Owen Farrell was sent off against Georgia. Photo / Getty
OPINION:
Rugby, it seems, just can’t escape the colonial mindset on which its global growth was built and on which the patent subjugation of the emerging nations continues.
It’s 60-plus years since the British Empire collapsed and yet rugby continues to govern itself in a two-tier system that is designed to preserve the power of those who have it.
It’s a system where narrative is all important because it shapes the thinking of those within it, and it’s the powerful and influential who get to determine the narrative.
And isn’t this how colonialism worked? The British built their empire on the power of their storytelling as much as the strength of their military.
They helped themselves to half of Africa, supposedly as the reluctant coloniser, accepting their “White Man’s Burden” of having a duty to educate and civilise the “Noble Savages”.
The narrative created a justification to commit all sorts of atrocities – which is what continues to happen in rugby today.
England’s captain, Owen Farrell, has somehow managed to escape any sanction for committing a head-high tackle last week against Wales.
On the eve of the World Cup, one that is being played in the shadow of a looming class action by former players suffering with brain injuries, rugby now finds itself unable to explain or justify how Farrell has been exonerated.
He was red-carded during the game – a decision no one queried because it appeared from all angles and at all speeds, he was guilty of the crime for which he was charged – technique malfunction.
England hired one of the country’s finest legal minds to defend Farrell at his judiciary hearing, in the hope that Richard Smith KC could mitigate the damage and negotiate the inevitable suspension to the lower end of the scale to enable the skipper to feature in at least part of the World Cup pool round.
But amazingly, Smith produced a miracle of convincing the judicial panel to rescind the red card, downgrade the tackle to a yellow card and leave Farrell free to play this week against Ireland.
Smith is being hailed a legal genius, which he may well be, but what saved Farrell was the embedded narrative that builds around the highest profile players from the most powerful nations.
Farrell is a recidivist offender, who has three previous convictions for high tackles and multiple other occasions where he has been fortunate to escape harsher punishment.
His tackle technique is suspect, flawed even, and seven years after earning his first suspension, he’s still prone to coming into contact upright, with his shoulder turned and his body braced for impact.
But the England captain continues to be protected by the narrative that he’s a competitor, a fearless leader whose tackling represents his desire and love of the game rather than a chronic failing that endangers those unlucky enough to run into him.
His teammates talk of his passion, his hard work to be technically proficient in everything he does and his warrior spirit.
He is portrayed as a selfless hero, guilty of nothing more than allowing his desire to win to sometimes get the better of him.
So too does he benefit from the colonial hangover of believing unconditionally in the regime, and that all those who hold office within it are bestowed with virtue and honour.
How deeply this colonial mindset pervades was illustrated when Wallabies coach Eddie Jones jumped to Farrell’s defence.
Australia may well end up playing England in the World Cup quarter-final – and yet Jones said it was good for the game that Farrell had been exonerated as the tournament needs the best players to be there.
His broader point about the best players was right, but his argument would have had more power if he had also mentioned the injustice of Tonga’s George Moala being suspended for 10 weeks for a tip tackle he committed against Canada.
But this is the other side of the colonial mindset, there’s a desire to unfairly crush those who don’t have the resources to defend themselves.
It’s not enough to win, there has to be some sort of humiliation handed down to those who threaten to get in the way of the powerful, and so Moala’s 10-week suspension is the equivalent of being jailed for riding at night without lights on his bike.
It was a bad tackle, but not outrageously so and given his previous clean record, a three-week suspension reduced to two if he attended tackling school, would have been an appropriate sanction.
But he’s been hit with this unjustifiably harsh punishment because Tonga, having used the change in eligibility laws, have amassed a World Cup squad that threatens the established powers.
And Tonga didn’t have the money to hire a leading KC to argue Moala’s case or try to dispel the equally powerful narrative that has built up around the Pacific Island sides over the years.
Ever since Western Samoa, as they were in 1991, smashed Wales all over the Cardiff Arms Park, a twisted narrative has been built about a lack of discipline pervading through the South Seas.
There’s long been subtle put-downs in the Northern TV commentaries about ‘recklessness’ and ‘naivety’, insinuations that the Island sides are talented but wild by nature.
The evidence is everywhere to say that Tier Two nations generally, but the Pacific Island countries specifically, are victims of a false but powerful narrative that they bring an intentionally reckless element to the international stage.
There are many egregious occasions when Island players have been demonised, none more memorable than when Samoan fullback Paul Williams was red-carded at the 2011 World Cup against South Africa for an incident that barely warranted a mild telling off.
And this is why a system riddled with unconscious bias can find mitigating circumstances to exonerate Farrell for almost literally taking Taine Basham’s head off, and reasons to be outraged and appalled at Moala for lifting Ben LeSage and then dropping him when he realised he’d tipped him marginally beyond the horizontal.
The Kiwi resumes his push to finish the 2024 season on a high.