Vornland: Against Rugby

Showing posts with label Against Rugby. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Against Rugby: Special Chiefs Edition

1) If you like rugby, that’s fine. But this is not for you. There are people in New Zealand, believe it or not, who dislike rugby. And they are made to feel alone, and wrong. This one tiny segment of this one mostly-unread blog is intended to let these people know that they are not alone; and to offer reasons why they might not be wrong. That is okay, whether you think it’s okay or not.

2) If you like rugby, that’s fine. But this is not for you. You can look outside, or inside, anywhere - at any billboard, television, or website, and see your passion confirmed. People who dislike rugby in New Zealand have far fewer places to turn to see a point of view they recognise. This is one of those very few places, and that is okay, whether you think it’s okay or not.

3) If you like rugby, that’s fine. But this is not for you. I am perfectly aware that I’ll never convince anyone who likes rugby not to like rugby. You should be aware that you will never convince me to like it. That is okay, whether you think it’s okay or not.

4) If you like rugby, that’s fine. But this is not for you, and your comments are not sought. If you comment in favour of rugby, I’m going to delete it. It’s my blog, and deleting comments is okay, whether you think it’s okay or not.

Okay?

Here’s

Against Rugby: Special Chiefs Edition

Before I get started, a disclaimer: sexism is a real thing, that happens everywhere, and not just in Rugby. Sexual assault is a real problem, and its survivors are treated badly everywhere, and not just in Rugby circles. These problems didn’t start with Rugby and if Rugby ends tomorrow they won’t go away. I like to be puerile as much as the next manchild, but it would be beyond even my capacity for hyperbole to suggest that Rugby causes all of society’s evils.

It’s interesting to watch how Rugby interacts with society’s evils though.

As the closest thing this country has to a state religion, Rugby and its revered practitioners are in a unique position to influence public opinion. But a flick back through Rugby’s past flirtations with racism, violence, homophobia, and sexual assault finds the game standing firmly on the wrong side of history, every time.

Which is why the “Come on guys, we’re better than this” tone of much of the mainstream media response to the Chiefs’ sexual assault scandal rings so hollow. Rugby is not better than this. Rugby is this. Rugby is where boys will be boys, and gay people will be abused, and women will be assaulted. And if you don’t like it, that is because you and your PC mates are destroying Our Country, where whacking your kids and then leaving them in your car while you get pissed with The Boys is the only way to stop us turning into a society of “Male Mothers”. (Click the link. It’s actually what he says.)

In previous articles linking Rugby with violence and rule-breaking I’ve tried to show lots of examples of violence and rulebreaking. Right now I want to try something else:

Think about this story. Think about the first time you heard of it. Whatever your reaction was - whether or not you immediately picked a side, and whichever that side was, I’m willing to bet you believed it. I mean details aside, I bet you believed that a stripper was hired, and objected to her treatment, and a gay couple was yelled at - whether you think these things are admirable or execrable or simply no big deal, you wouldn’t assume they were just plain made up. Because on a very basic level we all know - all of us who grew up here at least - that This Is What They Are Like, the ruggers. We all walked the school hall in fear of their approach, or sided with them so as not to fear. We all went to that party where the ruggers turned up and one of them laid a turd in the bowl of chips.* We all worked that hospitality job where The Boys descending on your bar/hotel/restaurant was the occasion for the spilling of blood and beer and piss and puke and the boss said to grin and bear it because it’s The Boys, and Boys Will Be Boys.

This one time at teacher training, all of us trainee teachers were ushered into the presence of the principal at a distinguished Rugby school. We were allowed one question. One of my cohort used his one question to ask, “Where are the first fifteen?” Meaning “Why are they never required to attend class? Or, seemingly, school for that matter?” Everyone knew what he meant, even those of us who only been at the school for 6 weeks. The principal claimed not to know what he meant.

We grew up with these people, and we know what they are like, and yet when they are swept straight from their protective bubble in the school system into a literal Old Boys’ Network designed to profit from their bodies while preventing their experiencing any real consequences for any of their actions, we cry foul when they misbehave. Which is stupid because they have never been offered an incentive to behave. We say “Come on guys, you’re better than this”, which is stupid because we know them, and we know they aren’t. We say they should behave well because they are role models, which is stupid because it’s not their fault if we look up to them, we are adults who can make our own choices. They’ve never been in that position. They’ve always been The Boys.

The fallout from this let’s-face-it-absolutely-typical post-match celebration showed how times have changed, and how they haven’t.

Times have changed because there is now a great deal more money in Rugby, which enables franchises to hire communications professionals to write plausible-sounding apologies like this: "We accept that as professional players and professional sports teams we have a level of responsibility that is higher than normal members of the public. The key to us now is that we deal with it appropriately."

Times haven’t changed that much though, because New Zealand’s generations-long habit of constantly behaving as though Rugby players are somehow better than us has weirdly given them the idea that they are better than us. We can see it writ small in Rob Nichol’s reference above to ‘normal members of the public’** but to be fair to him, he is trying to do a brand new thing in the world of Rugby, which is to own up to a pattern of behaviour and at least pretend to try and change it. Chief’s boss Andrew Flexman provided us with Rugby’s real reaction to criticism:

Flexman said that the stripper's claims were "one person's accusation and her standing in the community and culpability is not beyond reproach". In the name of what journalists now call balance, I will admit that he walked that statement back after large numbers of people informed him exactly how shitty such a statement is. But I will not accept his weak appeals to ‘context’. If I say “I hate ruggers who sexually assault people” and Flexman chooses to quote me as saying “I hate ruggers”, that statement has been taken out of context.*** If I say “I hate ruggers” as a joke,**** and Flexman chooses to quote me as serious, that statement has been taken out of context. If I say “Many strippers say ‘I hate ruggers’” and Flexman chooses to quote me as saying “I hate ruggers”, that statement has been taken out of context.***** This is not that.

This is a man who holds a number of beliefs, revealing those beliefs under pressure. Let’s look at them.

1) What you do is who you are. If you work as a stripper, you are a stripper. That’s who you are.

2) What you do speaks to your status. Some jobs make you better than ‘normal members of the public’. Some make you worse.

3) If you accuse someone of a crime, the worth of that accusation depends on your worth.

4) If you wish to be treated with dignity, you must be worthy of dignity. This depends on who you are.

I’ve got some pretty hefty problems with all of those assumptions. But I believe that if you’re going to judge people by a set of standards, you should be prepared to be judged by those standards yourself. So let’s judge Rugby by the ethic of Andrew Flexman.

Rugby Players do Rugby, so that’s who they are. They are Rugby Players.

Being a Rugby Player affords you a certain status. We, as a society, can decide whether the status of Rugby Players should be higher or lower than that of a stripper.

So what should the status of a Rugby Player be? By their acts we shall know them.

Rugby Players are the inheritors of a long tradition among humans and other mammals, in which members of a group dance or sing or perform feats of strength or dexterity to prove their fitness as a potential mate. As societies become more complex, these sexual displays are codified into sports and symphonies and dances, all of which can be performed at home for fun, but have also developed into professions. A Rugby Player, thus, is a person blessed by nature or hard training or both, with certain physical characteristics enabling them to perform feats of physical prowess in front of crowds of mostly men, causing said men to enter a frenzy. They do this for money. Some of them by choice, and some because they have no opportunity to earn a similar amount in any other profession. Those of you who have seen where I’m heading with this will argue that there’s a big difference between throwing a ball around for money and taking your clothes off for money. Jockey corporation (and its employees, The Boys) beg to differ.

So by any objective measure, the ’standing in the community’ of a Rugby Player is the same as that of any other stripper. Both show off their bodies for cash. It’s beyond the scope of this essay to decide whether the Porn of Violence is worse than the Porn of Sex, or whether being photographed in your undies is worse than dancing in your undies, or whether any of them has any place in any community. They’re here. They’re weird. But we’re used to them. Flexman also mentions ‘culpability’; if this means anything at all, it seems to mean that if you signed up to do a job, every evil that comes with it is your fault. I sincerely hope that he is willing to live by that sword.

So who should have higher status in the community? Well, let us decide by thought experiment. You have thrown a party. It is about to be crashed by 25 uninvited guests. Which statement fills you with more fear?

a) “Here come The Rugby Players!”

b) “Here come The Strippers!”

