John Roughan: The brawl which became a moral pantomime

Members of the Kelston Boys 1st XV leave Eden Park after the rugby union hearing. Photo / Dean Purcell

Who would be Prime Minister? Every Monday afternoon you come down from the weekly cabinet meeting to face a theatre of reporters hungry for something fresh to start the week.

At the meeting you've made a mental note of a few things to mention: progress on legislation, a state visit confirmed, one or two innocuous engagements in your diary. But you know they will give these no more than a polite hearing. Then they will hit you with anything.

"Prime Minister, do you have a comment on the incident that occurred in the Auckland secondary schools rugby semifinal on Saturday?"

"Prime Minister, what's your view on eating dogs?"

And during the split second available for thinking in front of a camera your personal instinct surrenders to your public position. John Key said there was no place for violence in sport, at professional or school level.

"I think it brings the game into disrepute, it discourages people from being active in sport and it's the wrong message to youngsters," he said.

If that sounds carefully rehearsed, it probably was. Political leaders hire former reporters as press secretaries to tell them what questions they are likely to be asked and help them compose anodyne answers.

They caution them against candid remarks like, "My advice to Keisha is stick to acting", and have them make grovelling amends for a comment that everyone knows would have been delivered with a disarming grin.

Prime Ministers are not alone these days in the art of suppressing common sense and reciting acceptable cant. The Rugby Union employs media staff for the same purpose and even the All Black coach and players are taught safe talk.

When these things happen nowadays it is hard to find a person in public life who when asked can say, "Well, it was pretty ugly on television but let's keep it in perspective. They have let down two fine sporting schools but those boys will grow up soon."

If Key had said something like that to his press conference the next question would have been, "Are you saying you condone the violence?" Headlines have no word between condone and condemn.

So nobody dares say, until too late, that this was just a brawl? The players were punching, they were not eye-gouging, spear-tackling, shoulder-charging, elbowing, kicking or raking in places that can do real damage.

There are many things that can bring rugby into disrepute; this was not one of them. This was capable of causing bruises no worse than you legitimately acquire in a match.

These sort of all-in eruptions used to be common. They have largely disappeared in the professional era. The reason is said to be television though I suspect the pride of professional players goes deeper than their obligations to the game's image.

Niggly players don't keep the respect of their peers. You see this on TV when someone hangs on to a jersey after the whistle, or needlessly lands on a try-scorer. There is visible dignity these days in the non-retaliation, often acknowledged by the offender.

The real injuries this week were done to Auckland Grammar School and Kelston Boys, though it was refreshing to realise their principals had not been tutored in safe-speak. Loyally they each blamed the other's team, and were duly hammered for it.

They weren't to know on Sunday that the incident would be on the front page for four days, playing out like a one-sided moral pantomime before an audience that finds a continuing fascination in its absurdity.

When forums of public discussion are dominated by excessive shock and dismay everyone blames the media. But the truth is, news editors have a low boredom threshhold.

The school rugby brawl would have been dead by Wednesday were it not for interactive news websites nowadays. They give editors a handy and often surprising measure of continuing interest.

The fact that a story is being read, though, says nothing about what is in the readers' heads. Maybe they share the horror that permeates almost all reported remarks, or maybe they don't.

It is possible people follow discussions such as this one in amazement that so many seem to feel more strongly than they the do. Not many would be moved to write to newspapers or online discussion threads. They don't want to defend the violence, they just don't think it was that serious.

They probably don't think the Prime Minister and others in public life think it was that serious either, not really. They are saying what they think they should.

So the pantomime plays out until it produces a conclusion as absurd as suspensions which, for the Kelston players, run into next year. That's when we wake up to the damage safe speaking can do.