We could’ve won it, and in some ways we did. Hmm., wait… the All Blacks players, coaching and support staff won. Some of the eN-Zed public won it too, but not all. The anonymous keyboard warriors who spent the last 18-24 months writing very nasty stuff about Sam Cane and Ian Foster and others… they were losers then and they’re losers now. Some of them called themselves sports journalists and were paid to sit at a keyboard and write their opinions – not quite what in the eold days we called journalism, but I guess it’s what we get these days, when news is funded by advertising corporates and the occasional government grant rather than paid for by readers/subscribers. The golden rule (the person who pays the gold makes the rules) applies. But enough about they keyboard nasties…
The All Blacks… I said it earlier… they are our modern-day heroes. Not because of their big hits, concussions and spectacular sprints down the sideline, but by the way they conducted themselves – with dignity and humility. Aren’t these what we were taught in the old days? To be humble and to be dignified. When you win, thank the ref and the opposition and the coaching staff. And when you lose, thank the ref, the opposition and the coaching. Because, whether you win or lose on the scoreboard, it’s what you take away from the game and the sport, what you learnt about yourself and other people… these are the reasons we play sport. Right?
So as much as Ian Foster could’ve said about the shoddy way in which he was treated by the NZRFU, as nasty as the ‘journalists’ were about him for about two years, for the many many immature, dullard social media posts about him… he walked away from the job saying how proud he felt to have been part of a team of heroes. Many young eN-Zedders would do well to learn from him.
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