Lions in 2005, five Tri Nations, three Grand Slams and one

Rugby World Cup title.

Rudolf Boelee’s

"Whaddarya?" (the

title taken from the Greg McGee’s

seminal 1981 play Foreskin’s

Lament) is a series of prints

celebrating that glorious age of

rugby when All Blacks played for

pride, glory, and camaraderie, and

counterpoints it with the modern

equivalents that don’t quite fit the

spokes model or biological tank

moulds. They were roughest of

gentlemen, or the most genteel of

ruffians. At Eden Park in 1956,

Peter Jones scored an

extraordinary try in the pivotal

fourth test against the

Springboks, the All Blacks’ first

series win over the Springboks.

When asked for comment, he

responded “Ladies and

gentlemen, I hope I never have to

play another game like that in my

life. I’m absolutely buggered”. The

New Zealand Herald refused to

print it and the recording spent

the next 30 years buried in the

radio archives.

black, after all, is

nearly synonymous

with New Zealand art

In a style ultimately deriving from

Andy Warhol’s stereographic

treatment of the mass image,

many a legendary moustache or

cauliflower ear is immortalised in

mud brown, dried blood puce,

grass green, half-time orange,

lager amber, nicotine yellow, and

a palette of other assorted

colours that would not be out of

place in any pub up until the

gentrification of the 1980s. The

effect is rather like Byzantine

saints against the gold ground of

icons. Each photograph has that

classic look, those tell-tale

aesthetics and semiotics familiar

from many a Rugby Annual. It is

slightly unexpected to see All

Blacks depicted in art this

colourfully – black, after all, is

nearly synonymous with New

Zealand art through the auspices

of Colin McCahon and Ralph

Hotere. How nice to see All

Blacks depicted in art which is

not a grotesque pseudo-

fascist/pseudo-Socialist Realist

Weta Studio-regurgitation, or the

Volkswagen-like buttocks of a

nude and callipygian Anton Oliver

as immortalised in oils by Simon

Richardson.

FORWARDS

FORWARDS

BACKS

BACKS

Haunted

For Ken Gray, the Ghost, All Black

Haunted

by these wild men

who tower up in black,

hunted

by the land's power

calling me back.

Buried

In the stone drive

of a dead mine,

banished

from a coal town

shut down.

Cut off

from syllables

of sea speech,

enough

to make a mountain smooth

on the quartz beach

Praying

karanga call

of Haere mai!

circling

the cruel earth

will make me cry.

Stood here

with tupuna

in a foreign grave,

stooping

at my father's father's

buried face.

Divided

by double blessing

clean in two,

divining

with a trembling fork

myself askew.

Jeffrey Paparoa Holman

FORWARDS

FORWARDS

BACKS

BACKS

Colin Meads on assessing

'Tiny' Hill: "He was a ruthless

player and no doubt his

attitude rubbed off on me. He

was a player who hurt you

when he brushed against

you. But he was not a dirty

player. He was one the

greatest rakers of them all,

but I never knew him to kick

a man. He would tread over

men to get to the ball, but

that's rugby and I have never

seen a man badly hurt by

sprigs."

FORWARDS

FORWARDS

Richard 'Tiny' White

played for Poverty Bay. He debuted for the All

Blacks in 1949 by playing two tests against

Australia and he immediately became an important

player for them. He never missed a test match

during his career and was only subbed off once in

his career. White also played in thirty of the 36

games during the All Blacks 1953–54 New Zealand

rugby union tour of Britain, Ireland, France and

North America, this number was the most of any

player. White was regarded as being excellent in

the lineout. He was also very quick and had

"incredible stamina." Terry McLean once remarked

that he was "a wonderful player" who "played with

matchless vigour, especially in the lineout." White

was forced to retire from rugby at age thirty-two

after he received a kick in the back. This along

with his farming injuries and an almost paralyzed

left hand was too much for him to continue playing.

