The unbearable pain of rugby humiliation

Until last weekend this was my rugby credo, borrowed from Messrs Simon and Garfunkel rather too long ago: ‘I am a rock, I am an island. And a rock feels no pain. And an island never cries.’

Since defecting my support of the All Blacks to the Wallabies circa 1978 – much to the horror of my New Zealand family – my precious credo has served me well.

Sure, there were losses, but no more than I expected. I was a rock: I felt no pain, I never cried.

Somewhere along this rollercoaster ride though, I realised that the pain of regularly losing actually enhances the exquisite pleasure of winning just now and then.

In that sense, I concluded I was psychologically infinitely better off than those poor wretches who slavishly supported the All Blacks.

Imagine winning and expecting to win just about all the time? It would be like becoming addicted to cocaine or ice; burn holes in your mind. Worse, it no doubt made the pain of losing almost unbearable and leads to grief counselors being called in, which actually happened after the French thrashed New Zealand in the Rugby World Cup 1999.

I also suspect over time, the ‘Winning Syndrome’ could possibly send you crazy. Look at what it has done to Donald ‘I’m a Winner’ Trump. Mad as a maggot.

But after Saturday night I am stymied. My inoculation against the pain of losing seems to have passed its use-by-date. As a result, I am suffering the worst rugby pain I have experienced in 45 years.

I’m gutted, a hollowed-out old guy. In short, today I’m utterly munted. Wrecked. Totalled. My dreams and hopes are putrid mud in my mind. I want to spontaneously vomit in corners.

As I say, I can usually take a Wallabies loss in my stride. I’m quite used to it, pretty well inured to the pain of it. But last Saturday my darling Wallabies were just bloody awful. How could it be?

As it turns out, I know the answer. It’s not easy to admit this but I, Eljay, take full blame for what happened in Sydney last Saturday night.

The reason? I murdered a chicken in cold blood on Saturday afternoon. Her name was Feathers. She was formerly a magnificent chook, an ISA Brown. She was reliable, laid an egg almost every day for some six years.

Sadly, a few months ago she started slowing down. Her comb lost its vivid red pallor and her undercarriage began dropping. Her eyes became watery. In human terms, she was probably 100 years old.

Last Saturday morning I found her immobile in the chook house, stranded near the small pile of eggs her daily companions had laid, wanly, wistfully staring at them. She had chook cancer.

I’m a former farm boy. My job from the age of five was to feed the chooks and collect the eggs. As I grew older I was taught how to kill them, pluck them and gut them. In my time I killed perhaps 1000 chooks. I either chopped off their heads or wrung their necks. Thought nothing of it, as you don’t.

The cows were usually sent to the abattoir when their udders dried up. I killed the chooks; Dad killed the sheep by cutting their throats and shooting the pigs.

Let me tell you that a pig does not die quietly when you shoot them at close range right between the eyes; they sit back on their haunches looking at you in accusation, screaming. Sheep are far more compliant, lambs to the slaughter.

Watching Dad kill a sheep every fortnight or so for our table was something of a ritual for us kids. In further hindsight, we were ignorant little ghouls, not least in waiting for the money stroke when he sliced through their jugulars, sending a crimson geyser up into the air. For good measure, he would then bend their heads further back over his knee and snap their necks.

I had no option but to put Feathers out of her misery last Saturday. I told my seven-year-old son that her time was up and that I was going to, had to, kill her. He wanted to watch, but I firmly sent him inside to wait until it was over.

Watched I’m sure by Feathers, I then dug an easy hole in the sandy chook run. I found a couple of bricks and placed one on the ground. I picked her up, laid her head on the brick and said to her: “I am so, so sorry, Feathers.” I did, truly.

And then, with the other brick, I smashed her head in. Twice for good measure, then gently placed her head-first into the hole and covered her over.

I felt terrible, sickened actually, because these days I hesitate to kill any living thing, flies and cockroaches, even rats.

Big Godfrey’s sixth rule: “Thou shalt not kill.”

That is the point of this. I killed on Saturday, and on Saturday night I was severely punished for it. Big Godfrey works in mysterious ways, he knew how badly I would take the worst Wallabies loss against the All Blacks on home soil in 113 years, he bloody knew!

In a metaphorical sense he put a brick to my brain.

So there you have it, fellow sufferers. You can blame it all on me. I am happy to take a bullet for the team, but to have it happen on that scale again in Wellington next Saturday might be taking it a bridge too far.

‘I am a rock, I am an island. And a rock feels no pain. And an island never cries.’ What bullshit!