Yeah, I know, that’s stupid. The Strippers might be arseholes. The Rugby Players might be nice. Because people are not their jobs. People are a complex mix of their words, and their actions, and their choices, and the effect these things have on those around them.

I myself could never live by a code as stringent as the Flexman Ethic. I have grave reservations about Rugby, and the effect it has on its practitioners, and its viewers, physically and mentally. There are those who would say the same about stripping. But I don’t get to make choices for other people, and neither does Andrew. People must do right by their own lights, even if some blogger/rugger disapproves. I believe that there are ways to do unpleasant jobs with dignity. Ways to treat people who do unpleasant jobs with dignity. For all the pent-up bile I put into these posts, I don’t actually believe that a Rugger is a lesser person than I, just because he does a thing that I viscerally despise. People are going to do their thing, and if we don’t like it we can at least take that most Kiwi of attitudes and Let Them Get On With It. On good days I believe most of us feel this way.

But I know by their actions that the Chiefs don’t feel this way. And I know by their words that the Flexmen don’t feel this way. So maybe as a community we could do this one thing. We can stop looking up to them. Their standing in the community, and their culpability, are not beyond reproach. If they wish to be treated with dignity, they must first be worthy of dignity.

But that depends on who they are.

*Yep, true story, though not from my own experience - relayed to me by an eyewitness who is Male and works in IT, so I guess deserves Respect and Belief, even if a stripper doesn’t...

**Which makes ruggers abnormal members of the public, one supposes?

***Though in this case it’s still true…

****No joke. I hate them. All of them, except Tana and Anton Oliver.

*****Although, again. I fucking hate them. Imaginary Flexman actually kind of has a point.

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Against Rugby 4: A Fine Disregard

Okay?

Here’s

Against Rugby 4: A Fine Disregard

Rugby began when a rich boy cheated at football, and cheating has been woven into the game’s fabric ever since.

It is one hundred and twenty years since the plaque was erected at Rugby School reading:

This stone commemorates the exploit of William Webb Ellis

Who with a fine disregard for the rules of football

As played in his time

First took the ball in his arms and ran with it

Thus originating the distinctive feature of

The Rugby Game

AD 1823

and even this tale of inspired cheating is itself kind of a cheat. We are meant to assume that the Rugby boys were playing soccer when some bright spark thought of running with the ball in hand instead of just kicking it.

But of course in 1823 soccer was still forty years from being codified - the modern game dates from the formation of the Football Association in 1863, and the FA was a response to the bewildering array of different rule-sets, all of which featured ball-handling to some extent. Dozens of games such as medieval Mob Football and Cornish Hurling explicitly included ball handling and throwing, and pre-dated Ellis by some centuries. Not to mention that the sole historical source for the Webb Ellis story left Rugby School three years before the alleged incident, and claims to have heard it from someone. Whom he doesn’t name.

How then can we say that Webb Ellis invented the game? Well, we use careful wording (‘as played in his time’, ‘distinctive feature’) and we stick to a rigidly pedantic interpretation of terms such as ‘first’, ‘originating’, and ‘football’, and then we can claim that strictly speaking the story on the plaque is not entirely a lie, even if it could hardly be called honest.

A principle which applies equally to the rules of the game in our time.

A case study:

In 1991 the last Apartheid laws were repealed in South Africa, which obviously isn’t important, but what is important is that in 1992 South Africa re-entered World Rugby. They had been isolated from international competition for a generation (with the odd shameful exception) and some of their interpretations of the rules had come to differ from those of the rest of the Rugby World. In particular, South African referees had taken to turning a blind eye to lifting in the line-out. This had led to a technique of deliberate, tactical lifting which meant jumping players were able to seize a sky-high ball with two hands and pass it with far greater speed and accuracy than unlifted players using one-handed ‘deflection’ techniques which were actually legal.

International scandals abounded. Arguably (at least the guy who posted this video seems to argue) the tactic cost the South African team the victory in their first official test against the All Blacks in 1992. This article* provides a fair summation of the Rugby World’s thinking at the time: on the one hand, obviously it’s cheating. But on the other hand, lineouts in the rest of the Rugby World are a shambles, the quality of ball delivered is higher, and pressure would be taken off referees - “…there is a fine line between legality and illegality”, the author notes. Is there really? What could that statement mean?

To find the fine line between legality and illegality, it’s worth reflecting on how quickly thoughts turned to changing the rules - the article above was written in September 1992, a month after the matches it describes. Why change the rules just because one team is cheating? Well, for one thing, as the article notes, the South Africans didn’t have a monopoly on lineout cheating: “Naturally, the New Zealanders took a dim view of their opponents getting away with illegalities -- as if the All Blacks, for years, have not compressed lineouts illegally to leave their own jumper virtually unmolested. What niggled them most was that the South African specialists had so perfected the art of lifting as to bring benefit to their own teams and, even more important, to providing a quick restart to playing action”.

And for another, pre-legalised-lifting lineouts were chaotic precisely because of all the cheating that was going on, from compressing the form of the line à la the All Blacks, to using opposing players as levers, tackling receivers while they were in the air, taking out players without the ball - this charming exchange on a referees forum (!) lists ‘thumping’ opponents, driving into their kidneys, and flying elbows among typical lineout activities in the pre-lifting era. The point of the ‘fine line’ quote was this: “if support forwards are engaged in giving their jumpers more height they are not getting up to something much more against the spirit.” Which is to say, yes it’s cheating, but at least it’s nice tidy effective cheating.

But there was another argument for legalising lifting - it would be easier on the referees. Rugby stands in stark contrast to Actual Sports like Tennis or Sprinting or Diving or Weightlifting, because those Actual Sports can only be successfully conducted if the rules are enforced the same way in every instance for every competitor.

Rugby on the other hand, literally can not be played if all the rules are enforced. Don’t take my word for it, ask an official Rugby Guru: "It was an amazing refereeing spectacle on Saturday night, as Allain Rolland enforced the letter of the law and allowed zero rugby to be played." This is not an isolated view. It is an established tenet of Rugby Orthodoxy that enforcing the rules too much prevents the game from developing a kind of ‘flow’, a certain je ne sais quoi which leads to ‘Real Rugby’ being played.

This view is presented as common sense. Rugby spectators pay, it is said, to see some men run around throwing a ball, and if the referee stops them running around throwing the ball every 30 seconds just because they broke some pettifogging rule, then everybody loses, and it’s the referee’s fault. It’s just common sense.

Let’s apply this sort of common sense to an actual sport. Imagine a South African tennis player who re-enters World Tennis in 1992 and has taken to serving from right next to the net. This innovation leads to a much cleaner game, as she can simply smash the ball into the ground a centimetre from the sideline, efficiently dispatching opponents with straight aces without all that messy competition. Of course her opponents complain but this is merely sour grapes. Think-pieces are soon written in respectable papers about how the rules should be adjusted to reflect the changing nature of the game. With service now the only phase of the game, Tennis becomes a race to secure the serve, until after a couple of seasons common sense prevails and the entire sport is replaced by competitive coin-tossing.

You’re right, I am being silly. Because what would actually happen is that this player would be penalised for breaking the rules, every time she broke the rules, until she either ceased to break the rules or forfeited the game. But - and this is my point - no one would blame the referee for ruining the game. Actual common sense** dictates that if a player chooses to constantly cheat, and the game is rendered boring by constant referee intervention, the player is the one at fault. They, after all, have a choice, to cheat or not to cheat. A referee in an Actual Sport has no choice but to apply all the rules, consistently, for all players.

I’ve tried this line of reasoning out on rugby-defending friends and it is at this point that the howls of protest start. Rugby is not tennis, they cry. There are thirty players, a much larger field of play, a greater set of rules, many of which admit of varying interpretations; a referee’s role is not to mechanically enforce a rule-set but to manage, on the fly, the way in which a variety of interlocking rule-sets are interpreted, clamping down on egregious transgressions while turning a benevolently blind eye to the odd infraction to keep the ball so-to-speak rolling.

Which is a nice way of saying that cheating is woven into the fabric of the game.

In 1995, South Africa won the Rugby World Cup. In 1996 the rules were changed to specifically allow ‘supporting’ of other players in the lineout. From then on, lifting was openly practiced by all teams, and in 1999 the rules were changed to reflect what was already happening.

