When is cheating okay?

“Wally punted a line dropout!”

“He did what?” I yelled to myself.

I was listening to a conversation between Queensland State of Origin great Gene Miles and Andrew Moore of the ABC on the radio. Miles was telling a story about how his Captain, Wally Lewis, (during a state of origin match that was so wet that drop kicking was almost impossible), instead of doing a legal drop-out, punted a ball fifty metres right under the nose of the referee. That was back in 1984. Not a soul noticed. Forty years have passed since then, and still very few had cottoned-on.

I wonder how he managed to pull that off?

I can just see Wally pointing at something off in the distance in that driving rain and saying, “Hey Baz… (talking to Barry Gomersall, the referee), what’s that over there?” right before punting it all the way to the halfway line when the ref looked away.

Now that is cheating at its magnificent best. How could anybody object to such outstanding trickery. They didn’t call Wally the king for nothing.

We don’t cheat!

Miles’ story started me thinking. Most of us aren’t all that fond of cheating. We Aussies are very quick to point at opponents who we suspect have used devious means to gain advantage. Look at the Australian swimming team. How they love to wag the finger at enemies from all over the planet who have been caught with their snouts in the performance-enhancing-substance trough. They are equally quick to claim innocence when one of their own has been caught out, up to similar tricks.

No. We don’t cheat. It’s not in our nature.

But, come on. Sometimes… occasionally… cheating is okay. Clearly, Wally’s little cheat is fine. Brilliant, in fact. So what other forms of cheating are all right? Under what circumstances is it okay to bend the rules just a teensy bit? Let’s take a look at this important question.

Wally’s cheat would have to be categorised under the “so firkin outrageous that the cheater deserves to get away with it” rule. It’s one of my favourites.

Some time back, jockey, Sylvester Carmouche, in a one-mile race at the Delta Downs, took advantage of race-day being foggy when he pulled up his horse two hundred metres short of the finish line. The thing was, the race had only just started and he was meant do a whole lap more to complete the mile race. Instead, he waited patiently in the fog until he heard the galloping feet of the other horses who were now completing the full mile coming up behind him. He, then, kicked his mount into action, and charged down the final two hundred yards to achieve a great victory.

Brilliant! A deserved victory in my books. So off the charts crazy that no-one should object to it. Unfortunately for Sylvester, the stewards didn’t see it that way. Americans have no sense of humour. They refused to accept that her could possibly have won the race by twenty-five lengths and ruled that he had not run the full distance and was guilty of fraudulent behaviour. Poor old Sylvester copped a ten-year ban from racing. Never would have happened in Australia.

“I was only joking!”

Fred Lorz did something similar in the 1904 St Louis Olympic Games marathon. After the first nine miles he was absolutely buggered, so he pulled up for a rest. Unable to go on, his manager/coach loaded Fred into his car and gave him a lift for the next eleven miles. Fred, now recovered, jumped out of the car and happily strolled into the stadium to the adoring cheers of the crowd. He was awarded the gold medal for his heroic run, of course. He was even congratulated by the First Lady of the United States of America. Fred deserved his win. It was an act of cheating so audacious… so bold-faced… that only a complete ratbag would deprive him of his medal. When Olympic officials eventually discovered that Fred had not actually run the Marathon, they, unfairly in my view, declared someone else the winner. Fred rightly complained that they couldn’t take a joke.

Another category where cheating should be tolerated could be termed as the “when an act of cheating is so stupid that the cheater deserves a little sympathy” rule.

This rule came into play during the 2022 Lake Erie Fishing Tournament when one of the competitors stuffed the fish that they caught with lead sinkers to increase its weight. It didn’t occur to the wannabe champion angler that the judges might become suspicious when other fish of the same size and species weighed much less than his own catch. The judges, showing absolutely no compassion for the delusional fisherman, ruled his catch out of line and awarded him no prize despite his fish being by far the heaviest in its category. That’s not fair!

Chilean goal-keeper, Roberto Rojas, also warranted pity for his extraordinarily strange act of cheating in the World Cup qualifying match between Brazil and Chile in 1989. Chile would have been eliminated from the tournament if they did not beat the Brazilians in this critical game and Rojas (and his coach and captain) were determined that this was not going to happen.

Stretchered from the field!

Late in the match, with Chile down 1-0, a Brazilian supporter threw a flare into the Chilean goal. Rojas, as soccer players often do, threw himself on the ground and did an impression of a man who had been shot by a high-powered rifle. Bleeding profusely from a wound to the forehead, Roberto was stretchered from the field. The Chilean captain then ordered his team back to the change rooms. They refused to continue with the game owing to the dangerous situation on the pitch. They also demanded that they be awarded the match owing to Brazil being unable to provide a safe playing environment. This might have been close to reasonable if Rojas had actually been hit by the flare. He hadn’t. It didn’t go close to him. Video evidence showed Rojas cutting himself on the forehead with a blade that he had hidden in his keeping gloves. As a reward for his audaciousness (not to mention exceptional courage for his act of self-harm) Roberto received a life ban.

What? How could such treatment for his act of rampant lunacy be justified. Rojas surely knew that the game was being televised. The stadium was also full of tens of thousands of people who could actually see. The man (and his mates) were delusional. Surely empathy would have been more appropriate than punishment.

Then there is the “but the opposition cheats” rule. Surely, when one’s opponent cheats all the time then one is justified in bending the rules a little in your own favour just to even things out.

