Rugby School in Warwickshire was founded by 16th century Englishmen, but slid into obscurity until historian and theologian Thomas Arnold became headmaster in 1828.
Over the next 13 years, Arnold reformed Rugby, which went from pariah pioneer to “model public school.” He was that rare man who dispelled all doubts, or never entertained one in the first place.
His guiding principle was that moral conduct according to the Decalogue was the core of education, indeed life itself.
Riding his religious zeal into a new concept of muscular Christianity and colonial masculinity, headmaster Arnold preferred his boys ignore physics and science, and instead focus on moral philosophy. He developed the prefect system, using his sixth-form protegees to enforce a rigid ethical order.
While the old man Arnold was focused more on morals than sport, the ethos he built ultimately evolved into the hotbed of organised schoolboy competition, and by extension the “very cornerstone of the British empire,” according to the father of the modern Olympics, the Baron de Coubertin.
As the Baron put it, the classicist Arnold “gave the precise formula for the role of athletics in education… playing fields sprang up all over England”.
Thomas Arnold and Israel Folau would have differed very little, were they cohorts, on eschatology, the veracity of the books chosen to be in the Christian bible, and possibly church governance – but Arnold would have probably been more circumspect on Twitter.
Still, the rules of conduct at Rugby School in 1835 would have borne remarkable similarity to Folau’s mis-Tweet.
Rugby School is also known apocryphally as the birthplace of rugby football, courtesy of a cheating soccer player named William Webb Ellis.
But in reality, the laws of rugby were a matter of custom, forever changing, and did not come about in one mad moment or divine revelation. Rugby evolved at Rugby, and meandered towards the game we now love.
The ball itself – our strange oval – was invented by a shoemaker at the entrance of Rugby School, who was kind enough to also invent a bladder and pump fit for the ball.
Arnold had a talented son, a poet named Matthew, who may have actually eclipsed his father in fame and did not inherit his dad’s extreme piety and reductionist certainty.
Matthew may have been more comfortable around the wondering, wandering scholar-athlete David Pocock, as they would downgrade four or five of the Ten Commandments to mere barbaric pseudo-morality touched with philistine fear, rather than God’s own edicts to guide our path today.
(AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
You may know the poet Arnold from his lyric masterpiece Dover Beach, which features a “darkling plain swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by night,” but importantly addressed the chaos of English thought life after Darwin’s voyage in these bleak tones: “For the world, which seems to lie before us like a land of dreams, so various, so beautiful, so new, hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help from pain”.
For the younger Arnold, the cure was a better culture: the best that has been thought and said in the world, or the humanities and liberal arts.
In a way, this duel between Christian headmaster Arnold and the doubtful poet Arnold is the battle still in the world, in rugby, and in Folau-gate.
The younger Arnold was a Pocockian chastiser, as much as his overbearing dad was: forever scolding the world to be smarter, more intolerant of intolerance. Both father and son thought carousing ruined health and manliness, and both were touched by melancholy throughout life.
Rugby’s greatest trophy – the cup that features the rule-breaking Mr Ellis from Rugby School – is won by moral teams, either of the Thomas Arnold-Israel Folau kind or the Matthew Arnold-David Pocock kind, often a blend, but to date, not a team with neither strain of morality.
In 1987, the All Blacks had strong moral characters Michael Jones fetching, Grant Fox kicking, Brian Lochore coaching, Sean Fitzpatrick hooking, and the Whetton brothers leaping.
This was not necessarily a religious group, in the main, but they observed the muscular morality inherent in both Arnolds’ philosophies.
In 1991, Australia won it all, and can you think of a bad bloke in that squad? Salty dogs a few, but honest as the day is long, and full of good hearts.
No team has ever prayed more than the 1995 champion Springboks, with only a couple of narcissists counterbalanced by all-time good mates like Joel Stransky, Ruben Kruger, Francois Pienaar, and Os du Randt, and they helped heal a nation torn asunder.
In 1999, the Wallabies did it again, merely by adding world-class nice guys like John Eales, Joe Roff and George Gregan.
(Nick Wilson/ALLSPORT)
In 2003, the ultra-committed Martin Johnson led a team full of likable lads like Jonny Wilkinson, Will Greenwood, Phil Vickery and Mike Catt.
In 2007, South Africa won again, with affable John Smit as skipper, plus yeomen Juan Smith, Danie Rossouw and Schalk Burger, as well as impossible-to-dislike joker Jaque Fourie, Bryan ‘Happy’ Habana, and the world’s best drinking buddy, Butch James.
