Watching the winning Pacific Island teams over the weekend brought it home to me that our two rugby codes, league and union, are facing a challenge far fiercer than the carefully choreographed performances before kickoff, and that is the bash and crash big bopper boring 4-2 game result between Fiji and New Zealand.
Back in the day It may have had the crowds standing and baying for more blood in the Roman gladiatorial sporting arena, but surely not in a 20th century Wellington cake tin one?
Where are we heading in rugby when the team with the most tonnage in body weight and not the team with the most talent wins?
Sure, it was cooler than a cup of kava to see our bula brothers win, but at what cost to the long-term future of the game?
Is a tryless game where two teams cancel each other out by 220kg of flesh smashing into each other instead of stealthily running around your opponent now going to be the code of conduct for future World Cups?
Not only on the field but off it as well, there is a growing glamourising of the game, all based around the crash and bash and how the Pacific nations are in takeover mode of both union and league in Aotearoa.
The frontline of Facebook I looked at today was as concerning as it was edifying to why I deactivated my account three weeks ago.
Both sides of the cultural code attacking each other as to who will reign supreme from here on in, and most of it coming from the Tongan and Fijian fans proclaiming the days are over where they are not seen as autonomous in their own abilities to field a World Cup winning team.
My concern is this - if we continue to beef up our World Cup teams in league and it flows over into union, we will see a rise in boring low-scoring or no-scoring games, as was the case over the weekend.
There was no place for the little man to duck 'n' dive in the league matches as there was in the All Blacks vs Scotland game.
Will we get to a place where we have grades in our games, like back in the day as kids when we had to have the traditional weigh-in to see what team suited our level of safety, as they do in other sports like boxing and wrestling?
While some may say it's all about the big hits and "smash 'em bro", surely the joy of a good game is about creative attacking play as we witnessed by both sides in the Scotland game.
The Murray Field Brave Hearts took it to the men in black and 67,000 fans came away with wonderful memories of a game that danced, not crashed, across the pitch from one end to the other.
The contrasts in codes over the weekend was worrying for me as it should be for those in charge.
So to some of the vitriolic social media comments - "is this a taro takeover" from one side and "brains before brawn" on the other - somewhere in the middle is the media and the movie world who need to take ownership of the stereotypical picture they are painting of Polynesians, especially their big men in box office hits, adored by millions of kids who will want to emulate their heroes.
Will 'Ilolahia from New Zealand's Pacific Media Association said Maui had fallen victim to "typical stereotyping".
"Obesity is a new phenomenon because of the first world food that's been stuffed down our throat," he added.
We have entered a new unhealthy era in our great game starting now with league and, before too long, it will creep across to our other code union.
The days of a featherweight Damion Mackenzie dancing across our screens and linking up with the perfectly balanced Barrett boy could disappear quicker than last night's KFC takeaways.
broblack@xtra.co.nz Tommy Kapai is a local writer and best-selling children's author.