Standard practice: as Rugby for Dummies notes, “Over the years, many laws have been changed to promote specific strategic objectives, to rein in wayward practitioners of dubious techniques, and to correct imbalances in the way offense and defense interact”. Because cheating is woven into the fabric of the game, wayward practitioners will always use dubious techniques to push the boundaries of the rules. And because referees are only interpreters of the rules, bound by dubious common sense to apply only the ones which don’t stop the game being played, the lawmakers are periodically forced to change the rules to reflect the current state of the cheating art.

But who are these wayward practitioners, with their dubious techniques? Well, let’s start with the poster boy.

Another Case Study:

Richie McCaw has been considered the best flanker in the world for much of his career, and the basis of this reputation has always been his ability to “push the rules to the limits”. Which in simple terms means that he has mastered the art of cheating and getting away with it. How has this not been pointed out? Oh it has. Over and over.

For in-depth, detailed descriptions (with pictures) of how McCaw has used vague rules and the roiling physical ambiguity of the period of play aptly known as 'the breakdown' to repeatedly cheat under the noses of referees, all you have to do is read anything written about Rugby outside of New Zealand. In fact even New Zealanders are capable of seeing McCaw’s cheating, provided he is playing for a local team rather than the All Blacks, a phenomenon satirised in this awesome article, which I hereby name New Zealand’s Best Ever Piece of Rugby Journalism.

His public denials of it are not even denials - from an article linked above: ‘Though stopping short of admitting that he steps over the legal line to find out where the referee has drawn it, McCaw said that reading a whistleblower was a skill he possesses. "I have to work out what I think is right and what he thinks is right might be different and you have to figure it out pretty quick," he said. "I always think what I am doing is the right thing to do, and if he penalises me you think, 'Jesus, I am not going to get away with that today with this ref'. "So you have to change things a bit, and each of them is a little bit different. The knack is being able to do that."”’

At the risk of being repetitive, I’ll point out here that this is what happens when cheating is baked into the game - rules become something that are negotiated on the fly between cheating players and struggling referees. But maybe I shouldn’t point it out too often. New Zealand coach Steve Hansen finds the continual reminders that McCaw is a cheat boring. And standard practice in Rugby if things are becoming boring is to change the rules. In the article just linked, Hansen opined that a return to rucking would see fewer rules broken by players like McCaw - a reference to a time when people who put their hands where they didn’t belong received a metal-sprigged boot on their fingers as a reminder of what the rules are this week.

Here Hansen joins a long line of Rugby traditionalists who bemoan the way the game used to be played, dating right back to one of the first groups involved in codifying rules for Football - Blackheath FC. Blackheath had their own ruleset, distinct from those of Harrow, Rugby, et al, and at the 1863 meetings which eventually gave rise to the Football Association, F. W. Campbell withdrew from the fledgling FA when he discovered they intended to outlaw shin-kicking and leg-tripping, collectively known as hacking. His argument: to eliminate hacking would "do away with all the courage and pluck from the game, and I will be bound over to bring over a lot of Frenchmen who would beat you with a week's practice”. Blackheath gave their allegiance, for a time, to the Rugby game, which seemed to have a more manly attitude to ruthlessly physically damaging one’s opponents in order to win a game of ball.

So when, in the All Blacks’ first match of the 2015 Rugby World Cup, Richie McCaw deliberately leg-tripped Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe in front of 89,000 outraged fans, he was in fact paying tribute to the original rules of the game. With, let’s say, a fine disregard for the rules of the game as played in his time.

When can we call someone a cheat? In Actual Sports, it’s pretty easy: they break the rules on purpose. In Rugby, where cheating is integral to the game, we can only really accuse someone of cheating if they are caught and punished by the referee. This has been one of the main defences of McCaw’s playing style to date: his self-professed ability to read referees means that he has in fact not been penalised much more often than any other player. But on the 21st of September 2015, Richie McCaw broke an important enough rule, obviously enough, that a referee removed him from the field of play. There is no possible question that he cheated, by any possible definition of cheating. And thus, a cheat being a person who cheats:

Richie McCaw is a cheat.

He may also be cynical, or dumb. He may also look nice on posters, or do a nice haka. His friend might offer him a knighthood, in which case he may be Sir Richie McCaw.

He will remain a cheat.

That’s what makes him a great Rugby player.

After all, Rugby began when a rich boy cheated at football, and cheating has been woven into the game’s fabric ever since.

*It pays to go to the Northern Hemisphere journalists if you want a rational analysis of Southern Hemisphere Rugby.

**A term which here means “What you would think if you were not completely fucking mental”

Saturday, September 12, 2015

Against Rugby 3: Striking Problems

1) If you like rugby, that’s fine. But this is not for you. There are people in New Zealand, believe it or not, who dislike rugby. And they are made to feel alone, and wrong. This one tiny segment of this one mostly-unread blog is intended to let these people know that they are not alone; and to offer reasons why they might not be wrong. That is okay, whether you think it’s okay or not.

2) If you like rugby, that’s fine. But this is not for you. You can look outside, or inside, anywhere - at any billboard, television, or website, and see your passion confirmed. People who dislike rugby in New Zealand have far fewer places to turn to see a point of view they recognise. This is one of those very few places, and that is okay, whether you think it’s okay or not.

3) If you like rugby, that’s fine. But this is not for you. I am perfectly aware that I’ll never convince anyone who likes rugby not to like rugby. You should be aware that you will never convince me to like it. That is okay, whether you think it’s okay or not.

4) If you like rugby, that’s fine. But this is not for you, and your comments are not sought. If you comment in favour of rugby, I’m going to delete it. It’s my blog, and deleting comments is okay, whether you think it’s okay or not.

Okay?

Here’s

Against Rugby 3: Striking Problems

In our last episode we established that Rugby is a form of violence, and we touched on the tendency of this violence to leak from the field. I wrote then that off-the-field violence was too big a subject to cover in that one blog entry, and promised to cover it in a later blog. Then I got distracted for a time.

Then George Moala was discharged without conviction, having beaten a man so well and truly unconscious that he was hospitalised. And for a very short while, the mainstream media entertained the notion that maybe Rugby players who assault humans are treated differently by the courts than humans who assault humans.

Then I got all confused.

I thought I was going to write about how Rugby players like to beat people up, which would have been a simple affair. Five minutes on google will give you upwards of thirty recorded instances of high-profile players assaulting people, and those are just the ones that made the courts and the papers. Besides, anyone who has been to school or a pub in New Zealand is already thoroughly aware that Rugby players like to beat people up.

But it’s worse than that - they seem to get away with it too. Bill Hodge, Law Professor at Auckland in the article linked above:

“I'm thinking that judges should look a bit more critically at that issue ... because it's something the defence counsel will, of course, automatically raise, and it is not available if you are a plumber, you're working on a building site, you're a blue-collared worker, or a shop assistant. It's just a bit concerning that it seems to be setting up a two-tier system of justice, where one class of people get one form of justice, and a different class of people get a different form. Having been a lower court judge myself it does seem that judges should be a little more analytical, critical, or shall I say sceptical, when they get those sorts of submissions."

So maybe I should be writing about how Rugby players seem to be able to beat humans with impunity. But that’s a much harder blog to write. Whenever I raise the subject with Rugby-loving friends, I’m always told to Prove It. If Players are more likely to escape conviction than plumbers, there should be evidence of that in the public record. But of course a Player’s assault charge is far more likely to make the papers than a normal person’s. In the face of a two-tier media, proving a two-tier justice system is a slippery thing.

How could we prove that Rugby players are not punished for assault the way normal people are? Here are some possible methods:

- Compare the number of Rugby players who walk away from assault charges to the number of plumbers or builders or web developers who walk away.

- Find out how many Rugby players there are; find out how many are charged with assault; find out how many of them are discharged without conviction; repeat for a number of different professions.

- Find out how many assault charges were discharged without conviction last year; find out how many of those were Rugby players; compare to other professions.

And so forth. All of this is worth doing, and over the last weeks I have tried to do so; but with limited time and resources it’s proved next to impossible. I’ll definitely publish any numbers anyone would care to provide me, whether they support my personal prejudices or not.

But hang on a fucking second.

Even if sixty plumbers were charged with assault this morning, and their cases never made the papers, there is a reason that a Rugby player’s assault charge might make the papers when a plumber’s assault charge might not.*

Rugby players are Representatives.

