From the “All Blacks” dressed entirely in black to, according to legend, mourn their opponents, to the Chilean “Condores” who dream of flying away for their first participation: a brief overview of the nicknames and emblems of the 20 participants at the Mondial-2023.
Give honour where honour is due. Let’s start with the inventors of rugby, the British, friends of botany.
The English, rulers in their kingdom, wear the Rose, red, creation of King Henry VII who represented his family. Scotland, with which they quarreled for centuries, had found a natural means of defense on the battlefield, the Thistle, a thorny plant capable of deterring attackers when night came, which it adopted.
In the west, David, patron saint of Wales, is said to have ordered his soldiers to wear a leek on their helmet to distinguish them from the enemy in the heat of battle.
Their Irish cousins had only to bend down to pick the three-leaf clover, which abounds on their lands and illustrates the Holy Trinity, according to Saint Patrick.
On the other side of the world, New Zealanders in black jerseys, a color which represents – not mourning – but life and fertility in Maori culture, wear the silver fern, whose pulp is used for medicinal purposes. .
brave flowers
In the land of Dracula, the Oak is a sacred tree that symbolizes the strength and pride of all Romanians.
In Japan, we devote a real cult to the cherry blossom (“Cherry Blossom” in English, “sakura” in Japanese) to the ephemeral beauty, which was until 2003 the nickname of the Japanese XV. Since then, we have swapped “Cherry” for “Brave”, more suited to the values of rugby.
Namibia cherishes its welwitschia, a typical plant whose leaves can reach 4 meters in length, found in the coastal deserts of the Namib. It owes its name to the Austrian doctor Friedrich Welwitsch who identified it in 1860.
Finally, the palm tree symbolizes Fiji. Its wood is used to build posts on local rugby fields and its fruit often serves as a makeshift ball for the less well-off inhabitants of the archipelago.
Animals are also popular in rugby
In South America, Uruguay has its “Teros”, sorts of partridges which are reputed to fight with their congeners. Further west, the Condor, with its large wings, reigns over the Andean countries, including Chile, which has chosen it as a nickname for its selection.
The Tonga players, nicknamed “Ikale Tahi”, display an Eagle of the Sea on their crest and jersey. To put an end to feathers, the Blues proudly wear the rooster on their chest, a heritage from ancient Rome.
“Lelo” means essay in Georgian
As airy as the rooster, the Wallaby, a kind of small kangaroo, adorns Australia’s jersey, while South Africa shares its own between the springbok – a jumping antelope – which was the national emblem during apartheid, and the protea, a flower dear to the rainbow nation.
Portugal has chosen for its part the Iberian wolf (“Os Lobos”), wild and free, found in the north of the country, with a mythological and supernatural dimension according to legends.
As for the Argentinians, they call themselves “Los Pumas” although the animal represented on their coat of arms is… a jaguar.
There remain three unclassifiable nations: Italy (the Azzurri) which plays in blue, the official color of the royal family from the House of Savoy, the Georgian “Lelos” who take this nickname from an ancestral ball sport – lelo wants say test in Tbilisi – and finally the “Manu Samoa”, name given in honor of an ancient Samoan warrior from whom they descend.
