HERE’S HOPING MORE SPORTS STARS GET ON THE HORSE AND SPEAK FROM THE HEART

THE past few weeks might represent one of the biggest turning points in sport.

Of all the many things to have occurred, the one we ought to cheer is the death of the mind-numbing sporting interview.

Death is probably a premature label, especially in the land of claptrap parading as PR, but we can hope.

Best of all is that it was our very own Siya Kolisi who got things started. There was no epoch-making speech, no pithy sound bite, but when he spoke in the aftermath of the Boks’ triumph, he went where no captain ever has.

He thanked the supporters watching in “taverns and shebeens”, watching on farms, and those too poor or otherwise desperate to even have a home, “and homeless people, there were screens there”.

It spoke to his own impoverished beginnings and was also a rare acknowledgement of people who are often invisible, living hard-scrabble lives on the margins. And not a cliché in sight.

Where Kolisi was articulate and earthy, you’d have to go a way to beat England’s Joe Marler in the bonkers stakes.

Eddie Jones, the England coach, keeps his players on a tight leash around the media, effectively turning them into muted personalities. So Marler’s off-the-wall interview on TV last week was a treat and a reminder of the virtue of letting players speak their minds.

Take it away, Joe: “I wasn’t hurting as much as the lads who were out there but I definitely felt it and I know how hard the boys have taken that. They will be disappointed with the account that we put out but we have got another week to get back on the horse. And take that horse to the water, and you can ask that horse, you can say, ‘Hey, horsey, do you want to have a drink or do you want to swim?’ It’s up to that horse to then realise what he wants to do in his life. That horse, at the moment, wants to go out on Saturday, he wants to clippity-clop all the way to The Stoop and he wants to say hello to those fans.”

Warmed up, Marler then got into character, imitating what the horse would say – it if could talk: “‘I’m sorry about the result last week, but I’m going to give a better performance here at home against Bath’.

He’s a slightly Irish horse. So we are looking forward, like I say, to getting back on that horse.”

Not surprisingly, the clip caught flame and was reported internationally.

Too bad Marler is at the wrong end of his career. He’s created fans for life with that performance.

And so to the European Tour’s DP World Tour Championship where Mike Lorenzo-vera added a touch of colour, saying, “I think we f***ed it up a bit with the choice of club on 18 … a bit too aggressive.”

There was an apology from the interviewer but not the subject himself. “I am French,” he shrugged.

You don’t want sportsmen dropping F-bombs all over the place, but it’s equally charming when they merrily go off-message and speak from the heart.

While clichés abound in the average sporting interview, here’s hoping that these three men have set a new trend for 2020.

That applause you’re hearing?

It’s from the fans.