It is understood (and, increasingly, contractually established) that a Wellington Rugby player represents the Wellington team, the Wellington region, and more importantly to New Zealanders than these or anything else, the Game Of Rugby Itself. Players sign legal documents agreeing not to bring their cult into disrepute. The best plumber in Wellington may well represent her company, but no one would argue that she represents Wellington, or Plumbing Itself, and she sure as hell did not sign a contract to that effect. If she beats someone up, it’s between her and her victim, and maybe her employer. Plumbing doesn’t have to come into it.

But if a Rugby player beats a person, Rugby must come into it. Because Rugby players are Representatives. Before we enter The Hit List, and before we get distracted by questions of how many discharged convictions can dance on the head of a pin, let’s take a moment to think what it means to be a Representative.

If the All Blacks win a game of Rugby, it is said that We Won. Newspapers say that We Won. Your overbearing workmate says that We Won.

Newspapers do not report that 20 overpaid alcoholic Adidas models did more ball points than the 20 overpaid alcoholic models sponsored by another corporation. Your overbearing workmate does not admit that he played no part in McCaw’s creative interpretation of the recently-changed rules around hands in the play-the-ball area during breakdown. Even though both of these statements would be factually correct.

Even though it is not factually correct to state that three volcanic islands in the South Pacific played a sport. Even though it is not factually correct to state that 4.5 million people drawn from every imaginable ethnicity, age and gender won a game which can only legally be played by fifteen adult men at a time, it is said, incorrectly, that We Won. Everyone agrees that We Won.

That might be fair. We select and pay these people to play on our behalf; they are granted privileges beyond those of ordinary citizens on the understanding that What They Do, We Do. We are called upon to Stand In Black, to Support Our Boys, precisely because everything they do, they do for us. They are Our Representatives. When They Win, We Win.

When they grab a woman half their size from behind and shove their hand down her pants, so do we.**

When they attack their partner, so do we. When they abuse bar staff and throw glasses at them, so do we. When they assault their pregnant wife, so do we. When they get drunk in a boat and start shooting seals in front of a busload of shocked tourists, so do we. When they smash up the women’s toilets at an upmarket bar and then refuse to leave, so do we. When they beat an eleven-year-old boy with a belt, so do we.

I was going to do the rest of the post in this style but I can’t be fucked typing 'So Do We’ twenty five more times.

Twenty five more times.

Twenty

five

times.

These people represent you. When they win, you get to say that you won. You are not permitted to own that victory and disown the kid with the welts on his body so scary that the teacher called the cops.

Let’s take a break from the hit list. Rugby players are not the only people who represent New Zealand. There are a range of other sports folk who are also deemed our representatives. And although our Prime Minister ruled that “our literary heroes may never challenge the glory and respect given to our All Blacks”, writers, artists and musicians are also occasionally permitted to be considered our representatives in their own small way. Elected Representatives could be said to represent us too, at least if you’re really hooked on semantics. Maybe they like assaulting people as much as the next flanker? Let’s see:

Googling ‘NZ Cricket Player assault’ gets you a bunch of stories about Jesse Ryder getting beaten up; and if you look hard enough you’ll find Doug Bracewell involved in some (admittedly disturbing but let’s face it) completely standard boarding-school bullying.

Googling ‘NZ football player assault’ gets you a lot of league players and the odd NFL story from the states***. With a bit of determination I uncovered four stories of soccer-assault in New Zealand - all took place on the field; two were perpetrated by players from countries with a history of football-related violence (Brazil and England); one was an all-in brawl involving a Chinese team in Christchurch who had been racially abused for the whole game****; one featured a player in Manukau whose father had recently died, and who was “pushed into playing by teammates and should have instead been undertaking grievance counselling.”

Googling ‘Netball Player Assault’ gets you this kind of thing, which is a pretty neat lesson in the difference between sports professionals and Rugby players.

Who else represents us? Googling ‘New Zealand Musician assault’ gets you P-Money being a creep (surprise?) and Graham Brazier descending into alcoholic oblivion (surprise?); googling ‘New Zealand Author assault’ yields Eleanor Catton describing TV as an ‘assault on your equanimity’. Googling ‘New Zealand MP assault’ is just weird, and doesn’t give us any info one way or the other (though obviously there’s the one we can’t talk about because we’re not Australian), and Trevor Mallard punching Tau Henare in the jaw, about which I would hazard the opinion that, provided both jaw and fist were shattered, justice was probably served.*****

So to my friends who ask how I can prove that Rugby players are more violent than, say, plumbers, or web developers, I say: forget the plumbers and the web developers. They’re just people who happen to have jobs. If you’re looking for groups who could be said to represent New Zealand, who have a habit of beating the crap out of New Zealanders, the only ones even close to the rugby players are the gangs and the police.

On with the list. Let’s start with the ones who didn’t get away.

Stephen Bachop, who once threw a ball good, was convicted in 2012 for assaulting his partner and a member of the public. Troy Flavell, who was granted a 1.4 million dollar contract to throw a ball in Japan, was fined $5,500 after pleading guilty to causing an estimated $55,000 worth of damage to a 23-year-old’s mouth. Norm Maxwell, one-time ball-thrower in New Zealand’s name, pled guilty, and was asked to say sorry and pay $700 for assaulting a doorman and threatening punters at a bar. Sione Lauaki, ball-thrower ordinaire, was fined $800 and had to pay his victim $500 after punching his mouth in a bar.

Noted ball-thrower Sosene Anesi was fined and given diversion after assaulting a man after an official team function. The CEO of Waikato Rugby, Graham Bowen, noted in mitigation that the incident was between two men (oh, good) and that Anesi was to be credited with not seeking name suppression: "There's a perception out there that sporting people get some sort of preferential treatment, but to his credit Anesi didn't want to seek name suppression. He did something wrong and he fronted up to that.”******

Thrower of balls and tantrums Lucky Mulipola received 180 hours’ community work and paid $5000 emotional damages after knocking a person to the ground with one punch at 5am. (More on this later.) Dane Coles, who used to try and get a ball with his foot, used his spare time to fight, drive drunk, and stand around with his shirt off on innocent people’s lawns. Robin Brooke, ex-exemplar of New Zealand ball-throwing prowess, turned in his retirement to gallantly grabbing teenagers by the throat, but only because it was 3am. Erstwhile ball-throwing guy Keith Robinson managed to cop 300 hours of community service for injuring with intent. Southern thrower of balls Romi Ropati was fined 2000 dollars and ordered to attend anger management courses after fracturing the jaw and smashing the teeth of a Dunedin student. Taranaki ball-thrower Paul Perez felt that his ability to throw a ball should mitigate against his being convicted for choking and punching his pregnant partner; the judge disagreed and fined him $2029 and suggested he attend anger management courses. Simone Tuita Tauelagi, ball-thrower for Southland, was barred from licensed premises and given 100 hours community service for his tendency to get a bit person-punchy after a few drinks. Manawatu ball-chucker Paula Maisiri grabbed a Hong Kong police officer by his throat and punched him in the face (perhaps mistaking him for his pregnant partner?) and was fined HK$500. Byron Kelleher, ball-thrower of international renown, drunkenly crashed into a Porsche and then attacked pretty much everyone who objected to his doing so, receiving a fine and a suspended sentence.

The behaviours described above are unacceptable in anyone who is considered a representative of anything. But at least in all of these cases the offender was publicly tried and some sort of justice was seen to be done. How about the other side of the coin?

The child-assaulter, the friend’s-wife molester, and the pregnant-wife assaulter listed at the start of this debacle have all been granted permanent name suppression. Matthew Ridge was never charged for his sojourn in the ladies room. Carlos Spencer punched someone’s face in Tauranga but was not charged. Doug Howlett was not charged for abusing and throwing glasses at bar staff in Auckland, nor for causing $26000 worth of damage to someone’s BMW in England. Adam Thomson’s charges of assaulting a woman were dropped. Sam Tuitupou had public fighting charges dropped after paying $100 to a charity. Ma’a Nonu received diversion twice, once for a ‘scuffle’ and once for breaching alcohol bans. Regan King was arrested for assault in Wales but charges were not forthcoming. Jimmy Cowan was disciplined by the Rugby Union but otherwise escaped without charges after collecting three drunk-and-disorderly arrests in three months.

