By PETER CALDER
It's hard to believe that anyone could feel moved to abuse All Black winger Tana Umaga.
The brilliance of some sports stars is sometimes hard to stomach when it's sauced with lashings of their conceit and self-regard. But Umaga impresses as almost painfully self-effacing, not to mention rather sweetly boyish.
So the suggestion that the spectacularly dreadlocked three-quarter might have copped earfuls of abuse on the streets of Christchurch on Saturday night as he celebrated the All Blacks' 25-12 victory over the Springboks seems at first to be improbable.
Jason Parker, the resourceful (some might say opportunistic) inner-city resident who videotaped Umaga rather the worse for liquor early on Sunday says the rugby star abused a young group of Christian breakdancers. The abuse was unprovoked, he says.
"I didn't see anyone abusing him [first]," he says, then makes the rather contradictory addition that "when people were abusing him it was after they said, 'There's Tana!' and he turned around and said: 'F*** off'."
But what has emerged in the past 24 hours makes it plain that the incident came towards the end of a night in which quite a few specimens of prime New Zealand male had hurled a mouthful at Umaga.
All Black manager Andrew Martin says separate calls by witnesses to the abuse - to the Rugby Union, a Christchurch newspaper and to him personally - have been "remarkably corroborative of each other."
"Unfortunately there is a rather ugly undercurrent to some elements of the New Zealand sporting public and it doesn't take much to have it emerge."
He was plainly thinking of the vituperation endured by the last All Black coach, John Hart, who was treated in his final weeks in the job and his first few weeks out of it not just as though he had singlehandedly lost the Rugby World Cup but as though he had set out to do so. Yet rugby fans now are watching a national side which is winning and winning well - and for his on-field performances Tana Umaga can reasonably claim more than his fair share of the credit.
So it's more than slightly puzzling that he should have come in for so much stick - including offers to engage in fights - on Saturday night.
Even late in the piece, Umaga seems to have been a pretty genial drunk. An off-duty staff member at the Coyote St Bar and Restaurant tells us that he "looked like he'd had a game of rugby and had a couple of beers" but wasn't drinking - much less very drunk - when he was there just after midnight.
When, later, he was twice refused admission (he was not thrown out) because he was too drunk to pass the bouncers' standards for admission, he reportedly took it in good part.
It's worth keeping it in perspective. Drunk he may have been, but he didn't assault anyone or break anything. And it's certain he wasn't the drunkest - or worst-behaved - person on the streets of the city that night.
Mr Martin agrees that sports stars who are role models for youngsters are under a form of noblesse oblige. But he won't accept that Umaga's teammates - Doug Howlett was with him most of the night as were a couple of Canterbury rugby officials - ought to have kept him in check.
"There is a collective responsibility for the way we behave, certainly, but it comes down to understanding our responsibilities on an individual basis and making sure we have the self-discipline to draw the line. Let's not hold three or four other people responsible for the actions of one or two."
Wellingtonian Ian Klinac, who set up a card table on Lambton Quay yesterday and collected, petition-style, messages of support to send to the player, doesn't think a lot of the noblesse oblige argument either.
"Not many people can say they've never made a mistake in their lives. Aren't we meant to learn from our mistakes, rather than being ridiculed and chastised for them."
Mr Klinac, a personal friend of Umaga, raises funds for Ronald McDonald House in Christchurch and says the winger is a "caring, kind and considerate person" who gives generously of his time to the charity.
Whether that entitles him to be publicly drunk is, to say the least, open to question. But if the experience teaches him nothing else, it should serve as a reminder that people armed with video cameras may be around every corner.
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
Latest from New Zealand
'The Effect' cast on new Auckland Theatre Company production
The Effect cast on the new Auckland Theatre Company production about love and sexual attraction. Video / Supplied