GORDON LIGHTFOOT | Sport
A BLOODY DISGRACE
Local old boy and rugby enthusiast Ian McCarthy, 80, took a break from yelling at kids to get off his lawn and turned his attention to the rugby field.
Sporting an old swanndri and an FMG beanie, McCarthy unleashed a scathing critique of today’s rugby players, dismissing them as nothing more than “show ponies with their shiny boots and haircuts.”
McCarthy, who hasn’t set foot on a rugby field in decades, stopped next to a club level game happening at Trentham Memorial Park in Upper Hutt. He treated passers by to a long-winded rant about how rugby used to be a man’s sport, played by hard-nosed blokes who could take a punch.
“These young guys wouldn’t last two minutes in my day,” McCarthy grumbled, while exposing several gaps in his front teeth. “Back then, we had no headgear, no padding, and certainly none of this fancy gear they have now.”
As if his disdain for modern rugby gear wasn’t enough, McCarthy took aim at the players themselves, criticising their appearance with an impressive lack of self-awareness. “Look at that hair! It’s like they spend more time at the hairdressers than on the field,” he exclaimed, keeping his own bald head safely tucked under his beanie.
He then got on to the players’ boots, which he deemed too flashy for rugby. “Back in my day, we wore plain black boots and that’s it. Cleaned them after every game, but we didn’t have all these stupid colours,” he spat.
“It showed we were serious about the game, and not a bunch of pretty boys worried about their Facegrams and their Instabooks.”
As his rant continued, McCarthy’s audience of uninterested passers-by started thinning out, leaving him with nothing but the sound of his own voice. Undeterred, he continued his tirade, seemingly oblivious to the fact that nobody was listening.
More to come.
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