In 2011, The New Zealand national rugby team, called the All Blacks, won the Rugby World Cup. This is a very big deal for Kiwis and for many other nations outside of the U.S. Rugby is baseball, basketball and football all tied into one here in New Zealand. The All Blacks have been playing test matches throughout the country and on Saturday it was Dunedin's turn to play host as the All Blacks played the South Africa Springboks. Blair, Nathan and I had three of the hottest ticket in town!
Nathan is ready to support the home team
Tradition is a funny thing. Dunedin has a tradition whenever the All Blacks come to town. Its a fund raising tradition that raises quite a bit of money for a local need (this year a girl with leukaemia). It has major sponsors, such as Air New Zealand. The tradition is called Nude Blacks. Nude Blacks is a public rugby games played outdoors by completely naked people.
The Kiwis like this. It is considered "a good laugh." Its family entertainment. Personally, I found some of it funny and some of it quite disturbing, but in a funny way. This is a family oriented site, so I am careful of the pictures I publish. I have strategically placed red dots.
"Let's go see what all these people are looking at!"
Of course, rugby is not just for men.
Cheerleaders!
And yet again, Air New Zealand tops the competition.
Eventually, it was game time. Forsyth-Barr Stadium was packed to the rafters even with several thousand seats added to the east side of the stadium. As with each and every All Blacks game, after the national anthems of both countries, the All Blacks preform a haka for the benefit of their opponents. Piri Weepu led the haka last night:
Making a break.
Liam Meesam wins a lineout.
Touch . . . Pause . . . Engage!
Isreal Dagg scores a try (5 points)
Great game, great crowd. The All Blacks won, as expected, 21-11.
Seeing a bunch of naked men running around with a football could easily be disturbing in a funny way! I see (much too clearly!) your point!
ReplyDeleteWow,
Steve