The RNZ Music team sum up the last week of rugby in four songs.
Photo: AFP or licensors
1. SJD - 'Bad Karma in Yokohama'
Could there be a song better suited to last Saturday’s defeat? The RNZ Music team reckons not.
“I was hoping things would turn out alright,” sings SJD, aka Sean James Donnelly reflecting the All Blacks' strategy against a dominant and unrelenting England. Don’t get us armchair coaches started on what positional changes could have been made.
Incidentally, Songs From a Dictaphone, the album that features 'Bad Karma in Yokohama' was released the same year as another traumatic event in NZ Rugby World Cup history: when the All Blacks lost their quarter final to France in Cardiff. Bad Karma indeed.
2. Eric Carmen - 'Hungry Eyes'
“Whomst is hungrier is the victor” said no one ever. During the post-match media conference after the semi-final loss, hunger and all its various meanings were a subject close to coach Steve Hansen’s heart.
“I think that’s quite a disrespectful question to suggest that the All Blacks weren’t hungry,” said Hansen to a reporter, who'd asked whether Hansen’s team were adequately fired up for the contest.
What followed was an inconclusive study of the semantics of “hungry” courtesy of the All Blacks coach.
“I asked them at half time to get hungrier. Doesn’t mean that they didn’t turn up to be hungry,” concluded an aggrieved Hansen, who then offered to take the reporter outside for a rugby education. The whole conversation was just as bananas as the music video to 'Hungry Eyes'.
3. Lorde - 'Team'
“We’re on each other’s team” Lorde reminds us. It’s an excellent refrain for All Blacks fans to manifest as they pledge support to mortal enemy South Africa, going into the Cup final.
It'll be an uncomfortable 80-minute alliance on Saturday, when Tri Nations rivalry and our own bloody social history will be put aside against arch nemesis England.
4. Crowded House - 'Don't Dream It's Over'
In times of national crisis, we must turn to the comforting tones of Uncle Neil. Yes, the dream of the "threepeat" is truly over and so is the ambition to achieve unfettered global domination in 9th most popular sport in the world.
And while the chorus of this unofficial New Zealand anthem is the balm on the raw wound of unfamiliar defeat, it's the closing refrain that provides the affirmation you need: “Don’t let them win.” Threepeat that line, and the English might just be denied the Webb Ellis trophy.
