I'll second that. As soon as I arrived in NZ, I took crap from
rugby people for being a football person. The homophobic taunts
endured as a football fan are ridiculous. When they tired of that,
they moved on to painting all football fans as hooligans. It was
quite a culture shock coming from England, where rugby is a
merely an upper class twits game. I think they're just defensive
because the know they are in a tiny minority.
I have been to one rugby match since being here. My then
wife-to-be took me to a Super 12 semifinal between Otago and
Canterbury. Not only was there NO atmosphere at the match, but
there was hooliganism (taxi overturned, fighting, shop windows
smashed)... so much for football hooligans! Can't see me ever going
back to a rugby match. It was incredibly dull and boring. You
couldn't see the ball half the time because it was under a pile of
players and there all these scrums that had to be restarted several
times as the ref kept blowing his whistle before eventually giving
up and awarding a free kick. Rugby.... you can score fewer goals
(tries) and still win.... be like winning football on
corners.
I'm happy to have rugby getting in to football (welcome to the
world by the way) - it will stop them peddling petty jibes.