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Part 2 of an analysis of rugby fathers ....
The Friendly Diplomat
Friday night. You wouldn’t talk to the bloke in the pub like this if he’d just spilled a G&T over you because if you did you would end up fishing your teeth out from the bottom of your schooner of beer. You’re not stupid either. Your teeth are nice and shiny and after that painful root canal from two years ago you’ll make sure to look after them. No way you’d call the guy in the bar an Arsehole.
Change of scenes: Sunday late morning. The U13s are hosting The Ballbreakers. You really hate them. Remember, they kicked your butts in the first round, and you really thought that it’s all due to the Ballbreaker’s touch judge father. “Now if he hadn’t ruled …..”
But that’s ancient history, for today you’ll get another crack at it. And Boys, this is the grudge match! Go out there and show them.
But it’s not going so well, is it? It’s early in the second half. Your boys ran in a couple of quick tries early on, but they’ve been backpedalling since. The Perfectionist (above) has been counselling from his sideline office regarding missed tackles and dropped balls for the last 10 minutes, but all to no avail. Defeat is not an option here! Bloody Ballbreakers’ blind-side flanker there. You really wish someone broke his legs .He’s all over our backline like a rash. He’s a good player, mind you, in all fairness. But you’ll need to take care of him. Now, look – there he is again. This time he grabs one of your lineout balls.
“NUMBER 6 IS DOING IT AGAIN, REF!!!! “ Not really sure if that really was offside but you’ll be damned if you don’t have a go at the ref. And now he’s just flattened your halfback who wasn’t quite quick enough getting rid of that ball. ”Pick on someone your size, will you” – very original, isn’t it. I mean, look at the guy, a head taller than the rest, still 2 heads shorter than Mr. Diplomat.
Oh dear, he’s having a good run, charging through our forwards. Now, there, finally someone got him down…..
“Release the ball, you turd”
You’re the mother of this Number 6, or perhaps even you’re the father, or you are the legendary 2.05m/ 99kg Subbies’ Lock, and Number 6 is your favourite little brother. Say hello to our friend. Go up and shake his hand. Introduce yourself. Tell him, “Good morning, what seems to be the problem? May I help you? I’m Mummy Turd/ Daddy Turd/ Big Stinky Brother Turd.”
He’ll be delighted to meet the greater family.
The Straw Clutcher
Monday to Friday he parts his hair just slightly to the left and puts in a considerable effort towards producing the perfect comb-over. He’ll trot off to work where he will take his place in his remote cubicle, far away from the posh front offices with a view down to Centennial Park. All the other guys at work have long surpassed his stage of nothingness and nobodyness and have gone on to graduate from management classes and Personal Development courses that the company paid, and be elevated in their positions.
On the weekend the Straw Clutcher swaps his public servant comb-over and suit for some Nike Trackies and a baseball cap. His Holden Barina proudly bears the sticker of his son’s local Rugby team. He turns up to the game a bit earlier to practice passing skills with his son. The Straw Clutcher knows, by God, he knows. He just can’t crack it into middle management, not even after giving the company his all for the last 24 years, but his son will make up for it. His son is going to be a Wallaby.
There is plenty of clutching thin objects when the Straw Clutcher’s promising junior takes the field. Junior Straw has always been on the lanky side, and he’s just not bulking up. He’s easy pickings with his light weight, scraggly stick-legs, his tentative runs and shaky hands. Father Straw is looking beyond all that, he’s looking inside a secret place that nobody can see. He pictures his son running out at Homebush, running out in the green and gold, and to score that winning try one day. Where there is a dream, there is always hope.
It will be a long and rocky road. It might be like chasing the rainbow. But the Straw Clutcher never gives up. Go son. Pass it to him, he’ll yell, and then he’ll pray inside that this time, just this once “please don’t drop it”. It would make up for the week to come, the empty feeling when half of the floor disappears in the Management Meeting and you are left behind in your back-office cubicle.
Occasionally the Straw Clutcher can see some light at the end of the tunnel. If he just befriends the coach and manager, and after some schmoozing and courting, his scrawny son may get a run-on jumper. He can laugh in the faces of his adversaries; the next 60 minutes will be his moment in the spotlight!
Wyatt Earp
Wyatt is a committee member. He’s given the club years of his expertise and input. He’s the upholder of order and justice. All the other fathers are glad to have him. He says nice things to the boys after the game, and more importantly, he volunteers to wear the bright yellow, touch judge jersey each week – so unflattering to the figure - and he run the sidelines. Good on you, Wyatt.
