Tom English: ‘A psychic farm animal called Richie McCow predicts the outcome of games’

With every passing day in New Zealand we get reminders of how much of the nation’s heart and soul is invested in the All Blacks and their pursuit of this World Cup. It’s not the fact that everything, but everything, has got Silver Fern branding on it, or the fact that the newspapers and television stations bring hourly updates of the latest outbreak of obsession, like the farmer in Northland who has a psychic animal called Richie McCow who has successfully predicted the outcome of a succession of New Zealand games by drinking from an All Black milk bottle as opposed to one decorated in the colours of their opponents. Sorry to say, that McCow went for the French in yesterday’s encounter in Eden Park, a blunder that has cost him his credibility and, most probably, his life. Richie has mooed his last, I fear.

There’s a religious bent to some of this idolatry. We’ve been living through McCaw Fever since we got here, the countdown to the icon’s 100th cap reaching epic proportions on Friday with a story of the artist who has an exhibition in a Queenstown gallery on the South Island. “It’s A Game Played In Heaven” is a collection of – er, how can we put this without causing offence – unique paintings of New Zealand rugby greats. The main one has McCaw depicted as Our Lord, surrounded by worshippers and buck-naked apart from the All Blacks jersey that appears to be levitating over his unmentionables. One of his flock looks like he’s trying to sneak a peek at McCaw’s tackle while another is in contemplative mood as he gazes at the holy groin. The fella responsible for this work is Thomas Brown. “It’s sort of like taking the seriousness out of fine art and putting it in a sort of curve ball,” he said. It wouldn’t be the description I’d use, but each to his own.

The All Blacks as immaculate beings is a recurring theme. The other morning, the main image on the front page of the Dominion Post in Wellington was a painting of a bloke in a New Zealand jersey with a halo above his head, the accompanying headline reading: “Jesus Is An All Black”. Beside it, there was a photograph of the Very Reverend Frank Nelson, dean of the Wellington cathedral where this vision could be viewed. “We often call New Zealanders God’s own,” said the good Reverend, “so it would be completely logical that if Jesus did come back he would be an All Black.”

The man was joking, I hope. Sometimes it’s hard to tell in New Zealand.

The Reverend didn’t just stop there, though. No, his thesis not only involved Christ coming down from the cross and going straight into a celestial version of the Haka, it also pin-pointed precisely which position he would play once he got here. Hooker, perhaps, as some kind of nod to Mary Magdalene? Or on the wing, like an angel? “He’d have to be a scrum-half,” said Reverend Nelson, who seemed to have a disturbing grasp of who exactly is going to be featuring in this Biblical version of the Blacks. Barabbas and Herod as the props of the dark arts, probably. Lazarus calling the lineouts. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as the go-to men in the backline.

This painting has been viewed by many people, a member of the public called Chris Howell giving it the thumbs-up on the basis that it was far more tasteful than another painting that did the rounds of late – The Virgin Mary In A Condom. That one was a bit rude, said Chris. Now the Virgin Mary in a Rugby Ball would have been an entirely different story. The frightening thing is that the day after the “Jesus Is An All Black” story appeared in the paper somebody went to Reverend Nelson’s cathedral and bunged him NZ$3,000 for the painting. Jesus drove the money-changers out of the Temple once upon a time, but now that he’s been recast as an All Black and is fully dialled into the rampant and shameless commercialism of the All Black brand there doesn’t appear to be a problem with a bit of commerce in God’s house. Amen.

New Zealand’s obsession with winning the World Cup is fascinating but it is also a little scary at times.

A few years back, I became engrossed in the story of the 1950 football World Cup, held in Brazil, and in terms of a national hunger for success, Brazil 1950 and New Zealand 2011 are not a million miles apart. Brazil had never won the Jules Rimet by that point. And they yearned for it. Yearned for it with a passion that overpowered the team, who got beaten in the decisive game in front of their own people and went down in history as a result. The Brazil goalkeeper, Moacyr Barbosa, made a blunder and the cup was lost. Barbosa is one of sport’s most tragic characters. He lived out the rest of his life in Brazil as the unforgiven villain of the Maracana. “The maximum punishment in Brazil is 30 years imprisonment,” he said before his death in 2000, “but for 50 years I have been paying for something I am not even responsible for.”

Nothing as sad will befall the Kiwis should they fail, but the disappointment would be profound and lasting none the less. I hope they win this thing, I really do. They play a wondrous type of rugby. The manner in which they saw-off the French yesterday was beautiful. Never mind the muck in the Northland gallery and the Wellington cathedral, what we saw in Eden Park was the kind of proper sporting art that you could never tire of looking at.

I have two wishes. Firstly, that New Zealand win the World Cup. Secondly, that they win in their current style, with the kind of flair that would make them the greatest World Cup team of all. I have one last wish, actually. If they do lift the cup can government legislation be passed that bans the use of paint-brushes in the celebration of the victory? Let’s keep the art on the field and not on the canvas, eh?