After enough of these stories you could be forgiven for believing that the Black Jersey has some kind of conviction-repelling properties. Remember Lucky Mulipola’s one-punch KO in Dunedin a couple of paragraphs ago? Police investigations suggest the incident started when an All Black whose name was never made public insulted the victim. He was never charged for his part in the assault. Former All Black Bryce Robins was implicated in an attack which left a victim with a fractured face and ribs and permanent brain injuries: he eventually walked free due to a lack of evidence. When drunk Jerry Collins and his drunk friend became aggressive with bar staff in Wellington, the drunk friend was “arrested, cuffed, put in the back of the car and taken away.” Collins on the other hand was told “'Come on Jerry, you're better than this', then they put him in a taxi and sent him home.” The reason given for their different treatment? The friend was “obviously having a bit to say”, Collins on the other hand, “played the game”. An interesting choice of words.

It’s interesting too that Collins’s drunk friend’s having a bit to say should be seen as grounds for arrest; it speaks to a general attitude in New Zealand that saying things people object to amounts to waiving the right to not be physically attacked. For example, when Chris Masoe was fined by the Rugby Union (but never charged) for punching a punter in Christchurch, his actions were defended by the renowned philosopher and bar-owner Brent McCully: “…little men with big mouths tend to strike a few problems.” Get lippy with a police officer, get arrested. Get lippy with an All Black, get assaulted. It’s ~~the law~~ ~~completely against the law~~ just plain common sense.

Anyway, enough philosophisin’, let’s get on with the listin’ - Riki Flutey’s unprovoked assault on a teenager broke a nose and an eye socket but no laws, apparently; after the Wellington Rugby Union paid his bail, all charges were dropped on condition he not do it again. Declan O’Donnell was granted diversion after attacking a bouncer for ejecting his drunk brother. The bouncer was given 200 hours of community service and 9 months supervision for responding in kind.

We’ll never know the name of the Rugby International who assaulted his wife and threatened to kill her while in possession of a weapon, nor the Super 14 player who followed suit, which is tragic, but what’s even more tragic is that I find myself agreeing with Garth Mc Fucking Vicar.

After that kind of trauma it’s almost a relief to get back to simple boys-will-be-boys stuff like tangling with bouncers, throwing bottles at women, and attacking Sikh taxi drivers, separate incidents gathered for your convenience in this fun article from a period when Rugby players were evidently so busy attacking the public that the press couldn’t spare a whole web page for each one. If you’re wondering how those three panned out in court the answer would be - 1) not guilty , just like the time he stomped that guy’s head in self defence; 2) diversion with apology, it was just a bottle after all; and 3) in the end they only charged his mates, weird eh? in that order.

Through all of the linked articles a consistent theme is that the NZRFU seems to take a hard-ish line on its players’ bringing the sport into disrepute. Fines and bans imposed by the union often seem generally bigger and longer than those imposed by the courts.

Well, kind of. The longest ban you will read about in this blog post is the six-month ban handed to Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu for critiquing racist practices in the RFU. Compare this to the 4 weeks handed to Zac Guildford for what can only be described as a feral drunken fucking rampage in Rarotonga and you have a pretty neat illustration of Fuimaono-Sapolu’s point: it seems the RFU would much rather see its members run around randomly smacking Pacific Islanders than hear them speak up on their behalf.

I’m nearly done with the list. It's not an exhaustive list, but after all those broken jaws and spilled teeth, I am exhausted. This has to end somewhere.

So what conclusions can we draw?

Well firstly, Rugby players attack people. Whether they do so more than any other profession is beyond my ability to establish scientifically. But that they assault humans with monotonous regularity is undeniable. And given their status as regional and national representatives, one assaulted human is too many. They should be held to a higher standard of behaviour, one which matches the prestige we rightly or wrongly bestow on them.

Do they get away with it more often? Once again, I can’t prove that scientifically. I do know that in 2008 only 8% of violent offenders in New Zealand were discharged without conviction, which seems very low when you see how many Rugby players on this list went unconvicted. And whether or not they receive special treatment, they definitely think they deserve it: when apprentice ball-thrower Riley Tane McDowall broke someone’s jaw for saying something, his defence rested heavily on his promise as a player. University of Canterbury Dean of Law Chris Gallivan described sportsfolk as the ‘bread and butter of applications to discharge’ in New Zealand. The argument is that when your plumber or web-developer is convicted of assault her life may go on much as normal; a similar conviction for a representative sportsperson could spell the end of their career.

To which I say, why shouldn’t it? For every drunk face-punching thug in one of those jerseys there is a long queue of hopefuls waiting to take their place. Some of whom, surely, would be glad to keep their fists to themselves in exchange for a shot at representing their town or their country. It is long past time to teach these people that far from being free from responsibility, their position as representatives makes them more responsible than most for their actions.

And we have a responsibility as a society too, to make it clear to those who represent us, what kind of behaviour we will accept. For a long time, as James Mountier notes in his thesis on on-field violence, almost any act of violence on the field was considered part of the game, whether it was within the rules or not. In 1991, after a player ran 25 metres to join a fight, breaking another player’s jaw******* with a single punch, the Court of Appeal said

“… that assaults in the course of sporting contests, such as the various codes of football, cannot be tolerated by the community or the Courts. Whatever tacit acquiescence may be said to have prevailed in the past in relation to the kind of almost barbaric behaviour exemplified by this case is no longer acceptable by current standards.”

We may never have the power to prevent thugs being thugs. We do have the power to prevent thugs being our representatives. It starts when we withdraw our tacit acquiescence. Bear that in mind this World Cup season.

*Please god if there is a god, let me read that ’60 plumbers charged with separate vicious assaults this morning alone’ headline before you take me unto thy angry bosom…

**This is the only sexual assault I’m including in the list. Partly because it’s one of very few which made it to trial and resulted in a guilty plea; and partly because I’m not the right writer to take on Rugby’s rapist tendencies. I wish that writer well, and I salute Louise Hemsley’s courage, and apologise for my own cowardice.

*** Oh, and Muliaina’s sex charges and Savea’s domestic violence, of course.

**** I know, racially abused in Christchurch! Hard to believe, right?

***** It’s politics after all. Not tiddlywinks.

****** What a guy.

******* What have they got against jaws, these Rugby Players?

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Against Rugby 2: Tiddlywinks

Hello and welcome to Against Rugby, a regular feature of this blog in which I will attempt to offer cogent reasons why Rugby is a Bad Thing. Obviously this is an unpopular standpoint, and I have to make some things clear right from the outset.

1) If you like rugby, that’s fine. But this is not for you. There are people in New Zealand, believe it or not, who dislike rugby. And they are made to feel alone, and wrong. This one tiny segment of this one mostly-unread blog is intended to let these people know that they are not alone; and to offer reasons why they might not be wrong. That is okay, whether you think it’s okay or not.

2) If you like rugby, that’s fine. But this is not for you. You can look outside, or inside, anywhere - at any billboard, television, or website, and see your passion confirmed. People who dislike rugby in New Zealand have far fewer places to turn to see a point of view they recognise. This is one of those very few places, and that is okay, whether you think it’s okay or not.

3) If you like rugby, that’s fine. But this is not for you. I am perfectly aware that I’ll never convince anyone who likes rugby not to like rugby. You should be aware that you will never convince me to like it. That is okay, whether you think it’s okay or not.

4) If you like rugby, that’s fine. But this is not for you, and your comments are not sought. If you comment in favour of rugby, I’m going to delete it. It’s my blog, and deleting comments is okay, whether you think it’s okay or not.

Okay? Here’s Against Rugby 2: Tiddlywinks

I am about to do one of my favourite things in the whole world. I’m going to say something that is clearly, self-evidently, and objectively true, which will be believed by nobody who reads it.

I say it’s one of my favourite things, but having considered this essay for some time, I have to say it makes a man rather defensive, knowing he’s about to write something literally unacceptable. Having said this thing, which is so true as to border on truism, I’m then going to spend an inordinate amount of essay anticipating objections and attempting to counter them in advance. Which is a terribly negative and passive way of writing a thing, and which somewhat irks me even as I type this introduction.

I can’t help it though. I’m about to tell you Rugby is Violent.

No one has even read this yet,* and already I can hear the bloody whining. O, the PC brigade is out in blah! I suppose you want to wrap us all in cotton etc! But but but sport is a positive outlet for yada freaking yada! If this is your reaction be advised you’re not rebutting. You’re jerking your knee. I haven’t even said I disapprove of violence. In fact, in just a few thrilling minutes, I’m going to argue that consensual violence is Mostly Fine. So imagine for a second that I’m not arguing that Violence is always Inherently Bad, or that all exercise is evil and must be stopped, or that we should all dwell in flower palaces, ride organic free-range unicorns to work at the PC Brigade’s National Office, and replace competitive endeavour with co-operative Hot Yoga and Emotional Support Festivals. Imagine that, and think -

If you’re running along and someone throws themselves at you, knocking you down, that is an act of violence.

