The air is becoming a little thin on rugby’s moral high ground. First the Welsh decide to heckle their own kicker, then Twickenham Man decides to drown out the New Zealand haka with his tuneless rendering of ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ – an Oklahoma slave anthem that has about as much as in common with English patriotism as the bonus sixth verse of La Marseillaise – and finally, referee Nigel Owens discloses that he is considering quitting the sport over rising levels of homophobic abuse from the stands.
We might wonder whatever happened to the supposed gentlemen’s code, invoked so often in rugby that the game almost strangles itself with its own sanctimony.
For the sport’s fundamental differentiation, from which many of its disciples derive such a palpable sense of superiority, is the fact that it is not soccer. That it is not about play-acting, but real courage. That it is not about prima donnas, but team-work. And that it is not about cretinous chants against opponents or officialdom, but about equal respect from supporters towards the victors and the vanquished…………….. see more at :- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/international/england/11228527/Rugby-union-crowds-have-lost-the-moral-high-ground-they-are-as-abusive-and-xenophobic-as-football-fans.html
