Machete and the Ghost

by Griffin, James; Kightley, Oscar;

  M: While my heart goes out to Ghost and his palagi problems, try disappointing 400 relatives you’ve never met, from a village you’ve never heard of, from an island you’re pretty sure doesn’t even exist.

  G: So, it is fair to say that once the tournament kicked off and we could all say ‘sorry, we’re a bit busy playing rugby to be Ticketmaster right now’, the boys were more than up for it.

  M: Little did they know of the carnage dead ahead.

  G: You really just can’t wait to get there, can you?

  M: Stop being such a nancy boy about it — you come out of it looking okay; better than okay, actually.

  G: I know that. I’m just still a bit sensitive about some of the unfair criticisms that were made of me — especially from certain people who claim to be my uso — about what happened in the lead-up to that moment.

  M: But let us leave that in the near future for now and instead relive the wonderful moment when you and I stood, arm in arm, as brothers, with our socks at half-mast to commemorate the Dawn Raids, on Eden Park, for the opening match against Samoa, as ‘God Defend New Zealand’ rang out over the hallowed ground.

  G: But not loud enough to drown out the sound of Machete’s mum, Faye, calling out from the Upstart Press corporate box: ‘Leilei! Leilei! Pull your socks up! It makes you look scruffy in your lovely black uniform!’

  M: If you look at the TV footage you can tell this bit because it’s when I shut my eyes and lower my head while Ghost is trying not to cry but you can see the tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes.

  G: It was a great game. I always used to love watching Machete when we played Samoa. He’d smash someone — then apologise as he helped them back to their feet. Then someone would smash him — then apologise as they pulled him to his feet. And so on and so on. To me it reaffirmed my twin beliefs that while human beings are inherently good, sport gives you the chance you need to just really smash someone in order to let off steam in a good way.

  M: And at least we got through the game unscathed. All of us. The whole team. No unfortunate tournament-ending injuries here.

  G: Yes, and we also got through the next game, against Canada, unscathed. And the next game, against France, also unscathed.

  M: And even better, we won those games. And there was some really good goal-kicking along the way, wasn’t there?

  G: Yes, but primarily we won by scoring some excellent tries, backed up with some good defence.

  M: But I thought DP, in particular, was in career-best form, slotting them over from everywhere. Until that day of course, at training, before the last pool game against Uruguay. Until — what was it you said to him, Ghost?

  G: There is such a thing as freedom of choice, right? DP did not have to take the bet. I would have respected him nonetheless if he’d walked away. While he could still walk.

  M: You bet DP a hundred bucks he couldn’t nail a shot from his own 10-metre line. You knew that was right at the edge of his range. And you definitely knew what a competitive bastard he was from that time you bet him he wouldn’t run through that KFC drive-through in his undies and he did and he stopped to get you a ‘6 Pack’.

  G: Look, all I’m saying is that I can live without the finger-pointing and the guilt-tripping. I’m still living with the blood-curdling sound of his scream as all his groin muscles were torn apart as he tried to make the kick. Which, can I just add, he made — and I paid him his hundred bucks when we visited him in hospital after his surgery.

  M: I remember that. He was moved to tears.

  G: Actually, mainly he was crying ’cause he thought his career was over.

  M: So that was our first-choice goal-kicker down, thanks to you.

  G: But while it sent shivers of fear down the national spine, it was okay, because we had Pencil to step into his shoes and Pencil was an awesome kicker.

  M: Please note the use of the past tense ‘was’.

  G: At that time. At that time Pencil was, by far, the best goal-kicking option the team had going and he did a great job in that last pool game against Uruguay. He got, what, 18 conversions that day, right? And then, when he was rotated off with 20 to go, Urkel had a go at kicking — and he was great too — he got, like, four from five conversions, right? And before that no one even knew Urkel could kick goals so, in a way, we were actually stronger without DP — in a lateral thinking sense. We had options now, is what I’m saying.

