At the precipice of a new season

By grapeseed / Roar Rookie

23rd February, 2017

The emotionally insecure and intellectually inadequate will tell you that sport is not art.

They pretend that the melancholic strains of Mozart’s Requiem stir the soul deeper than the lament of a beloved team felled in extra time of the grand final.

Others who clamour to consume the bland gruel of pop culture peak their snouts from the trough only to sneer at those who dress in team colours to yell, sigh, cheer and cry at a scoreboard.

Frozen in the sterile dark, watching computer images pretending to be people pretending to be more interesting people, they know only what it is to see distorted reflections of human truth.

We know the truth is that sport is warfare, religion, science and love.

It decants millions of years of evolution, laying bare the marrow that bonds you to your gibbon grandfather in the Sahara, with the shrew of the Cretaceous, to the single-celled organism swimming laps of the primordial soup.

For us, it is served in 80-minute intervals, inciting passion, inflicting pain, making us giddy, woozy, insane.

It is Quade Cooper’s cartwheel, Bernard Foley’s final kick. It is a Springbok nation united, a Black team sick.

It is praying for the foot of a God to hold up for the final, it is folklore wrapped in a boot.

It is mercy, redemption, deception and pain. It is beautiful, brutal truth.

It is trigonometry, geometry, physics, and chemistry. Poetry, drama, biology and history.

It is zero to ten, all in a second, and ten back to zero when the next moment beckons.

It is giants and gnomes, conquering dragons and thrones, inspiring the mild, the meek and the lame.

Purveyors of art, politics and science wish that they could mimic this game.

So what if your couch is the Louvre, the stadium your chapel? Let the cry of the commentator ring in your ears like the majestic C of a famous tenor, the lineout pod harmonise like a string quartet, and the Monday morning write up resonate like Hamlet’s soliloquy.

Here at the precipice of another season, perched on the couch with your son, in the pub with a mate, or under the stadium’s glare where humanity connects via invisible double helix, know the truth.

For it does matter, it is not frivolous, and it is important.

Rugby is awesome.

Dedicated to the memory of Dan Vickerman, Renaissance Man.

The Crowd Says:

2017-02-25T23:45:11+00:00

grapeseed

Guest

Thanks mate, I appreciate that.

2017-02-25T22:38:55+00:00

Brumby Bill

Guest

One of your best - but then they're all great...

2017-02-25T03:46:34+00:00

grapeseed

Guest

Thanks Digger.

2017-02-25T00:27:55+00:00

Ian

Guest

: ) Thanks GS, you truly speak on all of our behalf!

2017-02-24T21:23:51+00:00

grapeseed

Guest

Thanks, was going for superlative x 1000 to the power of a billion on this one.

2017-02-24T19:45:59+00:00

moaman

Guest

You stretch the margins with these pieces Grapeseed and I really appreciate that. Keep writing please.

2017-02-24T02:08:25+00:00

grapeseed

Guest

"Rugby is f'ing awesome"

2017-02-24T00:05:35+00:00

Ian

Guest

That's great work GS....I'd love to know what your last line was? Many from the arts world were also good rugby players and/or fanatical supporters: Richard Harris Richard Burton Lady Antonia Fraser Tim Finn Brett Whiteley Xavier Bardem Just a few....who knows of others?

2017-02-23T07:45:15+00:00

Fujimo

Guest

I'll have what he's having....

2017-02-23T06:57:27+00:00

JMB

Guest

Nice one. Here's to hopefullly a great season. Seeing Rebels and Blues at AAMI tonight.

2017-02-23T06:57:03+00:00

Republican

Guest

........as a Republican, my sneers will be reserved for the 'Royal Tennis' set GS......

2017-02-23T06:44:53+00:00

Digby

Roar Guru

This was great. Thank you.

2017-02-23T06:13:44+00:00

grapeseed

Guest

Thanks Sage.

2017-02-23T06:13:27+00:00

grapeseed

Guest

I think we should all just get together and sneer at those plebeian table tennis players.

2017-02-23T03:07:25+00:00

Sage

Guest

Well done grapeseed. Really enjoy your stuff

2017-02-23T02:06:44+00:00

Republican

Guest

Enjoyed your composition of philosophical metaphor very much GS. That said & at the risk of 'sneering' at the more deluded, I remain unmoved and firmly committed to expressing an ungodly, pretensious, 'antisport' sentiment......

2017-02-23T02:05:40+00:00

Republican

Guest

2017-02-23T01:39:26+00:00

grapeseed

Guest

Mum? Thanks!

2017-02-23T01:13:54+00:00

Passing by

Guest

I actually really loved this

2017-02-23T00:50:08+00:00