CHRIS HEWETT
GUEST COLUMNIST

Rugby is just a game, as the saying goes, but that doesn’t mean it is bereft of history as an agent of political change.
Nelson Mandela, no great lover of the oval ball or the Springbok jersey during his long decades in the heat of the anti-apartheid battle, recognised the importance of harnessing the power of both as he strove to unite a volatile South Africa in the mid-1990s. In the different vein, it is widely acknowledged that New Zealand governments are more vastly popular when the All Blacks are going well. To which we can only say: farewell Jacinda Arde...