Pumped up crises around every corner give sport a grim and joyless look
What happens on the field stays on the field they like to tell us. Until it doesn't.
What happened after Geelong's incredible fightback victory over Melbourne at Kardinia Park last Saturday was that Demons' midfielder Bernie Vince put his head in his hands in agony after Irishman Zach Tuohy kicked the winning goal.
Then he was approached by former Adelaide teammate Patrick Dangerfield. The pair spoke briefly — Dangerfield made a comment about Vince's father before ending with a light-hearted remark — and Vince smiled briefly, before trudging to the sheds.
Meanwhile in the standing room area a bunch of thugs disguised as football fans were too busy punching each other in the head to notice Vince's brief grin; just the latest brawl during an ugly AFL season that has some officials wondering if rival fans should be segregated.
The link between events on the field and the violence is obvious. Drunken fools aroused by an agonisingly close game and the taunts of the jubilant opposition taking out their frustrations on those around them.
But in the absurd postscript to what should have been a highly celebrated game, another potential link emerged; an abject interpretation of Vince's smile that emphasised the joyless vacuum in which some believe professional sportsmen should function.
Enter former Hawthorn champion Dermott Brereton, also known as PC Brereton of the Smile Police, who charged Vince with the serious offence of First Degree Grinning.
"Show respect to the game, show a respect to your opponent, get off and socialise somewhere else," PC Brereton said.
"You're wearing the jumper and still portraying the image of what your club is about and the image of that jumper was the head poking through the top, having a laugh and smile."
Where do you start? By searching for the data looking for a correlation between success and post-match gloom? By producing the contradictory evidence of Vince in agony after the siren?
No doubt the ugly brawlers would embrace Brereton's "no smiles in defeat" thesis because, to the most twisted mind, it justifies their malevolence.
"See, this is a bloody serious game! If you say something about my team you deserve a kick in the head!".
Obviously there was no direct link between the brawling on the terrace and the putrid criticism of Vince's brief grin which came later.
But — despite the old saying — it is inarguable that what happens on our sporting fields does have an impact on what happens in the grandstands, suburban parklands and even our backyards.
The condemnation of Vince as some sort of traitor for briefly sharing a moment with an old mate encourages the belief sport is a grim and joyless pursuit in which the defeated is not entitled to the briefest moment of sportsmanship or humanity.
This concept trickles down to the 11-year-old who now understands that to be a "real player" you must be utterly inconsolable in defeat and, even worse, the growing number of ugly coaches who will tell their young players just that.
Right up until the day the kids leave the game to do something fun.
Critics jump the Shark over Bunker
What happened on the NRL field last weekend was a couple of refereeing errors in the Canberra Raiders-Cronulla game; mistakes that were quite rightly criticised by Raiders coach Ricky Stuart whose team's season was on the line.
External Link: The incident sparking so much controversy
What happened off the field was that the crisis merchants who have created an atmosphere of mistrust around refereeing swooped on these mistakes like vultures on a carcass. Two howlers were used to justify everything from the immediate demolition of the NRL Bunker to the public execution of the Independent Commission.
Then, apparently, we could go back to the good old days when referees were infallible and highly respected — except just about every weekend, when they were ridiculed just as mercilessly by the same crisis merchants for making mistakes that, without the NRL Bunker, could not be reversed.
Instead those mistakes were replayed over and over again creating crushing pressure on referees who became such reviled public scapegoats that the incidences of attacks on officials at all levels rose and it became more difficult to find referees than bomb disposal experts.
The implementation of the NRL Bunker created an expectation that the proportion of errors — and particularly "howlers" — would decline, which they have. But only a fool would expect perfection. And so, inevitably, this is what a vocal element of the rugby league media expected.
Sadly the mistakes in the Raiders game provided an unfortunate focal point for those who are obsessed with conflating officiating mistakes into their "game in crisis" narratives. Accordingly, the job of the referees gets harder and the prospect of finding officials at all levels gets ever more difficult.
Angry scenes, clouded Sky ruining Tour
At the Tour de France, it's not what happens on the bicycle that has been astounding, but how some riders — particularly the vilified Team Sky riders Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas — have stayed on two wheels.
Froome, particularly, has been punched, spat upon, jostled and even knocked over by the gendarmerie as he tried to defend a title that is contentious to those who believe he should have been banned for an adverse finding, and that Team Sky's results are dubious.
Whether you blame Froome and his controversial team or misguided officialdom for the fan frenzy, this Tour stinks more than Gabriel Gate's cheese course.
Let's hope no one catches Froome or Thomas smiling.
[contf]
[contfnew]
ABC .net
[contfnewc]
[contfnewc]