  M: Until you managed to remove Option #1 (the one who was previously Option #2) from the equation, in the quarter-final.

  G: Again, with the finger-pointing and the guilt-tripping. Pencil, nice enough bloke that he is, is a low-talker and really, on the rugby field, in the heat of battle, there is no place for a softly-spoken man. So when Pencil called that move he obviously wasn’t speaking loud enough, which is why things went ever-so-slightly not according to plan.

  M: You went right when you should have gone left which meant instead of running into the hole you ran into Pencil and ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament in the process, thus removing from the tournament our Option #2. That’s not really ‘ever-so-slightly’ in anyone’s book — not even this book.

  G: But Urkel finished the job off that day. He got one conversion. And you got a couple of tries, which suggests, when you think about it, do we actually need people who can kick goals at all in the game of rugby? I mean, isn’t it just the English who can only advance the game in multiples of three? Also, we brought Skaterboi into the team and as Option #3s go, he was #1. I mean, he — and you with your award-winning try — got us through the semi-final. In fact, it could be argued that the difference that day was that you scored a try, while the English only scored dropped goals. So who really needs kickers?

  M: Well, we did, that day, when Skaterboi kicked the two-point conversion that meant we won by one point.

  G: Which, quite frankly, he could have thrown over.

  M: Except that the laws of rugby union football state that you have to kick the ball over. But you are essentially correct in that my awesome try was the dagger blow to English hearts. Still, it generally is quite a good thing in a rugby team to have someone in the team who can kick the ball over the crossbar, don’t you agree?

  G: Which is exactly why I was the first person to welcome Otter into the team once he arrived after they tracked him down to the Kaipara Harbour where he was floundering. Okay, actually, I happened to be walking through the foyer when he arrived and he gave me a flounder, which is also what he smelt of. But at least we had another kicking option now — after Skaterboi and Urkel — even with his dodgy groin.

  M: The groin that, on the eve of the final, you made worse with the stretch you suggested he do; the one that he apparently did in his room later and which made things so much worse it almost ruled him out of the final.

  G: Again, there is such a thing as free will, so he did not have to do that stretch. Also, I still have my suspicions that he actually inflamed things down there by having a quick one off the wrist the night before the big game, as stress relief.

  M: So, to recap, when we were in the dressing room, listening to Grunter’s motivational speech, ‘You’ve come this far, don’t f**k it up now’, our goal-kicking options were Option #3, Skaterboi, and Option #4, Urkel and his dodgy groin; with Option #5, Otter, on the bench, still with a lingering smell of flounder. Yet by the time we actually got on the pitch, that had changed, hadn’t it, Ghost?

  G: Honestly, to this day, I am amazed that there are not more injuries in the tunnel as you run on. There are slippery surfaces and TV cables everywhere, plus there’s this macho imperative where you’re meant to burst out of the tunnel at a sprint. Whatever happened to the good old days where you just walked onto the bloody pitch?

  M: In all the history of all rugby, anywhere, I think you remain the only player ever to have taken out a player from your own team in the act of getting from th
e dressing room to the playing field.

  G: It was wet, so it was slippery, so when I went to do my sprint thing I slipped and then I bumped into Skaterboi.

  M: And broke his leg in two places.

  G: Have you seen how skinny Skaterboi’s legs are? Sure, they’re fine for things like running and skating and, yes, kicking, but if you hit them at just the right angle — I was very surprised this was actually the first time he’d had his leg snapped like a takeaway chopstick.

  I mean, yes, I was sorry he missed the World Cup final that would have been the crowning glory of his career, more than likely. But he didn’t seem too upset about it afterwards, when we all visited him in the hospital. He was smiling and laughing. Mind you, he was on some serious pain medication.

  M: So, to recap (again), we started the 2013 World Cup final, at Eden Park, in front of 4,000,000 spectators, with Mangrove making his test debut at halfback, and Urkel, the only goal-kicking option (#4) we had on the pitch, playing through the pain and multiple injections of God knows what in his groin (glue, probably), shifting out to first-five to replace Skaterboi as he was taken off to hospital, huffing down as much gas as they would give him.

