The 2006 Rugby Union Handbag Controversy and media exaggeration in sports
The Rugby Union is a fairly innocuous sport where not too many controversies surface. In a list of controversies that have plagued sports in the last few years, only a few can be attributed to the sport of rugby. However in 2006, one of the strangest and
funniest controversies took place in New Zealand and it turned into a huge problem for all those involved. It was also an example of the exaggerated sports reporting that can sometimes be seen from time to time. This interesting incident needs to be explored
as well as seeing why sometimes the media can resort to exaggeration to get their message across in the world of sports.
Controversies in Rugby Union or the sport of rugby are rare but they do still occur. The most recent one to occur was the Bloodgate scandal in 2009. It involved the English rugby team, the Harlequins and during the scandal, a player faked a blood injury
to be replaced because the team had run out of substitutions and this was the only way they could get a replacement on the field. The doctor who cut the player’s lip was charged with bringing the medical profession into disrepute and the former director of
the club was given a three-year ban and the club was fined a lot of money. But an older scandal was a lot stranger and harder to understand than the Bloodgate scandal.
In 2006, what looked like a bar brawl in Christchurch, New Zealand, former All Black captain Tana Umaga borrowed a lady’s handbag and proceeded to hit another player on the head with it. The player, Chris Masoe who was hit, was allegedly attempting to hit
a customer at the bar and Umaga stopped it. The force of the strike apparently broke the lady’s cellphone inside her handbag. After the incident, Masoe was fined $3000 and was reprimanded for his actions.
This was not the end of the story though; it turned out that it was not actually a bar brawl but the rugby players were simply engaging in a little drunken fun and it was all light-hearted antics that they were taking part in. CCTV footage of the incident
revealed that Umaga had simply tapped Masoe on the side of his head and it was in jest that he did it, not to stop a violent attack.
The media’s portrayal of the incident was heavily criticised because they had blown the whole thing out of proportion and made a big deal out of drunken antics. Then later, an advertisement appeared on television showing the All Blacks rugby team performing
the haka holding handbags to make fun of the handbag incident. This ad was also criticised by the All Blacks team and their assistant coach, Wayne Smith. It just showed that sometimes the media can get out of hand when reporting on sports and they can be influenced
by a heavy bias. Well the story ended with that particular handbag being sold for $22,800 in an auction.
The media has been in the spotlight before due to biased and exaggerated sports reporting. A study in America found that local city newspapers will often exaggerate any news item about their home team winning and will play down every time their team lost.
This has been condemned by sporting organisations and the fans as trying to glaze over the truth and not giving the whole picture to sporting fans. The good news about sports should not be the only thing highlighted and the media has a right and a duty to
be unbiased at all times. A lot of the bigger media outlets, newspapers and sports television channels are good at keeping an unbiased view of whichever sport they are reporting on, but sometimes the smaller ones can become victims of personal bias and hometown
bias as well.
Even though the handbag scandal of 2006 was blown out of proportion, it showed us how media bias and exaggeration can colour the news items and information we get about our favourite sports team and sporting events. It could also be the case that the 2010
Commonwealth Games held in Delhi suffered from a little bit of media exaggeration in reporting how bad the conditions were at the event. We should all learn to filter out the exaggerated and biased news when it comes to sports reporting.
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