The uncertainty we crave

A pandemic can cripple sport.

The essence of our game is convening at the place: tramping the ramps to the Cake Tin with Rugby Tragic and Diggercane, slathering a Highland Burger with mustard in a mob of hairy Scots at the sheds outside Murrayfield, packing into a tramcar with the drunks and libertines of Clermont, the waft of the brewery next to decaying Newlands, sitting on a wet bench in Galway to watch a relative debut for Connacht, or preparing for the match as a nervous No 8 in my first representative Province jersey by upchucking breakfast into the loo while teammates bet on my stomach’s contents.

Every melee is infectious, each tackle a closing of distance and a violation of space, as is every spit by the goal-kicker, all mauls and almost every try celebration.

We do not know when we can return. We have quarantined rugby as we have locked down the rest of the world; 99 per cent are shut in to find and help one per cent. But who can say when our stadiums can open, and the tuck shops resume their chilli dogs and vinegar-soaked chips.

When we can quarantine the one per cent? When might that be?

And what can a four-fifths economy support? Is gladiator leisure the right look? Can a four-nation, three-continent league survive at all? Will the diaspora of southern hemisphere talent return from fenced in Northern leagues?

Or will we all return to Currie Cups and such?

Timetables of return are as reliable as a delaying pilot’s first announcement once the engine light has flashed red. Will there be the will to file back into those chutes at Anfield or Twickenham? What would a second outbreak do to Super Rugby if it occurred, for example, in a perennial champion place like Christchurch?

Leonard Cohen was wrong. Nobody knows.

The strange irony about how much we despise the uncertainty of COVID-19 is that uncertainty is the bedrock of the joy of live sport as player or fan. The form sheet is tossed, the whistle blows and the ball soars into the rarefied air at Loftus or the Aviva. Nobody knows.

Will it be the ageing star fullback who spills it at the last? Or will he dance down the touchline and contort to confound the stubborn TMO? Which scrum picture will enter Jerome Garces’ mind? Which side of Elton Jantjies’ head will be shaved?

Who will inhabit fickle phenom’s Maro Itoje’s brain: angel or demon? Where will Bernard Foley’s radar reside? What colour of card will pantomime villain Tomas Lavanini enjoy?

(Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)

Who will make that crucial break? Which unfortunate soul will stoop to tackle Taniela Tupou? Which smile will Eben Etzebeth give his foe: the serial killer one or the maniacal rugby cannibal (same question for Michael Hooper)? Will Ben Youngs be Big Ben or a has-been?

Will it be a game of two halves? Will the centres hold? Will our set-piece creak? Will the passes stick? Will Owen Farrell use his arms? Who will be made to look like a fool by Cheslin Kolbe?

In the 70s and 80s, we relied on the radio commentators to tell us what was happening in games far afield; misty battles in flour-bombed places around the world. I remember an old Afrikaans guy who would hold us in suspense and play with our emotions as he reported the passage of a match-deciding kick.

“Naas Botha has built the sandy mound. He steps back, one, two, three steps. He bends. He looks at the ball. He looks at the poles.”

By this point, I was wetting my pants in the wee morning hours, by the fire, under a blanket.

“He kicks. It’s a beautiful kick. It’s outstanding. The ball is pretty in the air. It is the best kick ever seen.”

Wait for it.

“But he has hit the right upright!”

Wait.

“And it slides over anyway! Boks win!”

Give me this uncertainty back. I don’t want viral worry; but yes, yes forever, the incandescent doubt of sport.