Zac Guildford has been condemned for his drunken behaviour. So, why not the scores of other boozed young men?
There’s an ad on TV in which a hard case pulls up outside a country store and tells a local yokel about his day.
Not your average day, not by a long chalk: he’s had close encounters with a cyclone, a flood, a landslide, an active volcano and the biggest wild boar you’ve ever seen. It had flames pouring out its nostrils, full body armour and rocket launchers on its back, and it was riding a motorbike with a talking chimp in the sidecar.
In the festive spirit I’d like to offer the nation’s advertising agency creative directors a suggestion for next time they’re thinking of basing an ad on a tall tale or urban legend.
EXT. UNSPOILT PACIFIC ISLAND BEACH – DAY
A balding, middle-aged man with a swollen nose reclines in a deckchair. He’s wearing sunglasses, baggy shorts and a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Sixty’s the new … Sorry, I’ve lost my train of thought”, and clutching a tall glass containing a multicoloured cocktail and sundry vegetation.
MIDDLE-AGED MAN
(to camera)
You wouldn’t read about it. The missus decided we should celebrate my 60th in Raro, so we roped in some mates, jumped on the silver bird and here we are. Last night I was up at the bar at the local watering hole ordering another round of Tropical Knee Tremblers when this young fella burst into the joint completely starkers, pissed out of his skull and looking like he’d been dragged backwards through a rose garden. Without so much as a ‘how do you do’, he smacked me fair on the old snout, tussled with a couple of other blokes, then leapt up on stage and apologised. He looked familiar, but I was that taken aback the penny didn’t drop till someone said, “He’s an All Black.” I was still trying to work out what I’d done to deserve a poke in the snorer from Zac Guildford when he shot through and disappeared into the night with five – yeah, you heard right, five – women.
(chuckles ruefully, shakes his head)
The missus did promise it’d be a birthday I’d never forget.
Okay, Guildford’s freak-out was deplorable and rather sad, but everyone survived and no real damage was done. And let’s not pretend this incident, like Charlie Sheen’s experiments in self-destruction, didn’t have a funny side. (The humour didn’t end with Guildford being whisked off the island by a New Zealand Rugby Union covert ops team. Enter fellow All Black Cory Jane with what must surely be the sporting quote of the year: “If you’re walking around nude or something, it’s not the brightest thing to do it in the public eye.”)
Jane’s follow-up – that if Zac’s got a drinking problem, so do we all – was promptly kicked into touch by former coach Graham Henry, who revealed Guildford is “probably” an alcoholic.
Those who delivered furrowed-brow strictures on rugby’s joined-at-the-hip relationship with alcohol, and who detected bitter irony in Steinlager’s 25-year sponsorship of the All Blacks, should bear Henry’s admission in mind: the issue isn’t that Guildford is in an environment where alcohol consumption is accepted if not encouraged; it’s that he can’t handle the stuff.
Alcohol consumption is accepted if not encouraged throughout our society, but few industries impose protocols around it as professional rugby does. Every weekend our Sunday papers carry pages of photographs of shiny, happy people with a glass of wine or a bottle of beer in their hand. The sort of people who attend art gallery openings or charitable fundraisers mightn’t go hog wild in public when juiced, but I dare say they commit their share of private atrocities.
And Guildford didn’t get away with it because he’s an All Black: on the contrary, he suffered public humiliation precisely because he’s an All Black.
If he’d been Joe Blow, chances are he would have got away with it, odious harassment of the female triathlete and all. After all, scores of anonymous young men get away with similar behaviour every weekend.