FROM HEADBUTT TO SNUB TO HAKA, SPIN RULES

Sydney, July 14 NZPA - A feature of sport's appeal has always been its glorious uncertainty.

Zinedine Zidane's World Cup headbutt certainly bore that out, while Australian rugby league star Andrew Johns' presentation snub a day earlier was unexpected too.

The incidents also drove home just how much public relations has infiltrated sport these days.

If Zidane's attack on Italy defender Marco Materazzi, which would have had Pamplona's bulls nodding in approval, was provoked by a slur on his mother, it might go some way to explaining it.

But given that insults are common place on the soccer field, it doesn't justify his actions and had no benefit to his team, with his sending-off meaning he was absent for the crucial penalty shootout which Italy won.

And the spin? Who better than to provide it than a politician.

Despite the controversy, French President Jacques Chirac only had praise for Zidane as he welcomed back the team at his Elysee Palace.

"Dear Zinedine Zidane, what I want to express to you at this perhaps most intense and difficult time in your career, is the admiration and the affection of the whole nation -- it's respect too," Chirac said.

"You are a virtuoso, a genius of world football. You are also a man of the heart, of commitment, of conviction, and that's why France admires and loves you."

He just left out the bit about Dear Zinedine Zidane being a brilliant head-to-chest butter and losing them the World Cup.

It's tough being a role model.

Ask Andrew Johns.

Johns, an idol in Australia well before Australian Idol started, broke the country's rugby league's point scoring record on Saturday in his Newcastle club's match against Parramatta.

The previous record holder and current Parramatta coach, Jason Taylor, lined up to present him with the match ball as a memento after the final whistle.

But Newcastle got thumped and Johns trudged off to the changing room, leaving Taylor and an official holding the ball bewildered.

It seems that he later apologised, but the incident came across as most unsporting. Apologist media were quick to point out that Johns is held in high regard for his sportsmanship, while the spin came from his manager, John Fordham.

"If that's the best his critics can come up with, the day after he broke such a significant record, it's fairly pathetic," Fordham told the Sydney Morning Herald.

"You have to take into consideration the fact Newcastle were absolutely disgraceful and he's the captain. Andrew has never been one to stand up and look for applause for something he's achieved at a personal level, and he had an absolutely good reason to be in the dressing rooms with his players.

"Andrew has never put personal achievement ahead of team achievements, and the big picture for him last night was the team performance.

"That cut very deeply into him so under those circumstances, if he elected to put the team's needs ahead of any personal accolades for himself, then he's to be applauded for it."

As spin goes, that takes some beating. Those poor little Newcastle boys and their needs. Fordham's spin-doctoring skills would be a big hit in the Canberra parliament.

The incident blew over far quicker than the usual league controversy. One can imagine the hullabaloo if the New Zealand Warriors walked off Telstra Stadium after losing an NRL final, because their needs were more important than attending the after-match presentation.

The spin was evident too in the explanation given about the All Blacks' new haka, Kapa O Pango.

The outcry over the final gesture at the end of the haka showed the public needed to be educated about the meaning of the gesture, said New Zealand Rugby Union chief executive Chris Moller.

While it seems to rugby fans around the world that the All Blacks are trying to scare the rugby shorts off their opponents with a throat-slitting gesture, Moller says the gesture's meaning within Maori culture and the tradition of haka is different.

And he quotes the new haka's composer Derek Lardelli as saying the words and motions represent drawing vital energy into the heart and lungs, with the final exclamation `Ha!' translating as breath of life.

The trouble is the rest of the world is going to see it as Carl Hayman and Rico Gear threatening to draw vital energy out of their rivals' hearts and lungs and no amount of rugby spin is going to change that.

Ha! indeed. Though the biggest Ha! for the week has to go to the chest-butted Materazzi for the following quote.

"It is absolutely not true, I did not call him a terrorist. I'm ignorant. I don't even know what the word means."