All Blacks Dane Coles, Ma'a Nonu and Victor Vito took the Webb Ellis Cup to the bedside of Misiluni Moananu. Photo / Twitter
All Blacks Dane Coles, Ma'a Nonu and Victor Vito took the Webb Ellis Cup to the bedside of Misiluni Moananu. Photo / Twitter
This is a very tricky area, but I felt extremely uneasy about a photo of the World Cup trophy, three All Blacks and a dying man ending up in the public arena this week.
Firstly, a few confessions. I could be out of touch on this. I'm from an era in which privacy and dignity was viewed in a very different way. Social media has changed just about everything in that regard. Way back, and this is true kids, you could have a coffee without having to tell the world about it. I've also been in the media a long time, and have got a few things wrong. He who casts the first stone, and all that.
But it was a shock to see the photo of the World Cup lying next to Misiluni Moananu, a Poneke rugby club stalwart who was clearly close to death. In the picture taken at a Wellington hospice, he was surrounded by his father, Dane Coles, Victor Vito and Ma'a Nonu. They were smiling.
However this came to be, the image felt off-hand considering the tragic situation. There was some kind of disturbing subliminal message there, that sport, rugby, a World Cup victory, comforts all and is allowed to go anywhere.
It didn't comfort me at all. It felt as if the glory of sporting triumph was being sold using the impending death of a man. Misiluni Moananu, in the very advanced stages of cancer and unconscious, was in no condition to be comforted by what was happening. So was his pre-permission for the photo ever sought? Stars and trophies can do good work, but that good work does not always need to be splashed all over the world.
Enjoying success with his teammates might be a better way to remember Misiluni Moananu. Photo / Facebook
An avalanche of intrusion into the most private areas of life feels unstoppable when it comes to this point. The public's periscope is everywhere.
I really do not want to be writing about this because it might add to grief. Then again, those closest to Misiluni Moananu have chosen to put this into the public arena, perhaps influenced by the All Blacks' aura. It was very disturbing and others I know most certainly feel the same way.
***
Olympic silver medallist Nick Willis is pure gold. His precise yet emotional contribution to cleaning up world athletics is an absolute credit to the man.
The 2008 Olympic 1500m silver medallist casts an intelligent and revealing light on the dirty world of track and field every time doping comes up. He calls on athletics leaders to be open about the rotten parts of their sport, and is prepared to lead the way.
Willis is the final thread to a long line of exceptional Kiwi runners, and is doing his forerunners proud. Based in the States, he is always available to state his case. He wants to restore a sport, so it can bring pleasure to future generations.
This week, he told me of the extraordinary lengths that honourable athletic nations such as New Zealand go to in trying to do the right thing. For every IAAF test he submits to, Willis does four at the behest of New Zealand Athletics, who must engage foreign testers to do the job. He and other clean competitors have long competed against cheats who go to even greater lengths to profit on the sly and take their sport the dirty way.
The big fear is that the cheats, aided by amazing science, will always be one step ahead. One day, the line between genetics enhancement and performance enhancing may blur things to a point that drugs become irrelevant. But however fast the current cheats are sprinting, our middle distance track star doggedly chases them all the way.
***
On Sonny Bill Williams' decision to give his World Cup medal to an English boy...it was SBW's medal so he had the right to do whatever he liked with it. Those medals are given to the players, not the country. (Muhammad Ali threw his Olympic gold medal into a river.)
At first, I thought it was a bit of classic SBW grandstanding, but in hindsight it was probably more an impetuous act. And why not? It's only a trinket. SBW is a hard man to pick, because his career is littered with some fairly selfish acts yet there seems to be a generous heart underneath.
'There's nowt so queer as folk' as the old English saying about personality complexity goes. You can say that again. For a country which fell in love with right wing dogma over socialist leanings, it's a bit odd getting steamed up about a man who gave something he owned away. Maybe he should have sold it.
As the New Zealand cricket team teeters on the brink against Australia, the prospect of our most shy and humble sports star, the one and only and utterly but quietly brilliant Kane Williamson, taking over the captaincy comes into view.
How such a withdrawn man deals with the job is going to be fascinating. He will become our greatest batsman, and we all know that will involve a biography coming out one day. Good luck to the book's author, and those trying to get Williamson to agree in the first place.
