Could O’Driscoll be right, when love is blind?
OPINION: Could New Zealand sports fans be so colour blind they can’t see failings by athletes in black, yet little good in those clad in (let’s say) gold and green?
Pyschological studies indicate the answer to that question is yes, but they can’t help it; being a sports fan gives you a deep emotional investment in the outcome of something ultimately quite meaningless.
If love of black sends us blind, we’re not alone. For the Irish green is great, for the English it’s wonderful white, Aussies cherish gold. They too are, if not blind, abjectly shortsighted.
So if All Blacks prop Owen Franks puts his hands on the face of another player, to the sports fan it’s more about the colour of his jersey than his act.
A fan clad in black and one with a Wallaby hat presented with exactly the same evidence, are emotionally inclined to view the incident differently, psychologists would argue.
To one it’s an outrageous act of unpunished thuggery, to the other there’s nothing to see here, move on whining losers.
So thank god for match officials, who at least should be impartial. And they found Franks, not noted as a dirty player, had no case to answer.
Cue complaints about favourable treatment for All Blacks from across the world, one from Irishman Brian O’Driscoll, the talented centre invalided out of the 2005 Lions tour after a nasty spear tackle from Tana Umaga and Keven Mealamu.
O’Driscoll, a veteran of 133 tests for Ireland and eight for the Lions, said the Franks incident ‘‘makes a mockery of citing. If nothing comes of this it’s a farce’’.
If sports fans on the stuff website are representative, many feel O’Driscoll should get over himself and stop whining about the tackle that destroyed the most important tour of his life.
So his comments were not taken objectively, and probably were not made objectively either.
Fan reaction is in no way indicative of sporting justice. Howling louder doesn’t make you right. Calling someone a whinger for complaining after losing smacks of a closed mind.
In New Zealand sport is akin to religion, with beliefs that have survived down through the years. Fans quick to label O’Driscoll an 11-year whiner could well be the same ones who argue Bob Deans was robbed of a try by Wales in 1905.
Other aspects of Kiwi sporting faith to be accepted without question: it was clever of Andy Haden to dive out of a lineout in 1978, so Brian McKechnie could kick the winning penalty against Wales; Susie the poisoning waitress cost us the World Cup in 1995; we would have won the World Cup in 2007 had English referee Wayne Barnes spotted a blatant forward pass by France; Aussie Quade Cooper is a villain who beat up on Richie McCaw.
How much of this you believe depends on your level of indoctrination.
Just don’t expect worshippers of green, gold, red, white or blue to hold the same beliefs. And they could be the ones who are right.