His final game was during the 1956 tour by South

Africa. The All Blacks won the series 3-1 which

was their first ever victory against South Africa in

a test series.

There is, indeed,

something timeless

and classical about

the images in

Whaddarya – not the

idealized “pretty

boys” of the

Classical canon

The Greek poet Pindar is perhaps

most famous for his odes

celebrating the athletes of his

day. A frequent leitmotif in his

poetry is the notion that fame

survives not in deeds, but in what

is written about them. The same

can be achieved in the visual arts,

though Leni Riefenstahl would

have found little appealing here.

There is, indeed, something

timeless and classical about the

images in Whaddarya – not the

idealised “pretty boys” of the

Classical canon (also a feature

foisted on the professional game

by the marketing machine – Dan

Carter and Sonny Bill Williams

come to mind), but the thickened

cartilage and broken noses of the

statues of Olympic boxers and

pancratists roughly contemporary

with Pindar with their sagging

paunches, cauliflower ears and

tree trunk legs that took the

massive body punches and keep

on taking them is a much more

brutal age – the mainstays of

Hellenistic verism. They wear

with pride their battle scars of

one bout too many, and prepare

for yet another. They wonder if

they will win, or whether this will

be the last their martyred bodies

can take. We wonder also.

but the

thickened

cartilage and

broken noses

of the statues

of Olympic

boxers

1987 New Zealand won the final against France at Eden Park in

Auckland 29–9. The New Zealand team was captained by David Kirk,

substituting for the injured Andy Dalton, and included such rugby greats as

Sean Fitzpatrick, John Kirwan, Grant Fox and Michael Jones. The

tournament was seen as a major success and proved that the event was

here to stay and also led to many countries joining the International Rugby

Football Board which in turn led the IRFB to become the true authority for

the running of international rugby union.

I had 17 or 18 stitches. Fred Allen

reckoned my backside twitched

every time the needle went in... that

night we all went to the after-match

dinner. I had a towel around my neck

because the wound was weeping, so

that made me look a sight. Benoit

Dauga came over. I'd cut my hand on

his teeth and broken his nose. My

hand had turned septic. Hygiene in

those days was... well, it didn't really

exist. Dauga was stammering, trying

to find the words to ask me a

question. He wanted to know why I'd

belted him. I was astonished and

pointed to my head. The dirty so-and-

so...

- Colin Meads, cited Donald McRae, “Today's All Blacks pale in comparison

to the 'tree”, The Guardian, 4 November 2002

For 56 days in July, August and September 1981,

New Zealanders were divided against each other in

the largest civil disturbance seen since the 1951

waterfront dispute. More than 150,000 people took

part in over 200 demonstrations in 28 centres, and

1500 were charged with offences stemming from

these protests. To some observers it might seem

inconceivable that the cause of this unrest was the

visit to New Zealand of the South African rugby

team (the Springboks). Although not a major sport

on a global scale, rugby has established itself not

only as New Zealand’s number one sport but as a

vital component in this country’s national identity.

In many ways the playing of rugby took a back seat

in 1981, and the sport suffered in the following

years as players and supporters came to terms

with the fallout from the tour.

Some commentators have described this event as

the moment when New Zealand lost its innocence

as a country and as being a watershed in our view

of ourselves as a country and people.

The rest of the world

realised there was

rugby gold in the

Pacific.

Auckland really will be the world's biggest Pacific Island city today when Eden

Park welcomes 60,000 to see Samoa play Fiji. For the Samoans, the hype and

interest this game has generated will be confirmation they have been world

rugby's most compelling story for the past two decades. It is almost 20 years to

the day since Western Samoa as they were known in 1991 pulled off the

unthinkable and beat Wales at the old Cardiff Arms Park. It was a day clocks

stopped in the Principality and a day the rest of the world realised there was

rugby gold in the Pacific.

