Aussie view: Don't feel sheepish about Phoenix

BY RICHARD HINDS

OPINION: The Kiwis are coming. So, as the snarling overdogs in this mostly one-sided sporting rivalry, some will feel compelled to put the upstart Wellington Phoenix back in their provincial box.

To remind them they are the best football team in New Zealand ''baaaa none''. To tell them God better defend New Zealand because their back four won't do the job. You know the cliches.

The problem is, just as Canada had the world in its corner when its team played the US in the Olympic ice hockey final, it would be difficult to find a fair-minded neutral observer who would take the Australian side in the cross-Tasman feud.

Not just tomorrow night when the prophetically named Phoenix take on a Sydney outfit that, with its head-office support, air of smug superiority and vocal commentary box cheerleaders, might as well be called A-League FC. Even before Trevor Chappell's mullygrubber prompted a mass evacuation of the moral high ground, there are few times when Australia has represented the more sympathetic cause in this battle.

Partly, that is because New Zealand is smaller, more self-deprecating, less-entitled and almost ridiculously pleased with what modest sporting success it achieves. Meanwhile, Australia's obsession with fighting - or spending - its way to the top of the global sporting tree makes it a soft target for the underappreciated Kiwi wit.

Australian football's abandonment of tiny Oceania for the lucrative fields of Asia only made the All Whites' instant seizure of the World Cup berth the Socceroos had so often struggled to grasp sweeter. Yet, should the Phoenix let six into the net tomorrow night - or New Zealand get thrashed by Australia at the MCG in May - the Kiwis are entitled to shrug and say, well, ''Of course you beat us, eh.''

Similarly, New Zealand's quixotic tilt at the World Cup shapes as a far more joyous experience than the Socceroos who, with considerable success, are now subject to constant second-guessing about the tactics of Pim Verbeek (on the park and with the comb). In South Africa, the All Whites will be the type of loveable minnows that Australians once were at the Winter Olympics before we somehow became terribly serious about cold weather hobbies.

New Zealand cricket relishes a similar lack of expectation. Recent victories against the Australians, whose reputations are shamelessly inflated by the host broadcasters, are celebrated as minor miracles. Inevitable defeats are endured with a sense of good humour noticeably lacking from our own commentators. And when Mitchell Johnson disobeys a fairly basic principle and head butts a batsman wearing a helmet? ''Just a typical Aussie idiot, eh!''

Even off the field, the Kiwis are more sympathetic. New Zealand presented, in Sir John Anderson, an extremely well-credentialled candidate for the ICC vice-presidency. Australia presented John Howard. Yet, somehow, Cricket Australia manipulated what appears a pyrrhic victory.

Enough to make you haka, except the Kiwis can be remarkably phlegmatic. Where we used to mutter darkly about New Zealand raiders stealing the Melbourne Cup, when Australian-trained Zavite won the Auckland Cup on Wednesday, they shrugged and said: ''Good run, eh?''

The great exception to New Zealand's status as charming underdog, you are no doubt exploding to point out, is the All Blacks. Yet, if the Bledisloe Cup represents the one time when the Kiwis play Rottweiler to Australia's Poodle, the All Blacks are still the outsiders' choice - a legendary entity that, like that Canadian ice hockey team, embodies the sporting aspirations of an entire nation. Even for those Australians who don't own a pair of beige chinos or a pastel polo shirt, New Zealand's fierce professionals beating up our hyphens seems fair enough.

Australia's trump card in this debate has been our supposedly more modern, more sophisticated society. (Cue jokes about Auckland being closed at 7.30pm on week nights.) Then along came the Flight of the Conchords, which not only proved New Zealanders are better at satirising themselves than we are them, but also expertly lampooned Australians as the overbearing, uncouth tormenters of Kiwis.

Which helps explain why, other than the odd Nepalese embittered that Edmund Hillary got all the press after Sherpa Tenzing Norgay piggybacked him to the summit, you would be hard pressed convincing an outsider to join the Australian corner and we'll have to keep composing those hilarious sheep jokes by ourselves.

- © Fairfax NZ News