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Andrew Merhtens, one of the best Kiwi proponents of the drop goal (Image: Getty Images/Leonie Hayden)
Andrew Merhtens, one of the best Kiwi proponents of the drop goal (Image: Getty Images/Leonie Hayden)

OPINIONSocietyOctober 17, 2020

In defence of the drop kick

Andrew Merhtens, one of the best Kiwi proponents of the drop goal (Image: Getty Images/Leonie Hayden)
Andrew Merhtens, one of the best Kiwi proponents of the drop goal (Image: Getty Images/Leonie Hayden)

After last weekend’s Bledisloe Cup match, Justin Latif asks why we’ve fallen out of love with drop kicking.

October 6, 2007 was truly one of the darkest days of my life. 

To many New Zealand sports fans, just hearing the words “two thousand and seven” elicits cold sweats and furrowed brows.

If you’re unsure what I’m referring to, it’s the night the All Blacks inexplicably lost to France in the 2007 Rugby World Cup quarter-final – yes, the quarter-final!  

I have buried the memories of this particular day so deeply I can’t even remember where I was when we lost. All I can recount is a numbing sense of emptiness that lasted so long, I didn’t watch another game for almost 13 months. 

Apart from a missed forward pass by referee Wayne Barnes (endlessly replayed on this video), the key reason this seemingly invincible team lost was it chose not to kick a drop goal, until Luke McAllister made a rushed, desperate attempt at the 79-minute mark from halfway

Such was the opprobrium following the loss, the NZRU conducted a full review and reached this view in their conclusions: “We recognise that in the last 10 minutes of the second half, the All Blacks faced a dilemma. Whether to go for a drop goal or whether to continue to score through a try or a penalty. The coaches sent out a message with 10 minutes to go to set up for a drop goal. The on-field decision was made to continue with attempting to score a try or get a penalty. The players were unaware of a vital piece of information, that the All Blacks had not been given a penalty in the entire second half and were probably unlikely to get one.”

The callous hopelessness of that final sentence almost renders me a withering mess. And therefore, with this traumatic memory deeply etched into my soul, I was psychologically triggered on Sunday as I watched both the All Blacks and Wallabies play out almost nine minutes of overtime without one side going for a drop kick. 

But before you file an injunction against The Spinoff, this column isn’t a criticism of the players on the weekend. Rather I’m questioning the general reticence towards the drop kick that’s developed across New Zealand rugby. And I hope by airing my frustrations, we can get a conversation going about the need to return this form of scoring to the arsenal. In fact, I would like to go as far as arguing that we must re-embrace the drop goal as a thing of beauty, not as the object of scorn when performed by some toffee-nosed Englishman. In recent history, the best Kiwi proponent of the drop goal was probably Andrew Mehrtens, and despite being a Blues fan, I can grudgingly admit that one of his droppies had an almost poetic artistry to it. 

Despite looking only 12 years old and suffering from crippling food poisoning, the plucky Cantabrian almost drop-kicked New Zealand to World Cup victory in 1995 with his enormous altitude-induced missiles.

But arguably his most famous drop kick came for the Crusaders, where, after effortlessly chipping the ball through the posts with his trade-mark timing and choir boy haircut, he then broke with his cherubic demeanour and gave the crowd the ultimate single-fingered salute. 

Perhaps if we take Mehrtens’ example, the key to re-popularising this means of point scoring is to also encourage players to follow up their successful kicks with outrageous celebrations. Given our star players’ love of social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, maybe the NZRU could create a new dance trend, with the help of Jawsh 685, that encapsulates the taking of a drop kick? 

Whatever it takes, the time is well overdue for our nation to come to terms with our dissonance towards the dark art of kicking a ball through a set of rugby posts during open play. Instead of recoiling from such individualistic pursuits, every coach and rugby-obsessed parent needs to patriotically take up this cause, and impress upon their young charges the need for the religious practice of drop kicks. 

Lest we forget 2007.

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Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

OPINIONSocietyOctober 17, 2020

The more loving one

Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

In the final instalment of her column about her adventures in online dating, Alie Benge ponders a world that isn’t afraid of love.

