I believe in good sports-man ship. I have shown this many times but I would like to focus two events. They are fairly big events. They are the school touch tournaments. There was one here in Kuala Lumpur and one in Jakarta at. And when these two events came it was time to test my sports-man ship.
During the 2010 touch tournaments I was playing against the “best” school Jakarta VS KL. We were in KL and the score was 1-3 to us. We were all playing our best and it came down to the last minute of the game to see who would win. All we needed was to defend and wait until the time was up. But it would not be that easy. Their fastest player was one on one with me and he was full pace against me. He was about to score and I dived out about to touch him and he put the ball down. It was up to me, my word against his. I thought, “He faked a touch and made us loose a try… what should I do?”… “Maybe if I let this go my team will be angry” Then something over came me. I knew that saying other wise would be like cheating and I am NOT a CHEATER. I spoke to the referee and said, “ I did not touch him- it was a try.” The referee said, “Thank you for telling the truth” and awarded the try. I felt good and we won the game anyway, winning first. I was lucky my team was not angry at all. Just happy we won.
My next trip away was to Jakarta where we played our game undefeated. It came back down to the game again the score was all 3-4 to us and this time I was against another player the winger. He got a pass and I intercepted it. I had the ball and I hade a break away. I sprinted as fast as I could down the line to get to score the try. I was 10 metres away 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and I dived to score the try because I knew I was being chased I was in the air and then bump I landed and scored…. So I thought. The winger claimed he touched my shoe even though he did not. This was so unfair. I got this feeling I wanted to complain but I didn’t for one of the most important rules of sport is not to ague with the referee. So I took in the lie and I lined back up, annoyed but I knew I had to let in go. The time came again and I followed the winger and dived to tag him and bump, but I missed…. I was shocked the reason for this was he moved last minute and I missed he scored the try. I was asked again did I tag him and I thought… should I payback the winger or should I tell the truth… because it was for the trophy and the referees had been biased… but I had that feeling. I knew my conscience would bother me if I did this. I told the truth and we got 2nd . I was happy but my team wasn’t but since I told the truth I explained to them, and they accepted it. We don’t want to win on a lie.
We ended up winning 1st place in the mixed pool for KL. our whole team was really happy that we got to go home with a trophy. So I believe in sportsmanship, in fairness and speaking up and telling the truth is much better than winning a false game and living with the thought of cheating in my mind and in my heart.
The End
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