The events of this last sporting weekend got me thinking about the poem “If” written by Rudyard Kipling for his young son, an excellent poem that any responsible and loving parent would wish to impart upon his or her child. One of the key tenets in the poem is the need for “Triumph and Disaster”, which Kipling refers to as “the two impostors”, to be treated in exactly the same way. We will undoubtedly experience both at some stage and, as Kipling implies, the reaction of the boy to those impostors will ultimately define the man.

It has always struck me that this is sound advice for life generally and for competitive sport  particularly. Thus, a loser should behave with dignity and good grace (masking  a secret determination that it won’t happen the next time) and the winner should behave with humility and respect for his vanquished opponent, since it may well fall upon him to wear the loser’s mantle the next time around.

This is a lesson that every child – and many international so-called “sportsmen” – would do well to learn and remember.