If you’re lying on the ground, and a large number of large people throw themselves upon you, that is an act of violence.

Those acts of violence are black-and-white legal in the game of rugby, in the same way that punching someone in the face** is black-and white legal in the game of boxing. So I guess I should just finish the essay here. But I’m a bloody-minded fellow, and I’d like to remind you all of the myriad acts of violence which, while strictly illegal in the game of rugby, are condoned to some extent or another, often as a kind of just punishment for rugbian transgressions.

If you put your hand on something you shouldn’t - let’s say your friend’s first-pressing Beatles record -and your friend puts on a shoe covered in hard plastic studs, and crushes your hand with it, that is an act of violence.

If someone is trying to run away with an object you believe is yours - let’s say a pumpkin that looks suspiciously like the one you just bought at the vege market - and you drive your shoulder into the pumpkin, driving the pumpkin into the alleged thief’s chin, knocking them senseless and spilling the pumpkin, that is an act of violence.***

If you are trying to run somewhere - let’s say, back to your car in the Pak ’n’ Save carpark after having stashed your trolley - and someone comes toward you, potentially impeding your progress, and you fend them off with a heel of the hand to the neck, knocking them to the ground, that is an act of violence.

The analogues of all these acts, be they strictly-legal, or strictly-illegal-but-it’s-okay-because-reasons, are the bricks and mortar of which rugby is made. Without them, you’d be playing a different game.   Rugby is Violent. If we could just admit it and move on, the whole pitiful charade would be just that one iota less intolerable, which would constitute a good start.

So let’s try and make violence okay for a second. Let’s talk consensual violence. A short list of perfectly fine violent episodes could include:

- Flirting. We can all fulsomely agree that the whole arm-punching, hair-pulling, give-me-that-back-it’s-mine-no-actually-let’s-wrestle-on-the-couch-for-it school of courtship is as excruciatingly awkward as a meet ’n’ greet between the National Blackboard Association and the People’s Republic of Fingernail, but there is no-one alive who has not indulged its awfulness to some extent. Consensual violence is a universal standard expression of sexual love. Think about that when you’re struggling to sleep tonight.

- Assault Sports™. UFC, Tae Kwan Do, Boxing, Kickboxing, Sabot, Karate, Kung Fu, Capoeira****, Ju Jitsu, going for a drink in Palmerston North - taking part in all these activities and many more indicates presumed consent for violence, and a good time is had by all, except those drinking in Palmerston North.

- Self defence.   No one, having walked up to you and head-butted your nose to breaking point, is going to argue that you are not now granted full permission to head-butt back, breaking their nose in turn. Whatever the state of the law in your country, it is considered a human universal that checking me is an invitation for me to check you back. And yes, I am claiming bonus points for working a Cypress Hill reference into an anti-Rugby essay.

- Civil Disobedience. This one is marginal. But civil disobedience has two main ingredients - the knowledge that the state has various forms of violence at its disposal - physical restraint, tasers, water cannon, short or long term detention, big sticks; and the willingness to provoke the state to use those forms of violence in defence of an unjust state of affairs, hoping that the resulting shame will be a catalyst for change. Participants in civil disobedience can scarcely be described as consenting to violence, but they do know the risks and are willing to take them for the greater good.

- Fight Club. I’m not going to talk about this.

So okay, violence can be consensual; and my opinion is that consensual violence is okay. So the violence in rugby is consensual, and thus okay. End of rant, right?

Well, no. For three reasons: firstly, informed consent is a big, grey area we refuse to explore, and no one in rugby is properly informed about the risks. Secondly, rugby’s inherent violence has a nasty tendency to leak, and we are rubbish at addressing that, and thirdly, Rugby isn’t violent, remember? We are a loooong way from convincing everyone that Rugby is a form of consensual violence. I’ve only just convinced you. (Yes, I have. Shut up.)

Let’s talk informed consent first. It is accepted that Rugby causes injuries. But the extent to which Rugby wounds its children is very seldom openly discussed in New Zealand. In the United States a combination of medical advances and public exposure led to the NFL being forced to address the issue of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in its players, albeit thus far in a token way. Malcolm Gladwell’s Offensive Play offers a sobering view of the long-term effects of getting your head whacked all the time; and remember, those guys wear helmets like a bunch of pussies.

More shocking perhaps than the fact that smacking your head damages your brain is that, despite the high profile of this issue in The States, there is no comparable research being publicised in New Zealand, no think-piece long-read in our middle-class magazine, no suggestion that all those knockouts may require treatment beyond monitoring ‘in line with head injury protocols’. New Zealand media’s take on the NFL brain-trauma controversy was to ask the NZRU, who said and I quote “Rugby is not NFL”.   No shit, NFL players have helmets.***** When the linked article was written one trained nurse was writing a PhD on concussion in Rugby Union. I hope that when it is published the NZRU will see fit to respond in something approaching a grown-up fashion.

Leaving aside the possibility that playing rugby will destroy your brain so badly that your only career option will be to become a NZRU spokesfucker, the game causes injuries at every level. It regularly tops the ACC’s list of most costly sports: in 2010 - 11 Rugby injuries cost more than those of football and netball combined (“It may be that there are simply more people playing Rugby”, opined Peter Wood, wrongly), and at the professional level injuries are so completely de rigeur that people collate them into nice handy lists (for those of you who prefer footnotes to links, I’ve written a little poem below******).

Maybe, just maybe, every single person who chooses to play rugby really is informed about the actual risks, and gives genuinely informed consent to take those actual risks every time they take the field, but for the sake of this essay I’m going to go ahead and assume that they’re people, just like us, and they assume the bad thing is not going to happen to them, just like we do when we cross the road or eat a whole goddamn bag of chips in one sitting. Which is fine, but it raises the question - if rugby is consensual violence, why not create a standard of informed consent? If the risks are genuinely minimal, there’s no harm in admitting them. If the risks are considerable, prospective players should be allowed to consider them.

And it’s not just onfield, consensual violence we have to worry about. Rugby players have a history of attacking and raping people and getting away with it [Trigger warning]. Violence perpetrated off the field by Rugby players, and the free-pass culture we’ve developed around the issue, is too big a can of worms for this essay, so it’s going to get its very own essay in due time. For now I will say this. The violence in Rugby often leaks out of rugby. When it does, New Zealand tends to cover its ears and yell ‘La la la, I can’t hear you, boys will be boys, La la la’, and that is nowhere neeeear good enough.

So, point the third. Rugby isn’t violent. I mean, all those people get injured, but they’re doing it wrong. No one gets hurt if you’re doing it right. Well, okay, sometimes everyone’s doing everything right, and someone still gets hurt, but what are you going to do? It’s Not Tiddlywinks.

And there we have it, the phrase that shits me to salty stinging midnight tears - It’s Not Tiddlywinks. Let us be crystal clear: you can say that Rugby is Not Violent, or you can say that Rugby is Not Tiddlywinks, but you Can Not Say Both.

Saying ‘it’s not tiddlywinks’ is admitting that there is an element of violence to the game, and that the players know this and go into it with their eyes open. Which is to say, that Rugby is a form of Consensual Violence. The difference is that ‘it’s not tiddlywinks’ sounds folksy and common sensical, where as ‘it’s consensual violence’ makes the sport sound exactly like the weird, ritual-bullying-ridden, posh-kids-version-of-competitive-shin-kicking (it’s real!!) that it actually is.

There’s a hidden value system behind the statement that It’s Not Tiddlywinks, and I’m going to give you a little glimpse of that value system, applied in a different arena, and I hope it makes you sick and angry, because then you’ll have a little taste of what it’s like for me to read the sports pages.

Public life is another arena which people enter by choice, and there is a distinct strain of It’s Not Tiddlywink-ism running through our public discourse which says something like this: everyone knows that public life exposes you to opprobrium of various sorts, and you shouldn’t have entered public life if you can’t take a little sledging. So let’s play not-tiddlywinks with some public rugbians and see how their it’s-not-tiddlywinking fans like it.

