I work hard to be ignorant of Rugby in a country that sees it as a religion.
I appreciate the skills required to kick and catch a ball, but for me, kicking and catching a ball was discovered shortly before the wheel.
I’m looking for more than ball catching and kicking skills for my downtime entertainment.
Art, philosophy, politics, writers and thinkers are more my thing, but you totally do you.
Our deep love affair with a game few others play while so much of our art and culture gets sidelined is eye rolling, but this is us.
I’ve grown to accept you all love Rugby and I will certainly watch an All Blacks test match with my mum because she loves Rugby too.
Bless her.
So I had no idea who Troy was and very little time for whatever bullshit spat he’s had on social media but I do have two insights.
Whenever the Hurricanes are mentioned, John Campbell’s eyes lights up like a child at Christmas and most people I respect love TJ.
If you as an owner of a Rugby team have pissed off those two in one hit, it’s probably time for a lie down and a cup of tea.
Troy is responding like any rich white bloke does on social media when challenged on something really stupid they’ve said but having to resort to, ‘I’m rich, fuck you’ is barrel scrapping at the best of times.
I was watching The AM Show this morning and Sir Ian Taylor, the person whose fairly innocuous comment on a cartoon he posted on LinkedIn started this ‘Maori loving leftist’ rant by Troy, said he didn’t agree with cancelling the Hurricanes nor attacking Troy as racist.
As far as Sir Ian was concerned, painting someone as racist simply digs in heels, he far preferred to say Troy’s comments were ill-informed and called on Rugby supporters not to cancel the Hurricanes and to show Troy the enormous diversity he is offending.
In the never ending cancel culture revolution policed by woke lynch mobs it’s nice that there is still space for kindness and reflection.
Meanwhile the planet is burning.
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Rugby’s following as a religion/obssession will decline. It won’t be quite as important because other more pressingly important things will take centre stage. For myself, your comments, Martin, are more important than rugby. Certainly more relevant.
I love rugby but there are dicks in some way associated with any sport or in fact any aspect of life (just as there will be with Martyn’s passions for “art, philosophy, politics, writers and thinkers” . . looks like our Martyn has become quite the ‘Renaissance Man’ since his ‘Bomber’ days)?
Hors d’oeuvre anyone?
The woke mob are out and won’t stop shrieking until they have their head on a pitchfork.
Rugby IS in decline!
Not only the numbers of players, but take Christchurch/Canterbury, that bastion of rugby who are in the process of giving the game a bit of a miss, too.
They plan to reduce their new stadium capacity by 30,000, down to 25,000!! Once upon a time, they could muster 70,000-plus to a big game of rugby. Not now!
Clearly they foresee the demise of yet another religious cult in NZ and are wisely planning accordingly.
I think Troy Bowker has had his head in too many scrums.
And while his head was in these scrums perhaps he is suffering from delayed concussion.
I thought Louisa Walls comments on RNZ this morning were gracious and very positive for such a divisive issue. And I think she was right in saying Bowker, who has been overseas hasn’t kept up with NZs rapidly changing landscape when it comes to Maori cultural issues but also issues around inclusiveness and respect for others. But in my view Bowker has been very disrespectful and is showing he is backward in his thinking. He is also acting unprofessional and he fails to recognize the significant contribution our people have made to the game of Rugby and other aspects of our lovely country. For Bowker to say, an ‘insipid cancel culture’ isn’t that exactly what happened to Maori. Our language was banned for 50 years with many of our elderly having it beaten out of them, our lands taken mostly by the pen (legislation) and our entire history eradicated, as if we didn’t exist and then there is us being treated like second class citizens, the statistics don’t lie. And to make matters worse everything Maori was dumbed down, saying our language has no economic or social value yet that is not what many tourist say. Is this not insipid cancel culture but not on our part but our colonizers and the many other immigrant families like Bowkers’ family that came here for a better live but have forgotten where they came from and why they came in the first place. Bowker saying he is very rich and so he can say what he likes just adds further fuel to the fire and is feeding into the frenzy of white privilege resulting from assimilation an integral part of colonization.
I agree Martyn. Don’t cancel the guy. Do what Sir Ian Taylor is doing…..dialogue with him.. That’s how you really change hearts and minds.
Dear oh me, Trevor Mallard……..what can I say????? How many times have people called for him to resign….
Perhaps people are now incapable of mounting reasoning arguements………….thats why the cancel?
Totally agree. Reasoned arguments are met with scorn, personal abuse and demands that you leave the echo chamber you have entered.
I respect Ian Taylor a lot, especially since he’s the one being insulted. I’m not as gracious as he is in the face of such blatant Trumpian assholery however. I won’t even watch the Hurricanes while he’s got anything to do with them. Yeah I’m “cancelling” the fuck out of him. My choice.
Askshully people like Bowker with an attitude like his turn people of the game of Rugby, no wonder so many younger people are no longer interested. And I don’t see myself as woke in fact that is not even a word it is a made up saying used by people who don’t like hearing the truth or being challenged.
Troy Bow Wow Bowker and individuals of his ilk (older white not very clever self-entitled males) will, like the bully boys they are, label me a woke snowflake from the cancel culture.
While I congratulate T J Perenara and others for calling him out I don’t think Bow Wow should be cancelled entirely because even though his comments are disgusting they say more about who and what he is including his own pathetic insecurities and lack of intelligence so the he more he says in defence of himself the more of an idiot and laughing stock he makes of himself.
His sycophantic cronies will support him but in my eyes he becomes the ugly face of New Zealand rugby – something to be despised by the rest of us.
I didn’t say it wasn’t Verity but so too is anything essentially that involves anything other than doing fuck all . . also have seen that stadium is back up to 30,000 so maybe that decline is not quite as rapid as you would like it to be.
The problem with using unoriginal terms is that your comments inherits some of the baggage associated with that term. Also unpleasant similar terms such as those used in the deep south of the US more than a century ago are brought to mind. He was also guilty of “playing the man, not the ball”. If he had used a more original term such as “self-serving fake ethnophile” or “flying a ‘woke’ flag of convenience”, he would have made his point without evoking terms that he may not have wanted to be associated with. Some of the responses to his post have been far worse than his original post, by the way.
most kids play football these days – 1st XI holds more mana in many schools
As for Ian Taylor – heard him speak on it the other day on RNZ – total legend – doesn’t give fools like Borker any thought and moves on to more enlightened folk – young people.
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