Super Rugby snowflakes

Best-selling author and YouTube sensation Jordan Peterson will be in the country soon to promote a new book, packed with tips such as "stand up straight with your shoulders back" and "pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient".

His message is simple yet confronting.

"Life is in truth very hard," he writes under Rule 6 of 12 Rules For Life. "Everyone is destined for pain and slated for destruction. Human control is limited."

David Brooks of The New York Times said the Canadian "is offering assertiveness training to men who society is trying to turn into emasculated snowflakes." Douglas Murray of The Spectator put his appeal down to "an uncommon reluctance to genuflect before the hastily assembled dogmas of our time," while another wag opined it was about giving teenagers "a vision of life which rests on heroism and spirit rather than gender pronouns and chlamydia".

Though his Australian shows are sold out, I'm sure Rugby Australia could find the time and money to hear his views on why it's important to "toughen up, you weasel".

Not 10 minutes into the opening Australian Super Rugby fixture on Friday night and the Red's captain is sent-off for an innocuous use of his shoulder. A yellow card soon followed, taking the team down to 13 players. Game over.

I settled in Saturday arvo to watch the heavy-weight clash in New Zealand. At a crucial point in the match, Crusaders centre Ryan Crotty darts out of the ruck and is crunched by the Chief's flaker. A few years ago, the try-saving tackle would have been considered textbook, earning accolades for effort and initiative.

But not today. Though Lachlan Boshier made initial contact with the shoulder, his arm eventually hit Crotty's head.

In a world uninterested in nuance and judgement, where only technicalities assessed using slow-motion replay matter, the referee had "no option" but to yellow card Boshier and award the Crusaders a penalty try.

Again, the game was ruined, leaving the Kiwi commentator to lament: "Well, that's how it is these days."

You don't have to be a rugby or sports enthusiast to grasp what I am on about here.

The dimension of the game that gives it life, its heart and soul, is being consciously sabotaged by administrators.