Life after Joe- in search of beauty
Winning is beautiful. There were many beautiful days under Irish Rugby’s most successful coach Joe Schmidt.
72% win ratio and three six nations titles. This includes the Grand Slam of that glorious year of 2018. Remember that epic victory over the All Blacks to move Ireland to number 1 ranking in the world? Life with Joe was beautiful…
Well, there was that ending which leaves a sour taste. The World Cup in Japan in 2019 was far from beautiful. There were defeats to Japan and the All Blacks, but what disappointed us most was the manner of the defeats and even some of the victories! Ireland’s play was conservative, safe and predictable. This was nothing new. So it had been even in the glorious year of 2018. Winning it seems is not always beautiful.
Before the big Grand Slam game against England, in March 2018, Matt Williams said of Ireland, “I find it a bit boring, they are not a joy to behold. They are successful and have broken the mould for Irish teams. They're churning through it, but it's not fun.” At the beginning of the next year England defence coach John Mitchell used more colourful language, which amounted to the same accusation of winning by boring everyone.
Winning is not always beautiful. Winning itself is not enough. We want more. We all enjoyed Ireland’s success under Schmidt, but maybe for some there was a niggling irritation underneath about the style. Could we not be more expansive? Do we have to suck the beauty out of life?
In today’s world it seems success is all that matters. It doesn’t matter what it takes to get there. Pragmatism has sucked the beauty out of life. Matthew Syed exploring the connection between beauty and winning in sport writes, “In the conventional perspective, sport is about winning and everything else is subservient to that. In much the same way, business is about profit and all else must be shoe horned into this objective. This is what you might call instrumentalism: defining the bottom line goal and then working towards it.”
So, we long for something different. As new coach Andy Farrell approaches his first game there is hope. Could we see a more expansive style of rugby? Could Ireland play with more freedom and creativity? Could Ireland be more like Leinster?
Well, time will tell. We can rely on sport to provide us with many beautiful moments, but there are inevitably times when the ugly side comes out. Rugby may have prized itself on being more honourable and scandal-free than soccer, but the recent news about Saracens blatant and repeated breaking of the salary cap has surely shattered this myth. There is an ugliness to how the rules were broken and this was concealed. You could even say they have cheated their way to Premierships and European Cups they have won. In this sense they have won ugly.
So, as well as many beautiful moments, sport has its ugly side. As in sport, so in life. We look for beauty and may find it in the welcome and acceptance that is afforded, in our country, to a vast breadth of people. Yet we also see the ugliness of those who are homeless or those suffering because of our broken health system. If we’re honest with ourselves we know we are each capable of beautiful acts of kindness and ugly words or actions on a daily basis.
Our longing for beauty is found only in passing glimpses. CS Lewis says of the kind of beauty we find in books or music (or sport!), “For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.” Could it be there is a beauty to be found beyond the here and now?
The One, who seeing our ugliness, sent Jesus so we might see His beauty and be changed? (2 Corinthians 4.6)
What if His purpose in doing this was to transform us and display his beauty in our lives? (2 Corinthians 3.17) Not only to show his beauty to us but through us?
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