Early trips homes for athletes prompted by frenzies

When Australian captain Steve Smith is reduced to a blubbering mess over scratching a cricket ball, life has gone over the top into stupidity

Further to that, being sent home from a sports team seems to be the ultimate shaming.

We had it in Manawatu¯ in 2002 when 60-year-old Foxton Beach disabled bowler John Davies was sent home early from the Manchester Commonwealth Games.

His offence was worse than Smith’s, placing his hands on a woman volunteer’s chest after she had asked Davies the dimensions of a female streaker at the Games earlier in the day.

Davies’ triples team-mates, Manawatu¯ ’s Barry Wynks and Peter Horne, were unforgiving, because it meant they couldn’t play their final two pool games.

When Davies was sent home he had to face the media music at a motel on Fitzherbert Ave, Palmerston North. It wasn’t much fun for anyone there that day.

Davies had his detractors from then on and he eventually left Manawatu¯ to live in Tauranga, where he died in 2016. Aged 60 at Manchester, he had been New Zealand’s oldest Commonwealth Games competitor.

Another sent home in disgrace, from the 1972 All Black tour, was prop Keith Murdoch, who died somewhere in the weeds in Australia on Friday. Most say he should not have been dispatched, but Murdoch was one wild critter and could have ended up in court for his assaults on journalists and the Welsh security guard in Cardiff.

In the 1970s, thumping fellow props was part of rugby. We in New Zealand can be too quick to bestow legendary status on those of a thuggish disposition.

Had Murdoch stayed on in Britain, imagine the firestorm the media there would have ignited.

He wasn’t up to coping with the heat that would have greeted him at Christchurch Airport. At least All Black halfback Aaron Smith had the fortitude to put his head down and walk the gauntlet of microphones when he flew back from South Africa in 2016 when his airport tryst was blown out of all proportion.

Being sent home is not necessarily the end of the sporting road. Smith is back and well established. Springbok prop Johan le Roux was sent home after nibbling Sean Fitzpatrick’s ear lug at Wellington in 1994 and the Boks promptly reinstated him the following year.

Wallaby hooker Ross Cullen bit the ear of an Oxford chap on the 1966-67 tour, was sent home and never played for Australia again.

Steve Smith surely will, unless this episode blows him apart mentally.

Those who knew little about cricket called for life bans, as if these guys were bowling hand grenades with the pins out. Ball tampering is endemic in international cricket and nowhere as serious as match-fixing, or murder.

Players have always been permitted to shine balls on their strides and yet that alters the function of the ball too, with no thought given to those who have to dry clean their whites.

It still begs the vital question about the Aussies; what grade of sandpaper was used?

Good riddance though to the feral sledger David Warner – even Australians have had enough of the cricketing reprobate. He was the epitome of the ugly Australian and seems to have taken down his captain.

Anyway, of far greater shame last week was the Manlywarringah NRL club being fined $800,000 for breaching the salary cap by $1.6 million and having some of its officials suspended. It was overshadowed by scratching a cricket ball.

Tourist attraction

The establishment that entices more tourists to divert to Palmerston North and spend money is the Rugby Museum.

About 13,000 visit each year, so it deserves all the local-body support it can get. The record attendance of 13,200 was set in 2011 when the city hosted two world cup matches.

The museum has been active for 30 years, but only 5 per cent of locals visit, against 15 per cent domestic visitors and a whopping 80 per cent internationals from all parts of the planet. Australians are No 1 followed by British and Irish and those from other European countries.

Many of the Aussies have New Zealand or family connections and return for nostalgic reasons.

The locals who do pop in are usually hosting visitors.

In February-march there were visitors from 40 overseas countries: Australia, Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, China, Denmark, England, France, Fiji, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Iceland, Israel, India, Isle of Wight, Japan, Latvia, Malaysia, New Caledonia, Romania, Singapore, Scotland, Samoa, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, Tonga, Uruguay, United States, Wales and Zambia.

Recently, there was a group from Tunisia, in north Africa, too.

Italian interference

Nothing should surprise us in professional boxing, such as who, if anyone, prompted the referee Giuseppe to separate Joseph Parker and Anthony Joshua whenever they got into a clinch in Cardiff on Sunday.

That was always going to benefit the home boy with the longer talons.