Taking rugby too far - death threats follow Kiwis' loss
WWOS staff12:00 AEST Mon Oct 8 2007
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The All Blacks' loss to France on Sunday morning has led to an unprecedented outpouring of emotion from die-hard fans, with one extreme case leading to a $1000 bounty being placed on the head of match referee Wayne Barnes.
In New Zealand, the belief that the All Blacks were going to win the 2007 Rugby World Cup since they were knocked out of the last tournament has been all powerful, and on paper most would have agreed.
Hot favourites with the bookies and with a confidence that included a huge clock in New Zealand that counted down to the World Cup final by the second, the 20-18 loss to France was just not on the cards.
Some sections of the Kiwi public are now pointing fingers after their disappointing exit, and following a few controversial decisions made by Barnes, the English referee has become a prime target in the blame game.
Barnes' profile on the Wikipedia site was doctored by fanatics so that it read he "suffers from a vision-related disease which results in him being unable to see forward passes" also said he gave up on his former profession as a lawyer because he wouldn’t read any "f...ing law books."
Disturbingly, a message was posted on the page as a call to arms saying that a monetary reward would be offered to the person who "finds him for me and keeps him under lock and key until I get there."
The page also describes a grizzly death whereabouts Barnes is "lynched by a mob of people with 20/20 vision" with "his corpse pelted with rugby passes in a backward direction."
The doctored page has since been removed.
This is one incident that underlines the disturbing depths to which the performance of the All Blacks can affect the New Zealand public.
In response to the loss to France this time around, maverick New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters summed up his country's psyche.
"If we had gone on to win the World Cup it would have been a big lift for our country psychologically and economically as well," he told newspapers.
"When people feel better, they produce more, they work harder, they just are happier, they don't beat up their children or their husbands or their wives, and so you know, it's a tragedy."
Following the 2003 World Cup loss, women's refuge organisations reported a dramatic increase in the number of women who had become the targets of violence from their husbands looking to release their anger.
Then, the National Collective of Independent Women's Refuges said in a statement:
"Refuge workers said they received calls from women wanting to leave because matters had come to a head with their violent partner due to the rugby. Women said that all the family money had been gambled and drunk away, and that their violent partner was even worse when he had been out partying with the boys."
