Grudges set aside at Stewart Island showdown

BY BECK ELEVEN

It's midnight in the South Sea Hotel on Stewart Island. Friday night is locals night and the locals are in mighty fine spirits.

The annual Maori v Pakeha rugby league game is looming.

In just over 24 hours, Andrae Nerehona will be on the field as captain of the Maori team and he has a title to defend.

Nerehona's confidence has been slightly inflated by beer.

"I'm hard, fast and good-looking," he says. "Tomorrow I'll be hard, fast, good-looking and sore."

He makes a good prediction.

Stewart Island's population is 400. On Waitangi Day, half the population plus a few "loopies" (visitors) go to Traill Park above the settlement of Oban to watch the only game in town.

Spectators line the eastern side of the field and the haka echoes from the bush shielding the west.

The Pakeha team face off to their opponents during the pre-game haka. Two years ago, they brought muskets and blankets instead.

The Waitangi Day match started in 1991. John `Pihi' Neave is one of the "originals".

Conditions of entry used to be stricter, he says.

To qualify, players had to have worked one day on the island, or lived there for six months. Imports were forbidden but the rules are looser now. At the pub on Friday night, there were rumours of "a boat full of Maori coming in from Bluff".

The rumour proves true and an hour before kickoff, Southern Seafoods factory foreman Paul Sooalo greets the Bluff boys at the wharf while a bunch of white boys gather outside the Four Square.

"The feeling I get is that the Waitangi game is not about settling past grievances, although I'm sure some of them do that with tackles, it's about friendship," Sooalo says.

"The people here with Maori blood are staunch but if anything, we're a united bunch of half-castes."

With just over 30 minutes until kickoff, Sooalo's sister pulls out a vivid marker and draws moko on the boys' faces.

Sooalo eyes his mate, Tom Cripps, because Cripps appears reluctant to get a moko.

"Don't you think about jumping ship on me, bro."

Fifteen minutes before kickoff, Cripps joins the Pakeha side and the trash talk begins.

"Go on back to your dirty white trash team," says Nerehona.

Expletives fly and the sound of clashing bodies punctuates the game. Kids run the length of the field knowing they'll be able to play in a few years. They ask who is on the Maori side and who plays for the Pakeha because the answer is not obvious and in reality, no-one really cares.

The Maori team have added a couple of German tourists, a Norwegian and Harvey McGinity who says he's a "bit of an abbo".

Jo Learmont is watching the game with her husband, Kyle, also one of the originals.

He says it's a proud moment to be watching a tradition he had a hand in starting.

"I'd hate to see it die," he says. "It's a good way to celebrate New Zealand Day ... Waitangi Day ... New Zealand Day – whatever it's called."

The score is 32-30 to the Pakeha team and the prize is a macrocarpa carving of a whale's tail plus bragging rights for a year.

The locals say it was one of the best games in years.

Unlike the All Blacks and the Kiwis, these players do not give wary interviews.

Bill Ayers, 23, scored the second try for the Pakehas.

"I seen that tryline and thought, `I'm f...ing going over that'," he says. "At least this will shut Dad up. He's been giving me s... all year since I played for the Maori and they won."

The post-game celebration is a hangi on Butterfield Beach where aching bones and bruises are soothed by beer and kai.

Everyone is welcome, loopies included, they are charged $10 and locals dine for half the price.

Nerehona is limping and gutted, but he will endure all the teasing because he dished it out last year.

- © Fairfax NZ News