Sometimes your pride is worth fighting for

FRENCH NOTES:Many years ago I learnt that some things in life are worth using your fists to protect and if pride is a sin then I am a sinner, writes MATT WILLIAMS

THE PUNCH that Jack Mullins threw was an absolute beauty. It made that unmistakable sound of a fist thrown in righteous anger, smacking into the flesh and bone of a human head. The young face that was punched contorted, jolted and crumbled. That punch was thrown amongst a heady mix of youth, testosterone and male pride. The result was an all-in brawl on the rugby field.

The brawl was a long time ago. I was captain of my under-15 team at St Patrick’s College in Sydney. We were a very good age-group team. We had only lost one game in three years. That day we were playing Scots College, a rugby nursery that has constantly produced Wallabies over more than a century.

Yes we wanted to win but that did not cause the brawl. Pride was our sin. The Scots boys were constantly calling us “Rockchoppers”. That is a particularly derogatory Sydney term for Catholics. It is related to the first convicts being mainly Irish Catholics who were forced to quarry stone at what became known as “The Rocks”. No one in our team had ever heard the term before that day.

In the break in play prior to the fight I remember calling the team into a huddle. My father later told me he thought I called in the team and instructed them to start a fight. I actually asked “What’s a Rockchopper?” There were a lot of blank faces. Our big secondrower Jack Mullins summed it up pretty well. “I don’t know what it means but I don’t think it’s anything good. Let’s bash them.”

As captain I don’t remember agreeing to this, but I also don’t remember disagreeing. They were teasing us and bullying us with taunts. It was on our home ground. We were going to have none of that. We were too proud for that. We had all bled too much for our team. We all trusted each other like brothers. We had great pride in our jersey. We had pride in ourselves and our results. We had the sin of pride.

Jack Mullins had unknowingly followed the Sun Tzu art of war philosophy to a tee. He made battle on the ground of his choosing. The next lineout.

He struck with great surprise. A wonderfully delivered right to the jaw. He had support and troops ready to continue the fight after the initial attack. All 15 of us dug in.

There was blood on both sides.

I am not encouraging young players to fight. It is wrong. Both the Scots boys and my team were young and silly. I am just telling you what happened. Thankfully no one was badly hurt that day. However – and I know this is politically incorrect – and I would be lying if I did not say this: it was also great fun. To this day both teams remember the fight.

The referee blew the pea out of his whistle and teachers ran onto the ground as we punched each other as hard and as often as we could. We got some good ones in and we took some very good ones back.

After the melee I remember looking up and seeing two men I still idolise, my headmaster and my coach standing next to my parents and thinking, “That is not good.” My parents were stony silent for the first few moments of the car ride home. The silence did not last long . . . “you embarrassed your parents, disrespected your opponent, brought shame on your school, let down your coach . . .”

Finally they asked why did we start the fight? “They called us Rockchoppers. What is a Rockchopper?” There was a silence. My father explained the term to me. Something changed in my father’s eyes. I saw a glimmer of pride behind the admonishments.

In the headmaster’s office with our coach, the team stood on the carpet as I explained the Rockchopper taunt. The two Christian Brothers looked at each other. For an instant it was there in my coach’s eyes. Pride.

My headmaster wanted to know who started the fight? He was not a man to be lied to and I was in a dilemma. I was not going to give Jack up and could not lie to the Boss. The short silence was broken by an old friend named Ross Creighton. Ross emailed me this week. The email triggered this article. Ross’s answer taught me a lot about being part of a team.

Ross simply said, “We did.”

Yeah, we did it. Not Jack but us. We fought. We did it. We all got into the fight. We were happy with that. We did not like our pride being kicked so we stopped the taunting by starting a fight. And what was worse for my poor old boss we were not in the slightest way sorry.

The boys who stood in that office are still a team to this day. We are older and greyer. We can’t fight any more and we rarely gather as a group but there is a lifelong bond between us.

The Boss said and did all the right things but we could tell his heart was not in the punishment. We knew deep down, as politically incorrect as it was, he was proud of our spirit if not proud of our actions.

I learnt then some things in life are worth fighting for.

Some things in life are worth using your fists to protect. Fighting for your family. Fighting for love. Fighting for your kids. Standing up to and fighting sectarianism. Fighting and protecting justice and simply fighting for your mates. If they are not worth fighting for what value has life?

Rugby has taught me to be proud. I have pride in my clubs and the men I have played with. I have pride in the men I have coached. I have pride in my professionalism as a coach. I have pride in my race.

I look for proud men when I recruit players. I look for proud men when I recruit staff. I encourage young players to wear their jersey with pride and as I say to “get a bit of pride about yourself”. Sometimes your pride is worth fighting for. When I was a boy I followed Jack into the fight because of pride. If pride is a sin, than I am a sinner. I am not arrogant, I am not bigoted, I am not gluttonous, I am not slothful but I am proud.

By the way, Ross reminded me in the email, we won the fight and we won the match. I am still proud of that fight and the win.