We all know that the 2011 and 2015 All Blacks built their success around a no dickheads policy, taught by mental skills coach Gilbert Enoka and policed by the players themselves.
Nobody can put himself ahead of the team, even the coach, or show entitlement or bend rule, or act deceitfully in the dark, or being unnecessarily loud.
Here’s Enoka: “We look for early warning signs and wean the big egos out pretty quickly. Our motto is, if you can’t change the people, change the people.”
So Rugby Australia’s squabble over morals may not be as silly as it seems.
Rugby is a difficult game to master at every level because of the pain, the exhaustion, the technical skills needed, the combinations that gel or don’t, and the honesty it takes to stare into the abyss, or pull down a maul together, or get up on your goal line.
Michael Cheika has not always exhibited either kind of the encouraging moral fire needed to go to Japan, survive Fiji, stave off a couple of Home Nations, and turn the grand final into a good Bledisloe.
I am not sure Pocock can get there, either, but even his brand of morality is precisely what is being litigated by Folau-ism and Topou-ism.
Roarers will know better than me about how many dickheads inhabit the Wallabies change room nowadays, and whether previous dickheads have been retooled, but the overtly nice guys seem a bit rare.
Weight and speed and caps and accuracy and all, yes.
But is it also a bit of the “are you the kind of bloke I want a beer with, will you wee on me or the bar or the plants or the hotel carpet, and will you tweet me to hell?”
Just a musing.
sheek
Roar Guru
MaxP, I appreciate it is complex. I'm not denying that, even though it might appear I am. But I'm not into namby-mamby stuff. I can be empathetic, but there always comes a time when you must draw a line in the sand. I'm a big fan of the following saying by former US president Teddy Roosevelt, from about 100 years ago. It goes something like this: The best thing you can do, is make the right decision. The next best thing you can do is make the wrong decision, then correct it when you realise you are wrong. The worst thing you can do is make no decision at all.
Taniwha
Roar Rookie
Couldn’t agree with you more Sheek, well said. ”Being offended is subjective. It has everything to do with you as an individual or a collective, or a group or a society or a community. Your moral conditioning, your religious beliefs. What offends me may not offend you. Why can’t people have their feelings hurt? Why can’t people get offended and feel bad about ideas they don’t agree with. How you deal with that in your emotional world space is entirely your responsibility. No one can make think or feel anything I don’t want, and to think that I can blame someone else for the way i think and feel is a complete illusion”. The above quote is by Steve Hughes who in my opinion Australia’s best comedian. Those offended by Folau’s comments are hypocrites and beyond any reason. Pocock is free to preach his pagan climate religion to school children on behalf of radical organisations like Getup and the WWF. FitzSimons constantly insults and ridicules those with religious beliefs without considering the effect this might have on young religious people. Since when did sticks and stones become irrelevant?
MaxP
Guest
Not a rant. It’s me engaging in a debate with you. But let me lay it out plainly, as you’d say. People who generalise and make up names like “latte sipping lefties, inner city etc”, do so because it’s easy to suit their point of view by mocking those with a view that differs to theirs (admit it, when you use these labels you mean they are weak and out of touch with the real world). And by mocking, they feel that there is no need to consider the point of view and have a real debate on the issue. I really enjoy reading your posts when discussing rugby. You’re very knowledgeable and understand the game we obviously both love. But I don’t agree with your black and white view of this Folau issue. It’s far more complex than your plain speak suggests. Most of all, I wish this would go away, so we could talk about rugby.
sheek
Roar Guru
Harry, Well, at least you introduced me to Matthew Arnold.
Harry Jones
Expert
Thanks, T!!!
Harry Jones
Expert
Matthew Arnold knew. :)
sheek
Roar Guru
MaxP, I would try to reply sensibly here, but I really have no idea what your rant here is about. Sorry, I just don't get this.
MaxP
Guest
Gee whizz JJ. I hope I’ve misinterpreted what you’re saying. But I can say, with first hand experience of “ well placed bombs”, that no one wins from trying to resolve problems that way.
Rugby Tragic
Roar Rookie
When we be takes time to read this piece, I mean ‘really read’ this piece they will see the brilliance and skill that has been expended in its construction. Very good Harry, thanks ...
aussierad
Roar Rookie
Will Genia came out today, expressed he is "very sad" with Izzy's sacking. Hmm, didn't he throw Izzy under the bus which Raelene was driving? Hypocrite and Judas? With friends of moral fibre like this, who need enemies? Or maybe he was just embarrassed by the wallabies who with real moral fibres like Lukhan Salakaia-Loto, Sekope Kepu, Samu Kerevi ,Curtis Rona, Jacques Potgieter who came out and showed Izzy love.
