Walter

Cormack, I'm with the Great in thinking that nothing Sarwan said in that encounter was outrageous given the context of what McGrath said (and on the basis that we have only the evidence we do of the incident). McGrath put it out, tough shit he copped it back and lost his head. The fact he was so admirably restrained when that knob shouted what he did at Headingley does not necessarily change that. I just don't think you can gauge temper so simplistically.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least to discover the Zidane blew his top over something less appalling than we might expect. Losing your temper is not a rational thing. That sounds like the bleeding obvious but it seems to have been forgotten. I wouldn't mind betting that some people guilty of road rage actually lose it during incidents of far less seriousness than others they encounter. I've got a friend with an occasionally scary hot-head and I'm always surprised that it is the daftest things that flick him.

Remember Zidane was probably very tense. His last international, a World Cup final, the possibility of penalties, he had already had to change his mind for one earlier in the game and only just converted, perhaps he was thinking of where he would put his next penalty, he had also fairly recently missed an opportunity to score, he was probably exhausted. He is also clearly a hot-head and no matter how much provocation he may have ignored, people like that are rarely free of the threat of losing it. Tired, tense, just the time to lose the self-control he might have restrained himself with. Of course I could be wrong. It might have been awful, but it is very difficult to imagine it could have been any worse than anything else he has been subjected to in his career. I just think we need to remember that being hot-tempered tends to be irrational so there is actually no need for the provocation to be directly proportional to the response.