It seems that not only are the All Black’s management sick and tired of the ‘boys will be boys’ drinking culture of the top players in our most exposed and regarded sporting team, but senior players are too.
Allowing Jimmy Cowan to remain in the squad was the last straw for me. This is supposed to be our highest level of sporting service to the country. We should expect damn better standards from our players then what we are currently getting. Cowan, has been charged with two drunk and disorderly offences, and a third is pending. What kind of message does this send to our youth? With a team that focuses heavily on its ‘inspirational’ branding, this is a disgrace. And its not just Cowan Jerome Kaino has also been charged with a drink driving offence. Not to mention the off field antics of Tana Umanga, Ma’a Nonu, and an unnamed All Black who may be responsible for this assualt.
I’ve had enough in all honesty. Kick these people out straight away, to complicity condone this behavior by allowing players to continue in the team sends a very dangerous message to the All Black’s target audience. An audience, which in part, is no stranger to poverty, domestic abuse and assault. Now im not claiming that all rugby watchers are vicious louts, but behavior like Cowan’s certainly doesn’t help the good image of the game. There is a fundamental problem here, when you have respected players like Murray Mexted, going on camera and laughing off Cowan’s three alcohol fueled binges as just part of ‘growing up’ for a young man, and tells us that we should just laugh it off, we know there is a differing perception of what acceptable standards of conduct are. New Zealand society should not be celebrating moronic barabarism, and loutish thuggery, all in the name of ‘sport’. The correlations between sport and violence is already too high. We don’t need more Cowan’s to reinforce the problem.