Doing My Part: A Small Contribution to the Death of Australian Rugby

Filed in Other by on December 5, 2010

This winter, I was going to let it slide. Rugby players, administrators and lawmakers had bought the game of rugby union in this country to the brink of extinction and your ever-hustling author was going to tread the path of the high moral ground. The views are better and there was no need to get these soft hands covered in blood. Let rugby die the painful death of the junkie; slow, painful, somewhat deserved, in the gutter, alone, disgusting.

But after watching the grand prostitute of Australian sport stitch up a teammate and a national selector rant on with vile like a coat-tugger on a bad trip, as well as the ineptitude of Australian Rugby’s response, one has no choice but to get involved. Runyon found it necessary to comment on the characters of Broadway, Sokolove found it necessary to tell the real story of Pete Rose, Woodward and Bernstein found it necessary to bring down a President and I find it entirely necessary- at this juncture- to sink the slipper into Australian rugby with the venom of a cornered snake.

Your moralistic penman has not always loathed the sport of rugby union. It has not always been the case that my preference would be to spend time around some snotty-nosed, highly-strung rich girl with the clap than watch eighty minutes of union. Tedeschi, indeed, once played the sport. For five seasons as a wide-eyed youngster, I proudly donned the orange and green of the Orange City Lions. In that time, first as a nippy winger and then as a lithe and skilful number ten, I scored a grand total of four tries, three in the one game. My tackle count over the same period would probably weigh in at slightly less. I played like David Knox and was unashamed of the fact, firing flick balls to The Sponge and constantly shirking my duties in defence. But it was rugby so it was easy to get away with.

Make no mistake. Even though I played the game, rugby league was still The Balls in my eyes. I just matured early enough to understand the brutal nature of rugby league and that if I was to fulfill my destiny as an eminent sportswriter, it would be best not to have my head too banged up.

So the contempt for rugby is not ingrained. It is not the rap of the working class snob, not a violent reaction to a game I don’t understand. My hatred for the world of rugby union is generally shared across the community, my contempt for the actual game reflected in the near non-existent crowds and worse television ratings. It is a choice thing, as they say.

Take the bag full of dead rats before those free rugby tickets they will be handing out at all the rugby haunts is the message. It is better value, even if rats are the vilest thing on the face of the earth and an indictment on nature.

The game, however, is not completely avoidable to those with a taste for constant sports action. Rugby fills the back pages and the sports reports, there is money to be made punting the bastard if you know the right people and it provides good entertainment value when they feebly attack the real football codes. Even the WNBA serves some purpose…

The reason this bile is being spilled now and why my hands are currently covered with the innards of the game of rugby is the stunning bitchiness that underpinned the Peter Hewat affair and the nasty yet expected too-late response of the cufflinked clowns who pull the strings in the game. The whole affair served to reinforce the shallow, whorish nature of rugby star Lote Tuqiri and once again highlighted how the old boy networks that have always acted and protected in the shadows are still in charge of the game.

Peter Hewat is a fair player. He is no superstar but he has some of the skills those in rugby desire. Namely, kicking, be it at goal or in play. He slotted onto a wing for the Waratahs and did a serviceable job. He scored a heap of points and was certainly valuable enough to be considered for Australia. He was regarded as soft but he was no softer than every other winger in Australian rugby because the game hardly allows for the position to be in any way regarded as tough. With the quality of wingers currently playing provincial rugby in Australia, he was certainly a long way from the worst.

But he had had his card marked at an early stage and when your card is marked in rugby, it is done so in what can only be called a permanent manner. Some of the old boys didn’t like Hewat for whatever reason and that was that. The word was out and as everyone knows, an old boy always looks after an old boy. That is the incestuous way rugby is run here and always has been, bar the John O’Neil years.

Out on the juice with his teammates after the Waratahs had finished humiliating themselves this season, Hewat just buzzed along in the afterglow, as it were. Wine spritzers were no doubt the order of the day. Hewat had never got the call-up to national duty but he was hopeful and he was sure that, with 60 Australian Super 14 starters every weekend, that he would make the 59-man World Cup train-on squad to be announced the next day.

At this soiree was the well thought of Lote Tuqiri, who either called or received a call from Wallaby selector Michael O’Connor. The conversation, either naturally or directed by Tuqiri, soon found its way to the topic of Peter Hewat. O’Connor, obviously comfortable with his fellow Judas, launched a verbal tirade on Hewat, subtly noting that Hewat would not play for Australia while he is a selector. Tuqiri, obviously in high consideration of the feelings of his fellow Waratah, thought it would be most amusing to put the conversation on speaker phone.

This is the same Lote Tuqiri who sold out the game who made him a star. This is the same Lote Tuqiri who then sent rugby league clubs on the run around to boost his own bank balance and ego when his contract was up for negotiation. The same Tuqiri who scored one solitary try all season. The same Lote Tuqiri who turned up so fat to a pre-season camp that he was sent home. The same Tuqiri who pushed a teammate in the middle of the Sydney Football Stadium for making a mistake.

Hewat rightfully stormed out, was incensed when he was told he did not make the 59-man Wallaby squad and immediately demanded a release. Tuqiri nonchalantly apologized to Hewat about a week later with even the most stupid of fools aware of how much feeling Tuqiri put into the apology. O’Connor did same. And Peter Hewat was told that he would not be released by both the boys at New South Wales Rugby HQ and the ARU.

Melrose Place was not nearly as bitchy or vindictive. One has to wonder how Hewat escaped without having his eyes scratched out. There would be snotty little teenage girls with designer phones and a pole up their ass who would be impressed with such cat like behaviour.

How Hewat came to be punished in all this is impossible to comprehend by those who don’t understand the machinations of rugby politics in Australia. It is difficult to understand how the victim has been whipped while the perpetrators walk free, escaping sanction or punishment. But that is what happened. The old boy networks care little if their ends lead to public disapproval because it is in their being that they are better than the rest and therefore are often in disagreement. Bad press and nasty implications affect these faceless comrades none. When the die is cast…

So Peter Hewat, with no future, is being forced to play out the final season of his contract, preventing him from a fresh start and new beginning. Michael O’Connor has given answers to nobody and remains a member of the national selection panel. And that most famous street walker in Australian football will again be gifted an undeserving Wallaby jersey and monies well over his actual value.

There it is folks. Australian rugby in all its glory.

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