John Kirwan is a failed rugby coach who never played rugby professionally, unless you count a brief career playing for a middling Australian League team who lost more games than they won. One day he woke up feeling as though he had wasted his life, which was of course entirely true - he had spent his best years pursuing an unpaid hobby which has no value, and had no prospects other than a) hocking ghost-written tomes about his career as an amateur tiddlywinker-or-whatever or b) finding a country whose tiddlywinks-or-whatever coach was worse at coaching than he was and inveigling himself into a paying position. He was diagnosed with depression, and now speaks publicly about mental health issues in New Zealand. Of course, speaking about mental health issues is much more valuable than playing rugby, but then, so is literally anything at all, and besides, if you waste your life doing something worthless, and wake up one day feeling that you have wasted your life doing something worthless, you are not experiencing depression, you are experiencing a Moment of Clarity.

Jonah Lomu was a car-stereo-collector whose only claim to posterity other than lending his name to the world’s single most boring Playstation game was taking a perfectly good kidney from a local DJ and using the precious lease of life it provided to break New Zealand Electoral Law with impunity, tweeting to his 40-something thousand followers that they should vote for a political party whose policies were very favourable to people with Lomu’s income, but positively harmful to people with the income of most of his fans. Despite this demonstrably-criminal and arguably-immoral act being widely reported in mainstream media, he was not charged, because you can do anything you like in this country if you once threw a ball around good. This achievement means that alongside his legacy of being an oft-quoted demonstration of the problematic use of Body Mass Index as a measure of obesity, he will be remembered mostly as a shining example of how people who once wore a black jumper with a fern on it are not held to the same legal standards as their fellow citizens.

While obviously true, these are horrible things to say about anybody, and I think public discourse would be much improved if we all agreed to be a little nicer to each other. But what the hey, it’s public life, they entered it voluntarily, it’s not tiddlywinks, right?

Well, that was fun, and I for one feel much better. And now, here’s my point: it is much worse to physically hurt people than to say mean things about them. Your Year 11 Life Skills teacher was right: no one can put you down without your permission. But people can break your face without your permission, as your Year 11 classmates will gladly demonstrate if you don’t like rugby and you say so out loud. If you think (as I do, most of the time) that just because Lomu and Kirwan are public figures, that doesn’t mean you can be as nasty as you like about them, surely you can agree that just because someone has chosen to play rugby, it doesn’t mean you can cause them hideous and permanently damaging physical injuries then justify your assault with an ‘It’s not Tiddlywinks’.

There is a way forward. As a country, we are quite good at identifying public risks and actively educating the public about them - the risks of smoking, drinking, speeding, even sloppy DIY practices are widely acknowledged, and the relevant authorities are committed to making sure the public are fully aware of these risks. We can learn to treat Rugby the same way we treat binge drinking: obviously some idiots will always engage in it no matter what we do or say, but it remains our duty to ensure that everyone is as informed as possible about the inherent risks; that we are making the choice to watch or partake in consensual violence with both eyes open.

Until then, I will feel few qualms about telling anyone who will listen that Andrew Hore is a feral, seal-killing, halfwit troglodyte. After all, It’s Not Tiddlywinks.

*Yeah yeah, very funny.
** Here, I’m also implicitly arguing that punching faces is violent. I hope that is not too controversial.
***Justifiable though, yeh? I mean, don’t touch a man’s pumpkin…
****Ironic inclusion really, given that Capoeira is entirely composed of pretend violence. That’s right Capoeiristas, I said your violence is pretend. Whatchoo gonna do? Gonna pretend come at me? Go on then. Pretend hit me as hard as you can. I’m pretend ready.
***** Pussies.
****** Knee knee knee knee ankle ankle thumb shoulder concussion knee knee knee shoulder shoulder rib jaw shoulder shoulder knee knee one hand calf ankle blood clot (!) knee ankle bicep hip elbow knee knee shoulder groin jaw neck bicep hamstring hamstring shoulder shoulder hand ankle facial laceration

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Against Rugby 1

Hello and welcome to Against Rugby, a regular feature of this blog in which I will attempt to offer cogent reasons why Rugby is a Bad Thing. Obviously this is an unpopular standpoint, and I have to make some things clear right from the outset.

1) If you like rugby, that’s fine. But this is not for you. There are people in New Zealand, believe it or not, who dislike rugby. And they are made to feel alone, and wrong. This one tiny segment of this one mostly-unread blog is intended to let these people know that they are not alone; and to offer reasons why they might not be wrong. That is okay, whether you think it’s okay or not.

2) If you like rugby, that’s fine. But this is not for you. You can look outside, or inside, anywhere - at any billboard, television, or website, and see your passion confirmed. People who dislike rugby in New Zealand have far fewer places to turn to see a point of view they recognise. This is one of those very few places, and that is okay, whether you think it’s okay or not.

3) If you like rugby, that’s fine. But this is not for you. I am perfectly aware that I’ll never convince anyone who likes rugby not to like rugby. You should be aware that you will never convince me to like it. That is okay, whether you think it’s okay or not.

4) If you like rugby, that’s fine. But this is not for you, and your comments are not sought. If you comment in favour of rugby, I’m going to delete it. It’s my blog, and deleting comments is okay, whether you think it’s okay or not.

Okay? Here’s Against Rugby 1: Ubiquity

Ubiquity

In our first Against Rugby, let’s address the most obvious question: What is the big problem? If you don’t like rugby, no one is making you watch it. I have respect for this argument. As a fan of ultra-violence, swear words, off-colour jokes and adult situations, I side with those who urge would-be censors to change the channel, install the kiddie lock, read the rating, vote with your feet. I believe that movies can feature verbal abuse and bloody beheadings and even kissing, pop songs can have bad words in them, ladies in paintings can wear no clothes, and if you don’t like these things you can look away. And if you don’t mind them yourself but would prefer your kids not to see or hear them you can take your own steps to minimise their exposure.

What I argue here about rugby is that there is no kiddie lock. There is no way to look away. And the steps one must take to minimise exposure are extreme.

Rugby as Social Lubricant

I grew up in rural Taranaki. Social life was built around rugby. Parties were scheduled, by rugby players, for Saturdays, after the game. Friday parties were a non-option: The Game is on Saturday. (Non-rugby players would obviously lack the social cachet to throw a party, Friday or Saturday, that anyone would attend, unless they were willing/able to offer free alcohol and drugs.) The size of any given party was naturally dictated by an equation wherein the importance of the rugby game which was showing on the television that evening - big game, big party - was multiplied by the importance of any game which might have been played in person by party attendees that day - big game, then big game: big party squared. There was, of course, another option, which was not to go to the party. Going down this road in 2-channel, 1-TV, pre-internet New Zealand left one with the two sub-choices of watching the big game at home with your family, or sitting in your room reading George Bernard Shaw and practicing Metallica riffs. Sometimes even I watched the game.

I went to University in urban* Hamilton. This provided me with unheard-of cultural opportunities: I could watch independent movies, and go to live gigs. I still saw easily twice as many hours of rugby as either films or live music combined. A person cannot live on cultural products alone - you have to socialise. And the bars where there were actually people present always contained multiple rugby screens; the party scene was still much as described above, and unless you chose to live in an electricity-free anarchist squat, the Big Game would always be on the television, without fail.

Certainly I had the option of sitting alone in my room, smoking and listening to the Verlaines on vinyl, only emerging to watch touring Flying Nun legends playing to 5 people in the student union bar once every three months. And there were times when I took this option. But it’s hardly what one would describe as a healthy social life. And let’s remember what I’m arguing here: I’m arguing against the idea that, like any other obscenity, if you don’t like rugby, you don’t have to look at it. Which is literally true; it’s just that not looking at it involves living in a cave and speaking to no one, and I suggest that this is an extreme measure to have to take.

True: living in Wellington, in a sheltered bubble of middle-class, arts-oriented hipsterdom, I have escaped the rugby = socialising/socialising = rugby trap. I can go literally hours without remembering the game even exists. But what if I didn’t want to move to Wellington? Imagine if I simply wanted a reasonable human existence, in any other part of the country. Without necessarily having to rugby my way through a huge rugby of rugby, just to hang out with people like a person? Is that entirely unreasonable?

Rugby as Explanation for Everything

Rugby is not merely omnipresent in provincial social life in New Zealand. It’s also the single biggest source of analogies in politics and news reporting. It is impossible to watch a television news show without encountering this kind of helpful explanation:

“The hole in the side of the cruise ship was 22 metres long; that’s the distance from the goal line of a rugby-field to the 22 line.”