When playing any sport… especially golf… against Donald Trump, any and all forms of cheating are not only necessary but justified because you know that Donny is going to use every trick in the book against you. Fiddle with your score card. Move your putting marker closer to the pin. Throw the ball from the bunker (when Don can’t see you) rather than playing the shot. Kick the ball out of the rough when the big fella’s back is turned. Use illegal equipment. Place a green lifesaver under your ball on the fairway before you hit your shot. All of these are fair game against the Don.

Confused refs are fair game

One of my favourite examples of the “but they weren’t playing fair” justification came in an American college football game between the Colorado Buffaloes and the Missouri Tigers. This one also relied heavily on the “when the referees are so confused they deserve to be tricked” rule. The Buffs pulled a double justification in the one play! Late in the game the Buffaloes managed to score a touchdown on the last play of the game. That would have been fine… except that the touchdown was scored on the “fifth down” when, in American Football” teams are only allowed four “downs” to move the football before possession changes hands. After the fourth down, (when the ball should have been handed to the Tigers), the Colorado team rushed ahead with another play and managed to score. The touchdown was awarded, and the Buffaloes won the game.

When the Colorado coach was asked whether, as a sporting gesture, he might forfeit the game (because of the refereeing error), he argued that the Tigers had provided a sub-standard playing surface causing his players to slip and slide, so his own team’s little trick of playing on when they should have handed the ball over, was just a little even up. Too bad for the Tigers, was his thinking.

Another justification for cheating might be “the laws of the game are open to interpretation” rule.

The Melbourne Storm and Penrith Panthers National Rugby League (NRL) teams have been master exponents of this justification for years. Melbourne became famous for their wrestling in the tackle tactics to slow down their opponent’s play-the-ball thus enabling their own defensive line to organize itself. This was exploiting the referee’s lax interpretation of when they should declare that the player in possession is held, and the tackle is complete.

Penrith, in recent years, have used a similar ploy in keeping their opponents on their feet in the tackle and pushing them back towards their goal line even after the referee has called “held” to declare the tackle complete. Almost always, the referees reward the Penrith defenders pushing the rules to the limit, by making the player with the ball play-the-ball from where they ended up, rather than from the spot where the referee originally called “held”.

The justification for this form of cheating is simply “if the ref is dumb enough to let you get away with it, then it is your responsibility to do it, if it gives you an advantage.” I can’t argue with this.

As someone who played hooker in rugby scrums for over twenty years, I knew that every referee interprets the scrummaging rules slightly differently and it was my job to accept every advantage that the ref was willing to give me. I was a fast striker as a hooker… but I knew that being a fast striker was only part of being a good hooker and good ball winner. I was also willing to bend the rules if the ref was okay with it.

You don’t wait for the ball to land in the scrum

Back in the day, the scrummaging rules stated that a hooker could only lift their feet to strike for the ball in a scrum after the ball landed in the middle of the scrum, after it had been fed in by the scrum half. I, usually, would allow for my delayed reaction time by striking for the ball as soon as I saw the scrum half’s hands move, rather than waiting for the ball to land in the middle of the scrum. If the ref let me get away with this, I’d continue to do it. If I was penalized, I would slow down a fraction. Yup. I guess this is cheating. But it was also playing within the referee’s interpretation of what the rules allowed. If the ref allowed me to almost lie down in the scrum (in an attempt to get closer to the scrum half) when I was mean to be “in a position to give a forward shove” I would do that too. Cheating? Maybe. My rule was always to do what you could to gain possession for your team, within the bounds of what a referee will let you get away with.

Surely a little bit of pushing the edge of the envelope in relation to the rules is okay when the opponent is a complete bastard or completely unbeatable. Perhaps we could call this the “beat the mongrels at all costs,” rule.

Back in 1983 the New York Yacht Club had held the yachting trophy, The America’s Cup, for 132 years (including 26 Cup defenses). In fact, they had never been beaten. They had held the trophy for its entire existence. It’s not stretching the truth to suggest that the club membership believed that they would never be beaten… that they couldn’t be beaten.

Then along came Alan Bond (businessman) with a lot of money, John Bertrand (sailor) with a lot of skill and Ben Lexcen (boat designer and builder) with a very good idea. Together they created Australia II, the yacht that finally beat the “buggers” and ended their dominance of a sporting competition that had lasted longer than any other supremacy in world sporting history. Before the seven race final series the Americans had even tried to have the Australian yacht declared illegal (primarily because of its innovative winged keel) in the courts. They failed.

No-one cared!

Even after the final race was won by Australia II and the Cup was grudgingly handed over to the Australian syndicate, some questioned the propriety of the victory. Some of the membership of the exclusive club believed that the Australians had cheated. Their complaints centred on two issues. The winged keel itself was thought, by some, to provide the yacht, under certain sailing conditions, with a deeper draft than was allowable. This argument was secondary, though, to the suggestion that Ben Lexcen was not the designer of the magical keel which had, according to the cynics, been designed by a Dutch design group. In America’s Cup racing the rules specifically declared that all design work for challenger vessels had to be completed by a team from the country of origin of the challenger. Lexcen denied the accusations, as did all of the officials of the Australian team.

While arguments may still go on, in some rarified quarters, even today, as to the legality of the victorious Australian challenge, the reality is that hardly anyone gave a rat’s arse. The arrogant, unbeatable American defenders of the Cup had to be beaten… and beaten they finally were. There were very few people in the world of international yacht racing (and certainly very few Australians) who cared particularly whether the rules were stretched a teensy bit or not.