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Image by Tina Tiller
Image by Tina Tiller

SportsOctober 29, 2022

The humble scrunchie is the real MVP of the Rugby World Cup

Image by Tina Tiller
Image by Tina Tiller

There are two New Zealand rugby games on at the same time tonight, and only one of them will feature a line-up of vibrant and exciting scrunchies. 

There was a lot to take in at the opening day of the Ruby World Cup earlier this month. Rita Ora crouched on the field, touched our hearts and engaged our minds. Hinewehi Mohi sang the national anthem and everyone wept. The Wallaroos were up for far too long and everyone screamed. But there was another aspect of the momentous match that I couldn’t stop thinking about throughout – the excellent array of hair accessories within the Black Ferns. 

Aotearoa has a tried and true tradition of both celebrating and deriding the stylistic choices of our rugby players. Over the years we have taken note of Dan Carter’s bad fade, Jonah Lomu’s tuft, Justin Marshall’s frosted tips and Ma’a Nonu’s eyebrows and eyeliner. In 2022, the Black Ferns lookbook is just as varied. In just one game we were treated to everything from the red racing stripe in Ruby Tui’s ponytail, to Renee Holmes’ iridescent pink and blue mermaid ribbons. 

But no accessory dominated the debut quite like the scrunchie, an easy-going, personality-packed, fabric-covered elastic that first rose to prominence in the 1980s. Portia Woodman sported an on-theme black and white shiny number, while Stacy Fluhler went for a beautiful rich magenta. In the Black Ferns games since, we’ve been treated to hot pink, bright red and even a sneaky paua print scrunch. Ensemble said it first: the scrunchie is back, baby

Black Ferns back and scrunchie entrepreneur Stacey Fluhler has loved the scrunchie ever since she was a kid, “even when they went out of fashion”. When she started travelling the world for rugby, she would pick up scrunchies in different places and then test them out at games. “For me, comfort is key and making sure my hair doesn’t come out,” she explains. “It’s not perfect when you might be getting smashed into rucks and whatnot. But it’s just a cool accessory for me to feel cool on the field.”

Stacey Fluhler, potentially injured but happy with her scrunchie. (Photo: Getty Images.)

Although Fluhler loved the aesthetic of the scrunchie, she quickly encountered a quality problem. “I’d buy all the cheap ones but my head gets real sweaty, so they would constantly get wet and stink a little bit afterwards,” she laughs. It was only when she got sent an assortment from Canadian business Aptoella Rugby that the god tier sports scrunchie was unlocked. “They were really tight and I’ve got real thick hair, so it takes a lot for my hair to kind of stay in place,” she explains. “I also love the fact that they were water slash sweatproof.” 

Eventually, Fluhler’s passion for scrunchies came off the field entirely. In 2020 she launched Stacey Fluhler Scrunchies with a local business partner (“I definitely don’t have enough time to make them and, to be fair, I don’t know how”). The brand has since found popularity among local sports teams, with scrunchies being sent across the country to various netball, hockey and rugby tournaments. “I don’t make a lot of money from it but that was never the intention,” she says. “I just wanted to make people feel good and happy on the field like I do.”

With that in mind, is there any hope in hell of ever getting an official Black Ferns scrunchie? “I wish,” Fluhler laughs. “I just need to pitch that to New Zealand Rugby to allow it.” 

Beyond looking cool, hair forms an essential part of the Black Ferns pre-game ritual. In the brilliant two-part documentary series Black Ferns: Wahine Toa, Tanya Kalounivale cackles as a comb disappears into her bright pink curls, while tight french braids are plaited against scalps and ribbons flutter around ponytails. “Every athlete has their own unique pre-match ritual,” sports broadcaster Kirsty Stanway explains. “With the Black Ferns, it always involves braiding each other’s hair and a lot of music, dancing and singing.” 

Portia Woodman is also a huge scrunchie fiend. Photo: Getty Images

Fluhler confirms that this is an essential part of their pre-game process. “Every time we play, we definitely have a little bit of a salon going,” she laughs. “Being females playing in a male-dominated sport, it’s important that we just feel good.”  The main braiders on the team are Kennedy Simon, Amy Rule and Portia Woodman, but Fluhler is quite happy to stay the scrunchie queen. “It’s kind of funny, because you don’t want to make it too known that you can do it, because otherwise you’re going to get a whole line.” 