“38,628 people are estimated to have died of malnutrition in the impoverished country this month alone: that’s as many people as it takes to fill Jade Stadium once.”

“The child’s skull was fractured in 14 places. That number of fractures is the same as the number of players in a rugby team, if one has been sent off with a fractured skull.”

In New Zealand politics, ‘All Blacks’ and ‘Rugby’ are used as cues for the public to stop thinking and uncritically accept any statement, however banal, wrong-headed, or plain untrue. They are every bit as potent as ‘9/11’ and ‘War on Terror’ in the United States. John Key, whose party’s success depends heavily on his personal popularity, is unsurprisingly a master of the rugby analogy.

This is condescending in the extreme. I quite possibly hate rugby more than any other person alive, and I do not intend to argue that people who watch rugby are too stupid to conceive of a number higher than ten without rugby as a conceptual mediator. Anyone whose mind can grasp the intricate variety of possible offences during the breakdown can understand any other system of rules and practices without needing an oval ball to make it ‘relatable’.

And there is the crux of this silliness: rugby is seen as the thing we can all relate to, because we are all subject to rugby. That we are all also subject to the laws of nature and nation, to the vagaries of politics and economics, human emotion and anatomy, seems to slip the attention of the analogisers. You don’t get those things. You get rugby. It’s like when a rugby player is playing rugby and he gets the ball. Then he’s got it. That’s what it’s like. It’s like rugby.

Rugby as Source of Advertising Shills

So you don’t like rugby. Stay at home! Have no friends! Don’t watch the news! Don’t read interviews with politicians! Simple.

Unless you like Weet Bix, in which case alongside 25% of the folate RDI for women of childbearing age, you’ll be receiving small plastic cards outlining the career highlights of notable All Blacks, and the number of Weetbix they eat. Or maybe you work somewhere outside your home. In which case you will be walking (okay, I admit it, driving) past billboards featuring various rugby practitioners frantically suppressing their semi-erections while rubbing naked shoulders in the name of Jockey Underwear. If this understandably gets you a little hot, you’ll want to cool down with a nice refreshing beer. Here’s one that’s been sponsoring the All Blacks for 25 years, with completely unpredictable results.

There are plenty of side-effects of using national sporting representatives as sales folk for international corporations. The only one we need deal with here is the effect of cultural saturation. Using rugby board employees as corporate spokesmodels contributes to a landscape in which rugby is the only visible activity; blotting out more worthwhile pursuits (i.e. everything) and creating a self-propagating ecology of attention: “Look at the rugby! There’s nothing else to look at . . . hey no one’s looking at our thing. Better put some rugby on it, it’s the only thing they’ll look at.”

Advertising has always played to the basest of human tendencies for the precise reason that these things are universal - jingoism, sex, fear, status anxiety, bad body image, good body image, and hunger of every kind are the stuff of which marketing is made. Placing rugby alongside these human universals is confirming that we are plagued with rugby in the same way we are plagued with lust and self-doubt. Which may indeed be an unfortunate truth, but one would hardly think it was one which the IRB would be in a hurry to emphasise.

Rugby as Synonym for Sport

Rugby’s ubiquity even has deleterious effects in the places where it is arguably belongs - the sports sections of television news programs and newspapers. There is a hierarchy of sports reporting in New Zealand. The first tier is occupied by anything pertaining to the All Blacks - training, extra-curricular activities, disgraceful public behaviour, travel plans, and even occasionally the playing of an international fixture. The second is occupied by the Super 14 competition, usually with a focus on games played in the competition, but also discussions of tactics and the hiring and firing of coaches and players. If there is any time left in the sports segment (or pages remaining in the sports section), it will be dedicated to tier three: Other Sports (misc), in order of importance: Australian Rugby League (teams with higher proportion of NZ players more important), NZ international cricket, Indian Professional League cricket (teams with higher proportion of NZ players more important), any sport in which a New Zealand team or player has claimed a world championship this week - including, magnanimously and for the first time in the hierarchy, women athletes (provided they have won a large international competition). In the vanishingly unlikely event that there is time or space to report on any other sport, it is usually from a kind of ‘human interest’ angle: “And here’s a young man who hopes to start New Zealand’s first Handball league. Adorably, he maintains that Handball is a real sport with rules and players and everything, just like Rugby. Just goes to show it takes all sorts…”

Given that Rugby games are more often televised live and at full length than any other sport, given that the activities of rugby players and coaches are more likely than those of any other sport to be classified as “News” rather than “Sports News”, given that there are ample opportunities to see All Blacks at work and play in a variety of contexts including rugby-dedicated panel shows, rugby-dominated panel shows, a dedicated rugby channel, and a plethora of rugby-only websites, there’s a reasonable argument that Sports News could be profitably dedicated to sports other than rugby - a sole opportunity for consumers of mainstream media to find out that other sports are being played in this country. Imagine a world in which full bore target shooting or free diving made regular appearances on nightly news broadcasts. Devoutly to be wished. But best not to hold your breath.

What To Do With Your Strange Enthusiasm

Growing Up Nerdy in New Zealand is an object lesson in how and when to share your obsessions. Watching New Zealand’s physical and cultural landscape being swamped in Lord of the Rings references through the first decade of this century was a bittersweet experience for those of us who had to hide their Tolkein tomes at the bottom of our schoolbags for fear of beatings and ostracism. New Zealand’s anti-intellectualism is so strongly internalised as to remain largely unspoken. In fact, most Kiwis would be surprised to hear their country described as anti-intellectual. I mean, look at our team…

Like most countries colonised by England, New Zealand seems to have forged its identity based on frontier ideas of simplicity, physicality, and pragmatism, reacting rebellious-teen style against the Old Country’s class system with rigid social egalitarianism. A natural side effect has been the perception that a liking for the works of Chaucer or a passing familiarity with Homer or Virgil are elitist relics of a Public School system where rote learning of arcane knowledge was a passport to privilege regardless of ‘real world’ ability or merit. And it’s certainly true that an aptitude for conjugating Latin verbs was no guarantee of success as an administrator. What is less often addressed is whether an aptitude for throwing a ball around while large men try to lie on you is a guarantee of worth as a role model.

Look, here’s the thing: I don’t want to return to the bad old days where a student who just wants to grow up and be an All Black is forced to memorise screeds of Shakespeare or face ritual beatings from his teacher. It’s just that we have intentionally or otherwise replaced this with a system where a student who just wants to memorise screeds of Shakespeare has to hide his propensities or face ritual beatings from his fellow students.** And though the beatings generally end if you escape school alive, the policing of conformity does not. Here is a real conversation I once had with a real person, when I worked on the trains in Wellington:

Middle-aged lady wearing yellow rugby Jersey: Who are you going for?
Me: Who’s playing?
M-ALWYRJ: We’re playing the Crusaders!
Me: Oh, rugby. I don’t really follow rugby.
M-ALWYRJ: Well get off this train then. What are you even doing here?
Me: Taking tickets. Can I have your ticket please?

I don’t care how drunk you are, that’s just plain rude. Why do I have to like rugby, or get off the train? I happen to quite like attempting to read Flaubert in the original French. It’s a strange enthusiasm, I’ll grant you. But it’s mine, and I’m allowed it. I do, however, understand that other people might not like it, and that even if they don’t like it, they’re allowed to be in my general vicinity in public. They can take the same train as me, for example, and I don’t even mind. What I propose is this revolutionary concept - freedom of personal choice. I undertake not to force anybody to read the complete works of Flaubert in the original French. I see no reason why anyone should do so, if they don’t want to. I won’t even bring it up in conversation, unless I know my interlocutor shares my strange enthusiasm. I won’t assume that everyone has read what I’ve read, or that those who haven’t are in some way lacking or unworthy. In return for my generosity, can you please take your rugby and fuck off? I don’t have to like it, and I shouldn’t have to pretend to, and I shouldn’t have my every interaction with my society predicated on the assumption that I share this strange enthusiasm. I don’t like rugby. I live for the day when I can I can honestly say that no one is making me watch it.

*Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaa …
**News media regularly bewail the fact that girls have been outperforming boys academically in NZ schools for almost a generation, without ever addressing the somewhat related fact that in NZ schools boys are much, much more likely to be punched in the face by their peers for knowing things than girls are.