Sorry, I never got around to my real question: (to Doc probably) Why does the other team just stand there and watch, do they have to, and what about the throat sliting? Is it still cool to do that in sports outside of the United States?
Actually there was a shitstorm a couple of years ago becuase our team was kind of shurgging it off and ignoring them while they were doing it which was considered bad form and disrespectful.
They always do the tongue thing at the end, at least as far as I know, but generally the actual throat slitting during a game is minimal.
I think one reason the Maori culture remained so strong is that they were actually a fairly decent agricultural society when the Europeans arrived (as opposed to a nomadic society like the Aborigines), also they got a treaty signed which as far as I am aware is upheld to this day, though I don't know what it specifies.
And yeah whoever came up with the waltzing matilda thing was piss weak.
Edit: And
here is a bit on the treaty, though it didn't work as smoothly as it could of it is still pretty good by most european colonisation standards.