There’s a sense of fun within the idea of picking out the perfect scrunchie and lining up for braids that sets the Black Ferns apart from their male equivalents. “Probably the easiest way to explain the difference between the men and the women – the men need to play well to feel good,” coach Wayne Smith told The Telegraph earlier this month. “The women need to feel good to play well. We have a lot of fun in the team – I won’t tell you how we do that – but there’s a lot of laughter, a lot of fun and we’re all making the most of it.”

Fluhler agrees. “For us, if we’re having fun, then I feel like that outweighs the result. It’s our whole mindset: you focus on the process, not the outcome.”

She currently has about 20-30 scrunchies with her for the World Cup, and has some strict rules about which ones she chooses to wear – no scrunchies twice in a row and they must match her outfit or kit that day. She sometimes lets her fans decide which scrunchie she should wear on her Instagram, or will FaceTime her nieces and let them choose. She keeps the black and white scrunchies for finals and one-off matches, and stays away from yellow entirely –  “I’ll never ever wear the same colour scrunchie as the opposition team’s colours.”

So while Fluhler hasn’t figured out which scrunchie she will be sporting for tonight’s match against Wales, one thing is certain.

“It definitely can’t have red in it.”

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Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images

SportsOctober 27, 2022

Schools stop playing for the cameras

Photo: Getty Images
Photo: Getty Images

Auckland high school rugby will no longer be broadcast live as principals try to turn back the tide and stop the competition being subsumed by the professional game. But is it too little, too late?

This story first appeared on The Bounce, a Substack newsletter by Dylan Cleaver.

This feels like a huge moment, like the first droplets of water being administered by pipette onto the raging bonfire that is school sport.

The principals of the Auckland 1A schools yesterday took a bold step, one that will be unpopular with many within their rugby communities, and ended their relationship with live broadcasting and streaming. In a media release, they said:

“The 2023 Auckland 1A 1st XV Season will see a return to the core values of secondary schools rugby with a decision made by the principals to decline live broadcasts of matches. This decision has been made with a strong and necessary emphasis on the wellbeing of students at a time when secondary schools rugby players are being exposed to an unhealthy level of scrutiny…

“As well as taking the decision to make the competition broadcast-free, the principals have also agreed that matches will not be live-streamed, and that no media interviews will be given before or during the season by coaches or players. Instead, schools will continue to encourage their student bodies and wider communities to continue to attend games in person.”

It’s not enough in the wider scheme of a school sport environment that has in the space of a generation morphed from being a broad church of mateship, rivalry and camaraderie across a wide spectrum of abilities, to being increasingly and damagingly pathway driven. It’s nowhere near enough, but it’s a hell of a marker to put down.

The adults in the room have actually become the adults in the room, walking into headwinds that School Sport New Zealand, Rugby New Zealand and Sport New Zealand have failed to confront. (It is valid to note that many of the schools taking this stance were the self same who ignited the fire in the first place, and for this reason I remain somewhat sceptical about their long-term strategy in this space.)

There are multiple issues at play here, two of which can be telescoped down into two stories that appeared recently.

In a (paywalled) opinion piece in the New Zealand Herald, Bruce Holloway wrote: “Auckland’s 1A Premiership final in first XV schoolboy rugby is shaping as a classic of its type – if anyone can penetrate the cone of silence that surrounds it…

“Both schools [St Peter’s and Kelston Boys’ High] are refusing to comment about the final. An event, which anywhere else would be embraced as a celebration of the code and of young players’ endeavour and achievement, is instead being treated like dirty washing.

“It’s a big occasion sullied by big schools with small minds.”

This incensed not just St Peter’s and Kelston but many others in the secondary school rugby community. The idea that a school game should be burdened with media expectations crystalised for them that the game had tilted too far from being a competitive schoolboy fixture that engaged the relevant school and alumni community to a commercial product.

That anger was restrained but nevertheless palpable in the release, which quoted Mt Albert Grammar headmaster Pat Drumm as saying: “As educators we have become increasingly wary of organisations and individuals seeking to treat secondary schools rugby as an extension of the professional game.”