Jibba Jabba
Roar Guru
I have not seen any comment from John Eales on the folau debacle, is he still a, board member and is he keeping mum because of that or does he have an agenda, like replacing Raelene Castle for example..
Jibba Jabba
Roar Guru
Just remember extremism and militant action get faster results than praying or wishing for a change .. hence the gays having to wait 2000 years when a few well placed bombs or whatever they had 2000 years ago would have achieved a far quicker equality - as i often tell my daughters and sister in law who was a militant feminist back in the 70s - women don't shout load enough.. they need to shout long and loud and they need to demand equality, as should every group that does not have equality. And never back down ...
MaxP
Guest
That’s one interpretation. But it doesn’t go far enough. This issue highlights the difficulty with morality. It’s entirely subjective and means completely different things to different people. At its most extreme, moral arguments were used to underpin fascism, as they do radical Islam. In most areas of public Australia we are completely comfortable with denouncing this type of moral argument, because it is hurtful. So, RA and their sponsors, have determined what their morals are (inclusion for all, but with specific mention of homosexuals for, in their estimation, they are a group who continue to be excluded in society), and Folau has decided he doesn’t want to adhere to that. That’s his right, but he doesn’t necessarily have the right to continue being part of the RA team. Just as I guess a gay activist wouldn’t be welcomed by his church.
MaxP
Guest
I do agree there are extremists in every camp. And when these irreligious gay rugby players start calling for the end of religion, I hope they will be treated as Folau is. There’s no place for extremism of any stripe in Australia. We should all respect differences and allow our fellow humans to go about their lives as they see fit so long as it is lawful
MaxP
Guest
The comment was clearly directed at you and the use of the lazy “latte sipping lefties”. Your presumption of the characteristics of the people who decry Folau’s social media usage is deliberately meant to be derogatory. Now that it’s not socially acceptable to call people “ po@fs” etc, the language of “latte sipping etc” is used to denigrate people who aren’t real men who understand the real issues of the world like you do. Now, because of the label you place on them, their views are not valid. And once you put this label on them, you feel no need to examine the issue at hand, because only you, who apparently doesn’t live near the city and drink your coffee with half a cup of heated milk, know what’s really going on. Now these labels are attached, you then reach for the long handle and see a gay conspiracy to end religion. Seriously? I’ve been reading all the media and the public posts, and not once have I heard it been seriously suggested that religion should be ended. What I do hear is: believe what you want Israel, but keep it to yourself because your words do some people harm, here today on Earth (not just down the track in hell). Actually more than that, believe what you want Israel, but if you choose to espouse those views we’d prefer you didn’t do it as the highest profile rugby player in the country. He had his chance at forgiveness from rugby last year but he persisted. And here we are. He’s showing his venality by fighting to maintain his contract, when previously he said he’d walk away to preserve his faith.
Carlos the Argie
Roar Guru
Of course! They are always considered together. Laziness is the only reason I used one only.
sheek
Roar Guru
MaxP, Funny you should end with ,"play the game, not the man". Who is that in relation too? Folau? Me? Both of us? Yeah, I get it. Shame on Folau or me playing the man, although I don't understand the connection you're making, but hey, it's okay for everyone else to play Folau. The truth is, we're all twisted, because we're stupid humans. You only have to look at all the stupid people who predicted a runaway Labor win in today's federal election.
sheek
Roar Guru
MaxP, Thanks for dropping by. Basically here, two wrongs don’t make a right. Gays have been persecuted for 2000 years, now they have same-sex marriage. But the gays have their own extremists who aren’t happy to just stop at same-sex marriage. They want to shut down religion, which is an irritant & embarrassment to them. Good luck to them on that one. Sometimes we just need to toughen up emotionally, or reacquaint ourselves with putting things into context. Folau can quote the bible all he likes. Why be offended by fairytales that aren’t proven? As long as he doesn’t threaten anyone or do physical harm, his bible orations are just another opinion. Suck it up.
Harry Jones
Expert
Yes, I was trying to discuss a “rugby morality.” You got it.
Harry Jones
Expert
I appreciate your kind words; and the fact that you dug to find my point. :)