Jordie Barrett has seemingly escaped the wrath of Steve Hansen, who said that the All Blacks’ player is guilty of nothing, “Other than being stupid.”
We seem to like that trait in our athletes, so long as the stupidity takes the right form and does not run afoul of the current trend.
Barrett’s transgression was to be caught out in Dunedin in the wee-est of the wee morning hours in the week ahead of a rugby Test.
Hansen characterised the move by Barret as, “Not a good professional choice.”
Even we amateurs prefer to be abed at 5 am.
Hansen’s side was assembled in Auckland in the run-up to a Test with France at Eden Park.
Barrett was contrite in the way we expect our stupid athletes to be when they are caught. Following the earlier loss by the Hurricanes to the Highlanders, police were summoned to a flat in Dunedin when Barrett and one of his mates entered an unlocked flat, apparently in a case of all flats looking alike when certain conditions of sobriety are unmet.
Barrett claims he was not intoxicated and we are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on that one, but he and his friend had just made a visit to McDonald’s for takeaway, so his brain would not have been firing on all cylinders; that much is obvious, at least to us, where we enter a profound stupor each and every time we indulge in the cuisine found under the golden arches.
“I think everyone would agree it’s just a genuine mistake and one that could be made by any young person,” Hansen told Newstalk ZB.”The other mistake he’s made is he hasn’t been really professional in the preparation of this test match and we’ll have a chat about that and hopefully he’ll learn from both of those things.”
Hansen was a one-time police officer, so it is easy to assume that he has heard stories quite similar to Barrett’s on more than one occasion.