I can handle honest cock-ups in sport as well as the next punter. But I'm dammed if I can cop this curious practice which has taken hold in professional rugby and rugby league.
You'll see it time and again in Super Rugby or the NRL: a player makes a mistake so he raises his hand in a mea culpa moment to his team mates. That's the signal for a succession of team mates to rush in with a variety of bum slaps and "there, there" hair tousles. This is so blatantly a bit of hocus pocus dreamed up by team witch doctors (aka sports 'psychologists') to impart a dose of bro-love for the errant player.
It's interesting to analyse this football sorcery. If a player "gives himself up" as the perpetrator of a schoolboy blunder varying in degree from lost possession to (the most serious) a conceded try, his self-incrimination can trigger a range of "never mind, she'll be right mate" reactions from his team-mates. First, there's the matey slap on the back (translation: check your number here next week pal, because with that cock-up you'll be riding the bench).
Then there's the buttock tap (translation: don't mistake this for encouragement, I'm just lining up your backside for a kick up the arse if you do that again).
In between there's a variety of low-fives and vocal exhortations feigning forgiveness by the annoyed team-mates. And there's the head-rub (translation: haven't you got a brain in there, you idiot?).