I’m obsessed with love. All forms are fascinating. Familial love, aromantic love, queer love, desire, friendship. But my interest has come from a position of anthropological curiosity. In my own life, I’ve been reasonably love-averse. I’m not into romantic gestures. I don’t have a secret wedding Pinterest board. The only time I’ve tested my name against someone else’s was when talking to someone on Hinge whose last name was Smellie, and I realised I could marry him for lols and become Alie Smellie. I think I’m afraid of love. Maybe in the same way I’m scared of any extreme thing, like huge bodies of water, or driving too fast, like it’s too bright or too loud.

I’ve always felt that loving someone means giving them a certain power over you, so I’ve held myself back from it. My ability to move on from each relationship has depended on how much power I gave away, and how much I got back at the end. By this I mean, how much did I let my feelings show, and was I able to take all that affection back and pretend I never cared.

Then I listened to a podcast which featured a line from a Yeats poem: “If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me.” I had to pause the podcast and sit down. What a thing; to consciously choose to love more; to actively seek it. It’s so bloody lovely. This would look like not worrying about texting first, or replying too quickly. It would mean letting someone know you like them, rather than pretending you don’t have strong opinions on whether you see them again. I looked at the world, and the relationships I’d been in or witnessed and thought, how different would the world be if we were in competition to love each other more? To meet the love we receive and give it back 10 fold. “What if next time,” I thought, “I just gave all my power away and loved openly and affectionately? What if I let someone fully in?”

This was some time in January. The last days of the beforetime. I was about to meet the ghoster and begin my dating rampage, and if you’ve followed this series, you already know what happened. I went all in, and I got my heart broken, more than once. Of course I did. It was always going to happen, because this isn’t some prosperity gospel where you get out what you put in. But I didn’t do it to get anything from being the more loving one, but because it was the kind of person I wanted to be: someone who loves freely, without insecurity or tit-for-tat power plays. I didn’t want to give love to get love. I wanted to give it without expecting anything in return. Even so, a few months ago, well into this practice, I was out with Sia and Abby, waiting for a long overdue text back. Sia said, “Why don’t you just message and see if he’s out?” Abby and I stopped, food halfway to our mouths. If I’d been wearing pearls I’d have clutched them. I couldn’t give away so much power, or make myself so available! I couldn’t possibly let someone know I was thinking of them and wanted to see them.

Today I stood next to the ghoster at the traffic lights, neither of us acknowledging each other, and I knew I’d rather have been the more loving one in that situation, because being a loving person means I could never do what he did. I’d rather be heartbroken myself than make anyone feel that way. No question. Let me love you more, if only so I know I’m able to love; that I can pour it out; that if needed, I can absorb heartbreak into myself and end it there, rather than lashing out or getting my own back.

When I started writing this series I was single AF. And here I am, writing the final one in Tall Liam’s living room while he’s at work. We’ve met each other’s families. I keep a toothbrush and a packet of hair ties at his house. And now, having written this diatribe, I’m realising how wrong I’ve been. Love shouldn’t be bound up with power. Relationships shouldn’t feel like a competition. So maybe instead of looking for someone to love more, look for someone you can’t outdo. If it’s too easy to be the more loving one, then what a waste of your love.

For the past week and a half, I’ve been constantly seeking affirmation from him because we’re at a point in our relationship that terrifies me. It’s that last moment in the trust fall where you can stop yourself tipping over. I could expose my soft underbelly at the moment of most vulnerability, or I could snap closed. I want to be someone who can go into this without holding anything back and protecting myself, but sometimes I feel like an exposed nerve. It’s so hard. It’s so hard.

I don’t want either myself or Tall Liam to be the more loving one. I want only to know that I’m capable of love. That I can give and receive it without insecurity. I thought I should be able to give love without expecting anything back, but I was wrong. We all just want to be loved, right? It’s why we’re scrolling through apps, putting ourselves through this. It’s OK to want to be loved. It’s OK to be hurt sometimes. You won’t die. I promise. Give love anyway. Put more of it in circulation. Ask for some back.

Read the whole series here.

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