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Inspired by seeing Wellington's Hurricanes win against South Africa's Bulls, and in fulfilment of Simone's wish to see the All Blacks perform the haka live, we went to see New Zealand face France last night. I'm not a rugby fan, but I sure felt patriotic and shared in the excitement of seeing the national team thrash France 61 to 10.

Here is a short movie (2min 46sec) showing the All Blacks entering the stadium, the singing of the national anthem, the haka (Ka Mate), the first try, and a Mexican wave:

All Blacks v France video download (8.6 MB H.264-encoded movie, zip archive)

You can read about the game here. If you need a French translation of the haka, watch this. There's a very energetic Italian ad featuring the haka here.

To support the home team lots of folk waved flags bearing the silver fern (not the Union Jack). All we need now is a new national flag. New Zealand's national anthem, God Defend New Zealand, was something I was taught at school. Well, the first verse anyway. This is often sung twice, once in Maori and once in English:

E Ihoã Atua,
O ngã iwi mãtou rã
ãta whaka rongona;
Me aroha noa
Kia hua ko te pai;
Kia tau tõ atawhai;
Manaakitia mai
Aotearoa

God of Nations at Thy feet,
In the bonds of love we meet,
Hear our voices, we entreat,
God defend our free land.
Guard Pacific's triple star
From the shafts of strife and war,
Make her praises heard afar,
God defend New Zealand.

The tune has been played often on TV recently as part of the advertising campaign for Kiwibank. The fact that the anthem is whistled rather than sung in the ad riled an over-sensitive complainant (1 of 4 million Kiwis), but I like it. In fact I wrote to Kiwibank suggesting that "... you should consider making a .wav or .mp3 audio file available for download on your website. Expatriates worldwide will think of Kiwibank whenever they hear it!". Apparently they thought that was a good idea too, since I received the MP3 by return e-mail together with a note that they would be looking at making it available on their website in the future. Meantime, you can listen to the part of the tune here.

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