The second was this piece in Stuff, headlined: “New Zealand Rugby renews push to oversee schools rugby.” Within that story, NZ Rugby general manager community rugby Steve Lancaster said, “We are working on how we can improve the governance and administration of school rugby, in a more integrated way with the rugby system.”

This move by the Auckland schools could be seen as a subtle middle finger to NZR – a way of reemphasising their ownership of the school game while advocating for a return to boots on the ground talent ID.

(The idea that talent will slip through the cracks if it’s not televised is, in my opinion, a fallacy. It is far more likely that talent has slipped through the cracks at small, ‘uncompetitive’ schools as talent ID concentrated on the elite programmes.)

King’s vs Grammar (Photo: Fiona Goodall/Getty Images)

“Many of the young men involved in this competition will aspire to playing professionally [and] those in charge of the professional game should have the necessary resources to evaluate these young men in a live setting,” the release said.

Schools have long been wary of NZR oversight, believing the overarching mission statements that guide them both are not compatible.

That hasn’t always been easy to reconcile with some of the schools’ behaviour, particularly an ugly arms race that spilled over to threats of boycotts and new regulations around recruitment, or plain old poaching in old money.

“The 1A schools have taken great strides in recent years in terms of the recruitment of student players, and we see this decision as a natural extension of our responsibility to the sport and to those who play it,” Drumm noted.

The move to broadcast 1st XV was the brainchild of the late Martin Crowe and while Sky TV latched onto the idea as a way of getting subscribers to its paywalled and now-defunct Rugby Channel, the cricketer’s intentions were noble. He believed the traditions and fierce rivalries in the school game warranted a larger stage.

(By and large, schools have no problem with Sky’s coverage, which is helmed by commentators like Ken Laban who have a genuine interest and care for the sport.)

It was a move, however, that had damaging unintended consequences. Not covered was the potential serious damage being done to student athletes who are not mature enough to deal with the attention and the potential negative blowback, particularly on largely unregulated social media forums.

“Too often we have seen the negative impacts of unnecessary hype,” says De La Salle College principal Myles Hogarty. “Many of our students already feel enormous pressure when they take the field. It is our job as principals to create safer environments for all of our students and we believe this course of action is entirely appropriate given what appears to be a greater emphasis than ever on commercialising school sport and the potential exploitation of those who choose to play it.”

First XVs became a recruitment battleground, most acutely in Auckland but also spreading beyond the Bombays and beyond rugby.

Year 14s have gone from being an anomaly to an increasing part of the school sport lexicon, with certain schools in particular finding reasons why an extra year at school would be beneficial for students who, coincidentally, nearly always happen to be good at sport (if you talk to teachers who have little or no interest in sport, they uniformly say the educational benefits of doing a Year 14 are infinitesimal).

Seeing the “success” of the broadcasting of schools rugby, the Rob Waddell-owned New Zealand Sports Collective formed a partnership with Sky – Sky Next – to broadcast or stream a vast range of secondary school sport tournaments and competitions. School Sport New Zealand was one of the signatories to the deal, which outraged the same Auckland principals.

“One has to wonder what School Sport NZ is thinking,” Auckland Grammar headmaster Tim O’Connor said at the time. “I would have hoped that the body’s primary interest was the welfare of our students, not the commoditisation of them.”

Sky Next received tacit endorsement from Sport NZ, even though several of its staff voiced serious concerns about the venture.

Then Sport NZ CEO Peter Miskimmin justified his organisation’s hands-off response by saying that the televising of school sport “was happening” and it couldn’t be stopped.

“On no basis do I know how I can stop [the broadcasting of school sport],” he said. “Schools make decisions whether to be involved or not based on their own values.”

The Auckland principals have determined what their values are and decided it could be stopped. It will annoy the hell out of a lot of people, even among their own student and parent communities.

It will also be interesting to see if this is the start of a chain reaction or whether they reassess when some talent inevitably drains towards those schools happy to remain in high-definition focus.

Will this lead to a reckoning in other sports, in other schools? Will we see a long overdue dampening down of the school sport fire, or are these principals just pissing into the wind?


But wait there's more!