Rage fuels the rugby machine

Mere minutes had passed since the All Blacks had trounced the Springboks at South Africa rugby’s spiritual home. I knew it wouldn’t be good for my sanity. I knew that the healthier thing to do would be to put my phone away, switch off from all social media and disentangle from the white noise emanating from the disappointing result.

I couldn’t help myself. With the embers of that defeat still smouldering I opened up Twitter and searched for the accounts that I was certain would boil my blood. I was desperate to know what the New Zealand writer Ben Smith had to say. What evil entity was the South African journalist Mark Kehone shaking his fist at? Had Stephen Jones of The Times not already blocked me for having the temerity to stand up to him, I would have clicked on his account too.

Once the instantaneous hit had subsided, I went in search for more. I found friendly accounts such as Squidge Rugby and A-P Cronje. Not because I thought that they’d be peddling anger but because their popular takes are often a breeding ground for vein popping hot takes. Every accusation of bias, every instance of a fan blaming the referee, every incoherent, misspelled, frothing retort injected something deep into the lizard part of my brain and I couldn’t help but enjoy it.

I know it’s wrong. I know that I’m not adding to the discourse in a meaningful way with this column, but I know I’m not alone when I say that I find the virulent emotions that spiral out after the final whistle to be entertainment gold.

It is important to distinguish between the harmless and the harmful. Any personal attacks or jingoism can, in the modern parlance, go in the bin.

What I’m describing is junk food, not food laced with poison. This is bad for you, in a gross, indulgent, moreish way like a double cheeseburger with extra bacon. And, if we’re honest with ourselves, it is this rage that helps fuel the machine.

Rugby is a sport that evokes so much emotion as a consequence of the action that plays out on the pitch. Football is unrivalled in its ability to build tension. This is partly due to the low scoring nature of the game where a single goal can feel like the expulsion of a cork from a charged champagne bottle. It was Socrates, the great Brazilian midfielder, who once likened a goal to an “endless orgasm”.

Rugby is a different beast. Even boring matches are filled with scores of brutal body blows and acts of violence that would see participants locked up if they were committed in the town square. Every ruck, maul, line-out and scrum reaches into our psyche and prods our id, reminding us of the savagery that lurks just beneath the civilised veneer.

Oh sure, we can delude ourselves with the notion of ‘rugby values’, but this is a smokescreen. Ultimately we want to see behemoths clatter each other for 80 minutes. We want to see forwards grab each other and hurl diminutive backs as if they were medicine balls in the gym. This is what gets the blood pumping. And why should the end of the match see that burning urge for violence dissipate into the ether? Thanks to social media I can get my fix from those who know how to provide it.

Smith, Kehone and Jones are far from the only ones. There are countless accounts from journalists, commentators, former players, current coaches and regular punters who just know how to rattle your cage.

They don’t hold any real power. We’re perfectly capable of locating the ‘unfollow’ button on our Twitter app. But we don’t press it. We might not follow them ourselves, but we keep them there. Locked away in the kitchen cupboard like a secret bottle of whisky we pretend no one else knows about.

Why subject ourselves to this torment? Why do we help drive their traffic while emboldening them to say something even more outlandish and antagonising? Because we love it.

We’re so numbed to the infinity of choices that Netflix, Amazon and Uber Eats offer. We’re desensitised to the horrors in the world, the effects of our warming planet, the encroaching seas and the moral decay of our culture. Level with me here. When was the last time you thought about the war in Ukraine?

And so we turn to sport to yank us from the mundanity of it all. And we turn to those provocateurs to keep the fires blazing. We shouldn’t feel guilty. We shouldn't have to rage-scroll in shame. These agents of chaos add hype to the sport. You might believe that they turn people off this wonderful game but I’m confident they have helped generate interest just as much as those podcasters and vloggers who give us fuzzy feelings inside.

When the All Blacks meet the Springboks, I’m no longer just thinking of the on-field protagonists, of the coaches who edit hour-long videos on the referee, of the retired legends or the pundits I can’t stand. I’m now also thinking of the journalist who wrote some pithy column about a player I like and the team I support.

I’m thinking of Ben Smith. You may argue that this New Zealand scribe with a sharp turn of phrase is living rent free in my mind. You’d be right. He’s not alone. My mind is a multi-storey apartment complex that’s filled with numerous characters that make this rugby ecosystem a more entertaining place. And I make no apologies for that.