Like his name sake from the OK Corral, he asks the citizens to surrender their weapons. “Please remove the studs from your boots, boys, so no-one gets hurt.”
Regardless whether the players’ fingernails aren’t quite forming a smooth crescent and potentially form a weapon in close body contact, or one of the shoulder guards don’t have official IRB approval – he will step in: Foul play, or playing for that matter, will not be tolerated. Wyatt has spent hours practicing the raising of the flag to indicate that he needs to report something. He will stand there, showing no emotions, no anger, not even if the head-removal attempt disguised as a tackle was just performed on his own son.
One has to play the game by its rules, and one will toe one’s line.
Wyatt would have been a real asset during the London Blitz. He would have rallied his fellow men to assign them with a task, but would not have allowed for anger, fear or desperation to take hold off people. Wyatt is like a rock, unshakeable. Conduct is one of his favourite words.
He is not afraid to rebuke parents - or their offspring - from either team if they overstep the mark and violate his fine sense of sportsmanship. For his unwavering political correctness and impartial approach he is well liked and respected.
Really, Wyatt is a pretty nice guy, bit of a pain in the bum. Just make sure you arrange for a distraction if your son happens to ruck somebody on the field or leans over in the lineout a bit far to snatch someone else’s ball. “Look, Wyatt, a distraction!”
If your son gets caught out, be prepared for a lesson that stretches from basic parenting skills to going through the rule book with all its by-laws, particularly Law 26: Foul Play.
The Strategist
The Strategist often brings a fold-up camping chair; he’ll take his place on the sideling and supplies teams with advisory comments all day long.
The Strategist is never short of tips and tricks. He’s like a tactical Rugby guide on legs. He is blessed with a beautiful resounding voice - some describe it as irritating - that carries well across the park. His incessant stream of coaching advice seems like Tinnitus, only a loud louder. It’s this attribute that makes him a popular match attendant with his own team and the opponents alike.
The Strategist is also known to have motivational attributes when he fires up the players. The Outside Centre has just taken up a crash ball through the middle, run 30 metres and taken out three defenders, but with his cool, quick thinking, and a holistic approach to attacking play, The Strategist will still yell at the Centre (who is still untangling his own legs from the defenders lying on top of him): “Get there, get there, Robbie, score a try”.
Come to think of it, “Score more points” is generally one of the Strategist’s most popular recipes for winning games.
The Strategist is not jumping on any bandwagon, let alone a coaches’ one. He has superior skills and reads the game so well. A ‘Game plan’ is a laughable concept to a Strategist. Just listen to him, he makes it up as he goes, but he does it very well. If the plan was “kick it behind the full-back”, you’ll scream at your team “run hard, run hard”. If the team identified a defensive weakness and decides to exploit it by running the ball, you will need to tell them all through the game to kick the ball. This makes perfectly sense.
It’s a bit peculiar that the team seems to be doing very well each time the Strategist is away with other work duties.
The micro- analysing Statistician
The MAS is a close relative to the Strategist, but he benefits from the wonderful concept of hindsight and being able to draw on facts lying in the past.
All games that this person has ever attended, from a friendly school match to the 1978 Bledisloe, they are stored away in the Statistician’s cerebral database. He has the ability to de-archive parallel case studies to the game you have just witnessed and compare these matches. He will then – again with the benefit of hindsight – conclude how the playmaking Five-Eight didn’t capitalise on a potential match-turning moment, or how the ball possession could rise to 51.03% if only we could acquire a couple of lineout jumpers. He will analyse how the second training session of the season, back in March, impacted on the Grand Final in September.
Most sentences will start with “Could have” and “Should have”, and the even more Rugby-savvy ones (read: former player) will alternate these with “Would have”.
Tragically, a few beers don’t improve this person’s interpersonal skills or range of topics that he feels comfortable conversing about. There is no remedy, just a coping mechanism or a learned way to endure this particular nuisance profile. Nod vigorously but whatever you do – do not disagree. You will lose this debate as you can’t back up your arguments with cold hard data. While the beers will not have a contra-effect on the MAS, it will have on you. So keep drinking and nodding, and make little affirmative noises every once in a while. Try to have an alternate dialogue going with the person standing on the other side.
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