David Leggat: Putting sport in proper context

Renowned Scottish sports writer Hugh McIlvanney once wrote that "sport is a nonsense. A serious nonsense, but still a nonsense".

You can read into that a variety of interpretations. Here's one:

Over the past few days, I'll bet Stephen Fleming has discovered there are more important things than captaining his country at cricket.

Yesterday's revelation that Fleming had surgery to remove a potentially cancerous tumour from his jaw is the sort of thing which puts sport into perspective.

He has captained New Zealand since 1997. He's played 96 tests and 245 one-day internationals. He is the country's most successful cricket skipper.

All that will have sunk away in importance when he got the news containing the C word.

The good news for a man in the prime of his life is it seems the lump was benign and Fleming will be back after the first two ODIs against Australia next week.

All Black prop Tony Woodcock headed home from Britain early this week for personal reasons.

Again, sport being put in its proper context: good fun, capable of raising spirits, of providing life-changing moments, able to make us feel good about ourselves, in some cases able to provide a good to exorbitant wage.

But it's rarely the be-all and end-all, something those who allow themselves to get hot and bothered over a game of sport should remember.

Take the reaction to Australian golfer Mark Hensby's spray at his compatriot Greg Norman this week.

He described Norman as unapproachable, having snubbed young Australians in American tournaments carrying his name and doing nothing for the game in his homeland. "Greg has never gone out of his way to help Australian golfers ... We all looked up to him," Hensby said.

"He isn't the easiest person to talk to," said Hensby, the world No 30.

Big deal. There's plenty of leading sports men and women of whom that could be said.

For all that, it's just one man's opinion, although perhaps his timing, on the eve of the Australian Open, was less than smart. But Robert Allenby, hardly a barrel of laughs himself, took the bait. Wearing his sarcastic hat, he foolishly responded by saying he "hadn't seen the Mark Hensby Holden Classic", a reference to an event which has had Norman's name attached to it. But we're digressing.

Jock Hobbs was poised to captain the All Blacks in the inaugural World Cup 18 years ago. Instead, he took the wise step when he got one too many thumps on the head, and retired a couple of months beforehand.

It would have been a tough call, but it was a smart career move. Talk about a case of completing the circle. It was Hobbs who headed the team which brought the cup back to New Zealand in 2011 for the first time since that 1987 tournament he missed.

Now Richie McCaw is the latest All Black to have every thump to his head subjected to close scrutiny.

Health and welfare issues in sport, especially those which carry serious repercussions, deserve serious consideration.

Boxing, of course, presents the saddest images. Muhammad Ali is only the most famous boxer to have suffered for his art. There are countless others who operated on a far less exulted stage who have been punished for their sport. Death or life-changing consequences can be only an uppercut away.

So we should wish Stephen Fleming a swift recovery.

And be certain, facing Brett Lee or Shoaib Akhtar and their 150km/h thunderbolts will seem a doddle compared to the last couple of weeks.