  G: None of which — okay, maybe some of which — explains why we played like shit. Seriously — and collectively — we saved our worst for last. Isn’t that just the Kiwi way? I mean, you beat a team by 30 points in pool play and then, in the final, suddenly they’re this whole other, much better, team? Why do we do that to ourselves? Maybe I should ask someone from the Black Caps that question.

  M: So, yes, we were playing badly, which did not help matters, but you still weren’t quite finished, were you? After Flipper scored that try where he picked up the loose ball and fell over the line — or, if you believe his autobiography I, Mammal, ran it in from somewhere near halfway . . .

  G: Why do people always exaggerate in their ghost-written autobiographies? You and me, we’re going to tell nothing but the way it was.

  M: Like at Eden Park, when Urkel stepped up to kick the conversion and, probably due to the fact he couldn’t feel his leg because of the injections, managed to hit the corner flag.

  G: But we’d scored a try and we were ahead and that, at that stage, was the important thing.

  M: But then they scored a try, which they converted, which meant they were leading by two, if my Bling’s College maths serves me right. And then we brought on Otter.

  G: There is no way you can blame me for Otter.

  M: Guilt by chain of evidence. Because of a series of ‘accidents’ all caused by you, Otter was brought into the team so late the only number-appropriate available jersey he had to wear for the final was the one they had for Skaterboi and was, like, four sizes too small for him.

  G: Management should have had a wider range of jersey sizes available, is all I would say to that. That and maybe Otter shouldn’t have eaten so many flounders when he was out floundering. And I wasn’t the one who made the joke about him wearing a sports bra when he jogged on.

  M: I regret that now, in the light of what happened, but I was only trying to relax Otter as he made his World Cup debut — in the last 10 minutes of a World Cup final when we’re down by two points. No pressure, Otter.

  G: I thought Otter handled the situation well, to be honest. In the few minutes he was on the field he took the ball to the line and his erratic running style rather confused the French. Of course, we know now that Otter was way more confused than the French, but at the time it was genius. And when he collapsed in that tackle, in the last minute of the game, centrefield, about 30 metres out, it certainly looked like a dangerous high tackle to me. Sure, replays later showed that Otter was effectively out on his feet and kind of, well, fell into the French guy’s arms as a welcome relief, but it was the on-field call that was important — and that call was: penalty!

  M: Which is when thing started to get very strange — even more strange than all the strangeness that had gone before.

  G: So, Otter, once he could stand again, even though he’s barely conscious, swears he can make the kick. Urkel looks him in the eye — is he sure? Otter looks at a point somewhere in space, above Urkel’s head, and says, ‘Yeah, I could make this in my sleep.’ Urkel frowns, but Otter’s the best option we’ve got so he doesn’t have much choice. So it’s a few stirring words from Winston Churchill and then Otter is left to the task of winning us the World Cup.

  M: To Otter’s credit, he managed to get the ball on the kicking tee okay. He even stood over the ball and set his plant foot in the right place. Then he took his customary three paces back. Then he took a couple more. And then a few more. And I’m starting to think this is a hell of a run-up for a kick of just over 30 metres. Richard Hadlee, in his prime, would have been proud of this run-up.

  G: Then Otter took his customary two paces to the left. The crowd was hushed. Then he took two more paces to the left. Then he kept taking paces to the left, in effect circling the ball. The crowd was still hushed, mainly because they were as confused as we were, I think. By the time Otter finished circling the ball, he was lining up a kick at our own goalposts, way down the other end of the field.

