The state of Israel

I was away yesterday and hadn't even considered following any rugby by any means. Setting off back home, my phone peeped into life. A message. "Exactly how much of a c--- is Israel Folau?"

A bit of back and forth and I got the story of the day. And the answer, it transpires, is a lot of c---.

I'm not sure how you avoid knowledge of the Black Lives Matter movement and the global outpouring of support following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Clearly 33 players before the St Helens game had managed to give it some thought and make the universal gesture of support before kick-off by taking to the knee.

For a game with the history of ours, this is important. See the stories of black Welsh players, seeing their opportunities in rugby union stymied by systemic racism, come north and make their way in our game for one instance. See Clive Sullivan go (they're saying go, go, and he goes). And let's not pretend there aren't issues within the game or that the communities in which our clubs exist are havens of enlightened thought, behaviour and culture. This matters.

Folau has, at time of writing, not explained his action - or lack thereof. We see other knobheads say they'll only kneel for prayer, the Queen and when they proposed to their wife. It's a weak argument made by weak, wannabe hard men (and it is men, and I'm looking directly at Dominic Raab here). It doesn't take much to extrapolate his previous bullshit to think this is what it's about. It wouldn't be very christian of him to take a stand - literally - on this.

We have to make a stand here. Folau does not represent what we at sang-et-or are about. We're already chipping in to the Anthony Kennedy Trust, as we've talked about before. Now, we're doubling our commitment and every time he does what he did on Sunday, we'll match our AKT donation with the same amount to Rainbow Noir.

Rainbow Noir is a volunteer led social, peer support and community action group, which celebrates and platforms people of colour who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer and/or Intersex (LGBTQI). We're sure Israel will be pleased to help raise money for this valuable cause.