Keith Murdoch, a prop,

played for Otago from 1964 to

1972, except for one season

each for Hawke's Bay (1965)

and Auckland (1966). He

represented New Zealand from

1970–1972, playing in 27

matches for the All Blacks,

including three test matches.

He toured with the All Blacks

to South Africa in 1970 and to

Great Britain and Ireland in

1972, but was troubled by

injury throughout both series.

Murdoch's career ended

controversially and

mysteriously. He scored the All

Blacks' only try in their 1972

win against Wales in Cardiff,

but later the same night was

involved in a fracas in which he

punched security guard Peter

Grant, knocking him to the

ground, as he attempted to

enter into the famous rugby

watering hole, The Angel Hotel

which was closed at the time.

He was later sent home from

the tour by All Black

management, reputedly after

pressure was brought to bear

by the home rugby unions.

Kevin Lawrence Skinner

(born Thursday, 24 November

1927), a prop, who played in 20

international tests for New

Zealand, 2 of them as captain.

He was also a heavy weight

boxer, winning the New

Zealand championship in 1947.

Skinner was selected for the

1949 All Black tour of South

Africa. He continued playing

for the All Blacks and was

captain in the 1952 series

against South Africa. Skinner

also went on the tour to Great

Brittan and played in 27 games

including all five tests. He was

one of the key players. Skinner

retired at the end of the 1954

season but he played again for

the All Blacks for the final two

tests against South Africa in

1956. Both those tests were

won by New Zealand. "Six foot

tall (1.83m) and weighing 15st

4lb (97kg) Kevin Skinner, a

skilled lineout No.2, expert

rush stopper, strong

scrummager and extremely

mobile, remains one of the very

best props New Zealand has

produced."

Skinner remains one of the very best

props New Zealand has produced.

At Eden Park in 1956, Peter Jones scored an extraordinary try in the

pivotal fourth test against the Springboks, the All Blacks’ first series

win over the Springboks. When asked for comment, he responded

“Ladies and gentlemen, I hope I never have to play another game

like that in my life. I’m absolutely buggered”. The New Zealand

Herald refused to print it and the recording spent the next 30 years

buried in the radio archives.

Jonah Tali Lomu, is a New Zealand rugby union player. He had sixty-three caps as an All

Black after debuting in 1994. He is generally regarded as the first true global superstar of

rugby union. He has had a huge impact on the game. He was inducted into the

International Rugby Hall of Fame on 9 October 2007,[2] and the IRB Hall of Fame on 24

October 2011. Lomu burst onto the international rugby scene during the 1994 Hong Kong

Sevens tournament and was widely acknowledged to be the top player at the 1995 World

Cup in South Africa even though New Zealand lost the championship game to the host

Springboks. At one time Lomu was considered 'rugby union's biggest draw card, swelling

attendances at any match where he appeared. He is officially the Rugby World Cup all-time

top try scorer with 15 tries.

Bryan Williams, MBE (born 3 October 1950 in Auckland, New Zealand) is a former New

Zealand rugby union footballer and coach of the Samoan national rugby team. His father

was Samoan, and his mother a Rarotongan of Samoan descent and Williams went to school

in Mt Albert Grammar School, where he started his rugby career. He became an All Black in

1970 as a wing and distinguished himself in the 1970 South African Rugby Tour where he

was a sensation, scoring 14 tries in his 13 appearances and in the international series he

scored in each of the first and fourth Tests. This was during apartheid, so with his

parentage he was only able to tour after honorary white status was granted. Williams

international rugby career lasted from 1970 to 1978 in which he played 113 matches

(including 38 international Tests) and scored 66 tries in all matches as an All Black (ten

tries in Tests) which was a record until beaten by John Kirwan. After he retired from rugby,

he coached a number of club sides in New Zealand. During the 1990s onwards, he has been

the national rugby coach for Samoa.

CLARET

VIOLENCE ON THE FIELD

Tension was high in the second Bledisloe Cup test of

1992, with the Wallabies having sneaked the first test 16-

15 in Sydney. And then it all got too much for All Black

prop and Herald on Sunday columnist Richard Loe.

