David Hill: Cup runneth over in TV excess

COMMENT

Nice to have the Bledisloe Cup back on the right side of the Tasman. It belongs here; the admirable Viscount B was our governor-general, not Australia's. How dare they plunder our trophy even if it is ugly enough to look at home in a Balmain pub?

Now we wait to see if the rugby World Cup (is William Webb Ellis Trophy the most ponderous sporting term ever?) joins it. I hope so. As well as being more prestigious, the World Cup is a slightly more elegant object, though its gold colour disturbingly suggests an Aussie jersey.

Most of us will see the World Cup on television only, of course, due to those New Zealand Rugby Football Union blunders that we won't go into. That's a pity: you miss so much when you don't watch a game in all its flesh-and-mud. You miss the cold, the drunks, the ticket touts, the parking problems.

I certainly won't be one of those screen-slaves who watch all 48 games. No, I'll pass up Namibia v Romania at Launceston, and Georgia v Uruguay at Woollongong - except for the highlights, perhaps.

As I watch most of the other 46 matches, I fervently hope that there are certain things I don't see or hear:

* Any performer singing any national anthem who closes his/her eyes in affected ecstasy.

* Australian commentators trying to pronounce "Umaga ... Rockocoko ... Muliaina".

* Players spitting on the ground. I know evolution is speeding up, but have rugby players really developed a new salivary gland in the past decade?

* Slow-motion replays of the how the All Blacks lost yet another of their own lineout throws.

* Children gesturing and gurning at the camera as players are interviewed. My disciplining hand itches.

* Adults yelling, brandishing beer-cans, thrusting painted faces at the camera as it pans past them. Remember that these images are radiating out into space, where intelligent extra-terrestrials may be preparing to pass judgment on our planet.

* Replays of Australians scoring tries because I hope they don't score any. (I don't need to worry about this with the English.)

* Too much designer stubble. The International Rugby Board should set a maximum ratio per team.

* Commentators who chortle at their own jokes. Are you reading this, Murray Mexted?

* More than four close-ups a game of prop forwards with bottom jaws exceeding 30cm in width.

* French backs pretending to have suffered a mortal injury.

* Interviews with members of the Australian public who keep bleating how they would sooner be watching "real footy" (They mean that Aussie rules stuff - men in patterned underwear deliberately knocking the ball on).

* Players jumping, climbing, swarming, piling on a team-mate who has just scored a try. This game has Anglo-Saxon origins, chaps.

* Goal-kickers who pray, meditate or practise golf positions before putting boot to ball. In the time that England's Jonny Wilkinson takes to line up a kick, one's children grow into adulthood.

* Cheerleaders. They evoke images of American political conventions, and we know how rigged those are.

* Up-the-nostril zoom-ins on players as they twitch and tremble during their national anthem.

* George Gregan holding a golden cup aloft. Please, Lord? It's not really much to ask.

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