The Law of Unintended Consequence

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The row escalates over the judiciaries failure to adequately sanction thugs involved in the recent trend towards barbaric, premeditated and deliberate targeting of All Black captain Richie McCaw by deliberate and calculated acts of foul play. The NZ players association chief has strongly condemning the South African citing commissioner who has continuous provided carte blanche for cowardly opposition "hard men" who have ritually attempted to illegally remove McCaw's constant threat from the game, and arguably end his career prematurely.

I can't help but think that with the AIs looming at the usual anti-All Black sentiment that entails (cue the annual "outrage" over the Haka protocols and questioning of whether NZ's success is entirely attributable to being given an easy ride by referees in some sort of conspiracy), this will ultimately end up haunting New Zealand. In fact no doubt any minute now tired old incidents of alleged All Black indiscretions will be exumed from their resting places and cast around like some kind of rallying call with emotive tag lines such as "lest we forget".

It's no secret that NZ are invariably given a rough ride during the AIs in terms of acts of foul play. In the past we've seen Dylan Hartley get away with a WWF style elbow drop on McCaw completely unpenalised or cited; conversely we've seen Kevin Mealamu cited for cleaning out English players illegally killing the ball, we've seen Dan Carter cited for tackling a Welsh player rather than letting him score a try and any amount of other nonsense.

I predict that despite copping more off-the-ball stuff than you could shake a strip of Biltong at, that a vital All Black will bizarrely be cited for some innoccuous act, will be given an insanely long ban, possibly 8 or 9 weeks and the citing judiciary will make a statement along the lines of "A suspension that will send a message to players about foul play and act as a deterent" blah blah, in some mocking of this players association statement.

We have to accept that international rugby is now a highly politicised beast and the amount of money washing around means that things like sporting integrity, fair play and the genuine best interests of the game are no longer paramount considerations. Representatives of invidual unions act as lobyists for their own best interest and the result of the game is as much influenced by what goes on behind board room doors and in hall ways as it is on the pitch between the kick off and final whistle.

This will continue until IRB meetings are televised and the transcripts of all meetings within the IRB are made public.We hold our politicians charged with running our countries to account, and so should be the executives in charge of running the game of rugby.

emack2 wrote:Incorrect AWOP there is a very real link between Amateur and Professional.Players have had reps you did`nt take liberties with certain players Colin Meads and kevin Skinner are two that come to mind.McCaw does`nt usually retaliate thus risk sending off.Until last year Kaino and Thorn were the NZ enforcers watching his back.They have`nt as yet been replaced
Martin Johnson learned his Rugby in Kings Country people did`nt take liberties with him.

What's your point Alan? Are you suggesting McCaw should start retaliating and risk being sent off? We've just seen a player in the NH banned for a very long time for retaliating. The game has moved on. The amateur ways are no longer acceptable. It's just time the judiciary caught up and started giving out realistic suspentions to the perpetrators rather than merely punishing those who react.