  M: It’s lucky that Urkel is a quick thinker, who realised that the too-tight jersey Otter was wearing had cut off the blood supply to Otter’s brain, causing him to become disoriented. As I’m wondering if it is possible to score an own goal off a penalty in rugby, Urkel rushes forward as fast as his shredded groin will carry him, yelling at Otter to stop. Otter is by now standing among the French players who are as confused as we are. Urkel is yelling, ‘Stop, Otter, stop!! Wrong way!!’ Then Otter takes his customary deep breath before he moves in to take the kick and, in doing so, inadvertently saves us from the most ignominious ending to a World Cup final ever.

  G: Because when Otter takes his deep breath, the too-tight shirt means there is no breath to take and cerebral hypoxia kicks in and Otter keels over backward, out like a light.

  M: In the pause that follows, as the medics rush on and cut Otter out of his shirt so he can breathe again, Urkel gets us into a circle. Only this time, instead of one of his trademark inspirational poems or haikus, there is simply one question to be asked: ‘Who is going to take the kick?’

  G: Silence. Urkel says he would take the kick except he’s pretty sure the last of his groin muscles has just given in, so that’s him out. Gunner, because he’s Gunner, is the first to volunteer. Urkel points out Gunner is a loose forward who is playing with two fractured shinbones and the most likely thing that will happen is that his leg will snap on contact and the ball will dribble about two metres along the ground. Gunner is man enough to admit that it does feel like there’s not a lot of bone holding his leg together right now. Then there is silence, as we look at each other; as Otter, who thinks he’s going out floundering, is driven off Eden Park in the medic’s cart.

  M: And it was then when my mate, my best friend, The Ghost, sticks up his hand. Despite the fact, to my knowledge, he has never kicked a goal in a game of rugby in his life.

  G: I felt Destiny tap me on the shoulder and say, ‘Now, bro’. Your time is now.’ Mind you, I think Guilt had talked Destiny into tapping me on the shoulder because of how it was sort of my fault that we had no one else left who could kick a rugby ball over a crossbar.

  M: It was totally about him feeling guilty because he was the one who crocked all the others, but when it came to kicking the winning points in a World Cup final, who was to argue with his need for redemption? Certainly not me, especially after I heard a voice from the Upstart Press corporate box: ‘You take the kick, Leilei! You can make it!’ It is one thing to let down a team of 4,000,000; it is another thing to let down your mum.

  G: Silence. Then Urkel nodded at me. Then he said a few words, which I think were from the Kama Sutra, before I walked towards the tee and the ball, the tools of my destiny.

  M: Silence. Apart from the fulltime
hooter, of course. I will confess I was looking for the fastest route to the exit, especially after Ghost decided to go no kicking tee and to dig a hole in the hallowed Eden Park turf with his heel, old-school style.

  G: In my mind I was in our backyard, in Mairangi Bay, all those years ago, and all I had to do was what I had done back then — to kick the ball over the crossbar of the soccer goal, into the Jonkers’ backyard. Weirdly, in the crowd where I decided to aim, I looked straight into the eyes of my father and his new, younger girlfriend. So I looked higher into the crowd — and, weirdly, there were the Jonkers. It was like my whole freakish life had led to this point.

  M: It took an eternity, but eventually Ghost moved in to kick the goal that would define his life beyond this point.

  G: I want to say I hit it well, but I really didn’t. It kind of — wafted — towards the upright. Then it kind of — kissed — the upright. Then it — floated — towards the other upright. But it didn’t even have enough energy to reach that upright, so gravity took hold and it fell towards the crossbar. Then it landed on the crossbar. Then it bounced. Then it seemed to pause in mid-air as it made up its mind what side of the crossbar it would fall.

  M: And that is how my best friend, The Ghost, won the 2013 World Cup for his team of 4,000,000.

  The Bigot

  GHOST: I’ve learnt, over the course of lots and lots of games of rugby, that it is a team game. Yes, this is blindingly obvious, but sometimes you can become blinded to the blindingly obvious. Because sometimes rugby can become a very personal game, where you put your needs as a player — or, in this case, as a human being — ahead of the needs of the team. Almost always this is a bad thing and will lead to more bad things. But in this case, however, it was nothing but good, all the way.