Small Smart Boy Syndrome

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the need that New Zealanders have to prove themselves by excelling in sports that the rest of the world do not take seriously. I call this “small boy syndrome”.

A school playground is often dominated by a bully. A few crawlers hang around him and bask in his glory, but most of the boys are scared of him and stay out of his way. Often a small boy who is mocked by most of the rest of his group will go and give cheek to the bully, and then runs away and hides in the crowd before the bully can strike back. The bully does not chase after the small boy, because he is too small and weak to be bothered about. The small boy builds himself up as a hero among his friends, but most of the boys in the playground realise that he is just a small boy, and they expect juvenile behaviour from small boys.

Every now and then, the bully of the playground gets fed up with the smart small boy giving him lip, so when he comes near he grabs him and gives him a good thumping.

The small boy is out of the scene for a while, but once he is back with his friends, he starts yapping again. First, he has a whole lot of excuses for getting caught. Then he starts boasting about how he will outsmart the bully next time, and bring him down to the ground. But the other boys look at his black eyes and broken knees, and laugh quietly to themselves.

The nation with the "small boy syndrome" got a good thumping earlier this week, but it was not long before the excuses were being trotted out.

We had the best sailors and the best designers, but were beaten by Larry Ellison’s money.

They got assistance from Boeing Engineers.

They had a computer that controlled the foiling. We were beaten by their computer not by their sailors.

The rules cheated us out of several races that we could have won.

We are good sports, the Americans are cheats.

This is odd. We do not know how much money Larry Ellison put in, and Team NZ was sponsored by the Al Maktoum family from Dubai. We have quickly forgotten that the New Zealand sailors made several bad decision and mistakes that cost them a number of critical races.

Now the talk that will do better in the next Americas cup is building up.

Our sailors deserved to win the cup, so the government should pay for another challenge.

An America’s Cup challenge would turn the NZ economy around.

We are still behaving like the small boy in the playground.