OPINION: Gotta have personality to prance with stars

Anendra Singh
The quality of reality and game shows on telly is enough to drive me out of the lounge screaming, threatening to take up Morris dancing or cross-dressing.
But there's one thing about shows such as Dancing With The Stars, American Idol, The Apprentice and America's Top Model that appeals to me - how the audience, including me, is sucked into the euphoria of analysing the protagonists.
Did Suzanne Paul deserve to win the Dancing With The Stars title last week or were the public simply caught up in her luminous spheres of natural glow?
How about the cuddly American Idol Jordin Sparks? Did boy-band-looking Blake Lewis deserve to be in the final and was he or Sparks anywhere near Melinda Dolittle's class? Did model Melrose's bitchiness and cockiness cost her the final against CariDee?
If anything, these shows give us an unrehearsed glimpse into human nature.
If dancing was the yardstick, no one matched Megan Alatini. If it was entertainment value we were after then perhaps someone like Paul Holmes, moving on stage like a hobbit, should have won.
The fact is Alatini, like model Melrose, was swept away in her own arrogance.
The public voters instead empathised with the once upon a time poor little rich girl who, with the help of host Jason Gunn, laid bare the details of her cracked rib.
In Dolittle's case, she just didn't have the sex appeal even against a dweeb such as Lewis, while the publicly perceived affable and demure Sparks was an allrounder.
What has all that got to do with sport, then? Everything. In the sporting arena, talent alone is not enough to manufacture a superstar these days.
Behind that talent must be, by birth and quality, a personality - a glitter that channels a sportsperson's little flicker across the footlights, and the stadiums and terraces, and into that dark space where the spectators sit.
Talent and humility in doses are good but not always substitutes for a good personality. They certainly do have the power to open doors but it's often personality that becomes the wedge to ensure those doors stay open.
Like it or not, we are caught up in the cult of personality. The All Blacks versus France test match last Saturday is a case in point. There was no dearth of talent at Eden Park, Auckland, but where was the personality?
It appears somewhere in the northern hemisphere, playing in the top French competition, and still trying to break out of the Super 14 slumber.
Can anyone blame former ABs skipper Sean Fitzpatrick for watching soccer on the telly?
Camouflaging personality under the facade of "reconditioning", or any other such labels, is a recipe for disaster. It's pretty straightforward, really. If a sporting event or players lack temperament then they are doomed to fail.
Players such as Ma'a Nonu, Shane Warne, Shoaib Akhtar, Lasith "the Gunslinger" Malinga and Muttiah Muralitharan may have some technical shortcomings or have a history of courting controversy but they undeniably bring a lot of character to the game - eyeliner, handbag, dodgy arm action, blow-up dolls and all.
In rugby, while the think-tank is in the throes of doing what ever it takes to win the rugby World Cup, it mustn't lose sight of the personality traits.
What is it to New Zealand rugby to win the World Cup but in the process lose its soul?
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