Download or read book Tackling Rugby Myths written by Greg Ryan and published by Otago University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The All Blacks failure to win the 2003 Rugby World Cup led many devotees of the New Zealand game to question old certainties and the current direction of the national game. Central to these debates has been a sense that the continuity and invincibility of New Zealand rugby has been somehow eroded, mirroring similar changes within society as a whole. Rugby and New Zealand identity have been bundled together for over a century, with both nation and game endowed with qualities of egalitarianism, innovation and rural pragmatism that have been useful on the world stage. The book tackles some of the myths surrounding this image of the game, disentangling assumptions from historical fact and coming up with some interesting angles on rugbys past.