Storm prop Nelson Asofa-Solomona and former Breakers guard Tai Webster. Photos / Photosport
Storm prop Nelson Asofa-Solomona and former Breakers guard Tai Webster. Photos / Photosport
OPINION:
Chris Rattue runs through the winners and losers from the weekend of sport.
LOSERS: All of us…
…if we turn on each other over Covid vaccines.
Kiwi league forward Nelson Asofa-Solomona, basketballer Tai Webster and a now mystery All White footballer are among sports people who have made perhapscareer-altering decisions to refuse the jab.
It can't be easy to make these stands because we seem increasingly prone to turning our fellow citizens into enemies, fuelled by the internet's ability to foster rage.
I've heard of splits in families and among friends over Covid issues to a degree unheard of - perhaps - since the heated debates around the 1981 Springbok tour.
Those tour wounds from way back did heal, but the internet world isn't all that good at letting anger subside.
Tai Webster was released by the Breakers this year for refusing the Covid-19 vaccine. Photo / Photosport
My take on it is this.
I've got two jabs in the pro-vaccination camp, but remain on the fence about the issue as a whole.
We can't allow a crisis to stifle free speech and other rights, such as a significant say about what we put in our bodies.
Maybe the more appropriate targets of our ire should include a food industry that has created a sick society overly vulnerable to pandemics.
We could look at our own behaviour and expectations around things like travel, which make the world so susceptible to such problems.
Big business performed miracles coming up with Covid vaccines so quickly. But a healthy dose of scepticism is advisable when assessing the dictates and behaviour of health departments and the pharmaceutical industry.
Groupspeak linked to profit-hunting is playing a massive part in the widely accepted, simplistic, and convenient health messages being jammed down our throat. Holistic health concepts are being squashed by narrow solutions.
Consider issues such as obesity rates and dependence on prescription drugs for a barometer on that subject.
On that very drug topic, look out for a brilliant Hulu TV series called Dopesick (or the book it is based on by Beth Macy - Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America) that brilliantly links boardroom behaviour with dreadful real-world ramifications.
WINNER: Ish Sodhi
Black Caps bowler Ish Sodhi (right) watches after India captain Virat Kohli skies a shot and is caught out. Photo / Photosport
Great to see a leg spinner play a big part in a Kiwi World Cup cricket victory.
I interviewed the personable Sodhi recently, and he reckoned leggies seem to get harsher criticism than other bowlers when things go wrong. Things went very right as man-of-the-match Sodhi claimed two major wickets - including Virat Kohli's - in the T20 win over India.
WINNERS: All Blacks
Wales were feeble. But you can only dismantle what's in front of you, and the All Blacks produced flashes of wonderful attacking class.
LOSER: Free speech
South African cricketer Quinton de Kock's stand against taking a knee at the T20 World Cup was heartening at first, then he apologetically backed down.
Forced group protest is not healthy protest at all in my opinion. I also suspect that sport has latched on to good causes for its own PR purposes.
Taking a knee, in the fight against racism, was a great step inspired by NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick who deserves to be regarded as a brave hero.
And sport can do a lot in the fight against racism.
But that fight shouldn't involve banning people who don't want to be part of it in that way, as the South African team threatened to do.
As for taking the knee - how long will it last? At a certain point, it becomes a numbing ritual and maybe even be a cop out which enables the really hard work to be avoided.
LOSERS: Warriors
Warriors recruitment guru Peter O'Sullivan has left to join new NRL franchise the Dolphins. Photo / Photosport
O'Sullivan joins league icon Phil Gould - who didn't last long as the club's special consultant - in walking out the door to link up with a rival club. And he has quit before the Warriors' off-season player hunt is even completed.
The Warriors actually gave O'Sullivan a lifeline back into the game in 2018, after he was deregistered by the NRL two years earlier.
"I've always been passionate about rugby league and New Zealand rugby league … the long-term goal is a first premiership win … hopefully in years to come we can get that achieved," O'Sulllivan reckoned when he got the Warriors gig.
Yeah, yeah.
WINNERS: England rugby
Believe it or not.
The more you read about Eddie Jones' methods and personality, the more you doubt the men's team have much hope of achieving success while the obsessive Australian remains in charge.
But the England women's demolition job on the admittedly rusty Black Ferns will help fuel a rivalry to give women's rugby a fillip.
WINNER/LOSER: EPL giants
A week is a long time in sport, as they say.
After crushing Manchester United at Old Trafford, Liverpool crashed back to earth with a draw against Brighton while United had a big win over Tottenham Hotspur in the weekend's English Premier League action.
The United win included a wonderful opening goal from the great Cristiano Ronaldo, whose longtime Ballon d'Or rival Lionel Messi is having a surprisingly tough time of it with his new club PSG in France's Ligue 1.
