Jesbass takes an early chip and chase for the Warriors, putting the opposition on the back foot...
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Moniker Mockery (750 words between the stars and including title)
I created a nom de plume for myself the other week. It was because my workplace wanted me to write an article about, well, myself. And quite frankly, it would have been odd for anyone to read a piece of literature wherein the author talks about himself in the third person. Nonetheless, it got Jesbass thinking...
"What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet." – William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene II
Ahh, good old Bill Shakespeare. I wonder what he’d be doing if he was still around.
For starters, I’m sure a man of his immense intellect would be a rugby league fan. That, quite simply, is an indisputable fact.
But rather than making botanical deliberations, perhaps he’d be writing league articles under the protection of pseudonymity. If he was to take his ‘rose theory’ further, would it work with the names of the teams we see facing off every weekend and through decades gone by?
Would it still be easy to refer to the National Rugby League as “the toughest competition in the world” if it featured a match between the New Zealand Worriers and the Cronulla Shirkers?
Could he uphold the masculine image portrayed through our marketing campaigns with teams like the Wests Tiggers and the Penrith Panters?
What if he were to take a distinctly softer approach? The Newcastle Nighties challenging the South Queensland Love-Crushes might raise a few eyebrows, although it may have the opposite effect on crowd numbers.
League teams generally adopt a fearsome name which - much like the painting of a shark's jaw on a warplane - has minimal benefit to those who bear it, outside of the all important aspect of perception.
To every rule, there must be an exception, and the Kiwis are very clearly it. Because nothing strikes fear into the opposition than the thought of a pack of flightless, nocturnal, grub-eating birds...right?
Of course, with just the smallest amount of anagrammatic wordplay, the New Zealand national side's name could be reinvented. The Kangaroos wouldn't enjoy facing thirteen Wikis at once, I'm sure.
Unfortunately for Shakespeare, though, there's more to this than merely a word. Despite the English playwright's assertions through his character Juliet, names carry with them a sense of history and tradition - especially when it comes to sport.
Take, for example, the South Sydney Rabbitohs. One of only two Australian foundation clubs to still exist at the top level in its original capacity, Souths won the inaugural Sydney competition in 1908. And their name, while open to speculation, possibly comes from the fundraising efforts of some of the club's earliest players.
The story goes that they would skin and then sell rabbits to the public, before taking to the field in their rabbit-blood stained jerseys.
Whether that is entirely accurate or not, it highlights the working class origins that the club was founded upon, and to lose the Rabbitohs moniker would result in an intangible loss of heritage.
I may be short in the rugby league tooth, but I'm inclined to think that something special has irretrievably left us since the Newtown Bluebags became the Newtown Jets, or when the Dragon Slayers of St George became the prey. There's a level of authenticity that accompanies a name like the Canterbury-Bankstown Berries.
To look to the future, one must learn from the past.
Unfortunately, it's too late to change these team names back to their originals. The North Sydney Bears, battling for re-entry to the NRL, will never again be called the Shoremen. And the Kiwis won't return to sharing the All Blacks name with their rugby union counterparts - a practice that existed until the NZRU threatened legal action in the mid-1920s.
It would simply become too confusing, and there would be an unnecessary shift away from more recent traditions. It would, in essence, be akin to starting over from scratch.
So although Irish international Wayne Kerr probably wouldn’t mind a name change, and while Warriors winger Manu Vatuvei might be irked by the knowledge that he shares his first name with the girl doll from Playskool, the introduction of team names like, (as ridiculously unrealistic examples), the Sydney City Rorters, the Newtown Handbags and the North Sydney B(ig)ears would cause an even further loss of tradition – and turn our code into a laughing stock in the process.
This means that Shakespeare was wrong. As a writer, am I even allowed to say that?
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Sources:
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/stories/s324987.htm
http://www.rl1908.com/clubcomps/origins.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sydney_Rabbitohs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwis_(rugby)#The_Kiwis
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