Australian wing Paul Carozza slid in for his first of two

tries that day and before he even had time to think about

cracking a smile he was wondering how come his nose

was spread across his face. The answer was that it had

been hit by the forearm of Loe, who had dropped on

Carozza just after the wing had scored. The incident left

Loe the most reviled man in Australia and Carozza famous

not for being a half-useful Wallaby, but for being king-hit.

1992 was a year of penitence for Mr. Loe. Shortly

after smacking Carozza, he was back in front of the

judiciary, this time for eye-gouging All Black team-mate

Greg Cooper. It's hard to imagine what Cooper, possibly

the world's nicest human, could have done to deserve

such treatment. Loe was banned for six months but as we

at the Herald on Sunday have discovered, Loe is probably

the second-nicest human on the planet. He just needed to

get that anger out of his system.

Boelee, born in the Netherlands in

1940, is uniquely placed as an

outside observer to highlight

some of the more völkisch

obsessions of New Zealand-ness.

His father was a socialist and an

atheist, and had been a member

of the utopian idealists known as

the AJC (Arbeiders Jeugd

Centrale or “Young Workers

Organisation”) and his childhood

began with the German’s bombing

of Rotterdam and continued under

the Nazi occupation. Boelee is

thus attuned to the effects of

capitalism and social ideology on

communities. He also played

rugby himself, mainly as a prop,

starting while working at the

Whakatane Board Mills, Eastern

Bay of Plenty, in 1969 in tough so

called 'shift games'. He was then

in his late twenties with no

technique to speak of, playing

against veterans. From there he

was asked to join Poroporo

Football Club, associated with

one of the local marae. “I was one

of the few pakehas there and I

suppose being Dutch did not make

me like 'them'. I kept playing

there on and off for a few

seasons, until I left the district,

played a bit in Tokoroa, trained

with a French club in the South of

France and a team in Holland. By

1976 it was enough already…”

He also played rugby himself, starting while working at the

Whakatane Board Mills, Eastern Bay of Plenty, in 1969, in tough so

called 'shift games'.

The football match at Carisbrook was

over. Dusk was already falling, and

during the last part of the game the

flight of the ball and even the

movements of the players had been

hard to follow in the failing light. Now,

looking across the field, I could see

the crowd dimly massing around the

gates. Here and there a small yellow

flame flickered where a smoker was

lighting up, and the whole crows

moved under a thin blue haze of

tobacco-smoke. After all the cheering

the place seemed very quiet, and from

the street outside came the noise of

cars starting up and whining off in low

gear, and a tram screeching round the

corner under the railway bridge.

Overhead the sky was clear with a

promise of frost. A few small boys ran

with shrill cries under the goalposts;

the rest of the field lay empty in the

grey light, and the smell of mud came

through the damp air. I shivered and

glanced down at my steaming jersey.

- A. P. Gaskell, “The Big Game”, 1947

END

ALL

BLACKS

Rudolf Boelee’s "Whaddarya?" (The title taken from the Greg McGee’s

seminal 1981 play Foreskin’s Lament) is a series of prints celebrating

that glorious age of rugby when All Blacks played for pride, glory,

and camaraderie, and counterpoints it with the modern equivalents that

don’t quite fit the spokes model or biological tank moulds. In a style

ultimately deriving from Andy Warhol’s stereographic treatment of the

mass image, many a legendary moustache or cauliflower ear is

immortalized in mud brown, dried blood puce, grass green, half-time

orange, lager amber, nicotine yellow, and a palette of other assorted

colours that would not be out of place in any pub up until the

gentrification of the 1980s. The effect is rather like Byzantine

saints against the gold ground of icons. Each photograph has that

classic look, those tell-tale aesthetics and semiotics familiar from

many a Rugby Annual.

Andrew Paul Wood

ISBN 978-0-473-20758-8