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.

Argue this point, however, and expect concerted resistance from the establishment, armed with its can't-be-argued-with talking point: "The safety of our players is an absolute priority."

Rule 8: Tell the truth – or, at least, don't lie.

If it was primarily about safety, sports players wouldn't be allowed on the field or court. The issue is balance, in the context that human control is limited.

Under Rule 11, Peterson describes watching children skateboard near his university. The kids didn't wear any protective equipment because that "would have ruined it".

"They weren't trying to be safe," he implores. "They wanted to triumph over danger. They were trying to become competent – and it's competence that makes people as safe as they can truly be."

Not only is a zero-tolerance ethos not our salvation, tighter safety rules are counter-productive.

The tackle from Boshier was absolutely competent, natural and without malice. Posturing that safety is the highest measure of success will likely increase the level of risk for players.

The supreme irony here, of course, is that Rugby Australia and other sports organisations remain utterly blind to the strategic opportunity.

In late-2016, Jordan Peterson was an obscure Canadian psychology professor. Now, he's an international "warrior of common sense", with huge commercial value and a rockstar social media following, touring to sold-out venues.

The tide is turning on political correctness, progressive identity politics and nanny-state regulations. As Brexit and the rise of Donald Trump confirm, people are tired of the establishment con game, the self-serving tail wagging the dog.

People want meaning, not expediency; the truth, not lies.

I'd hazard a guess 90 per cent of Super Rugby players consider safety overreach a negative. And I strongly suspect a serious majority of fans and grassroots players feel the same way about the snowflakery.

Yet instead of getting ahead of the curve by putting heroism and spirit before the need to control, Rugby Australia sanctions a second-rate product offering. A few neurosurgeons, lawyers, pious media hacks and overprotective parents who have told their private school headmaster little Angus won't be playing until "something is done" about safety, are not representative of your market.

Those clamouring to listen to and read Jordan Peterson are.