One of myths repeated during the recent Rugby World Cup was the "losing girlfriend" scenario. It normally states that whenever the All Blacks (or another team) loses, incidents of bashed wives and girlfriends turning up at emergency departments or women's refugees increases.

What's so annoying about this myth is that while there's no evidence for it, it just kind of sounds like common sense. Sports fans tend to be higher in testosterone that say, fans of fine arts, or poets, so you expect a little more argie-bargie. And, as the Dick of the Week slot on the podcast regularly illustrates, some sports fans and players are just freaking stupid, or outright violent. This means that the possibility that partner-bashing goes on is increased by the actual behaviour of fans.

Evidence or not, the Dropkicks aren't too happy out it.

One of things that could be the case is that sports losses don't cause domestic violence, but are a trigger for violence in homes where it already occurs. This means that if you're already the kind of asshole who slaps the missus, then a bad result on your team's big day out increases the chance you'll need to do it again. But, there's no proof either way, which is highly frustrating. Personally I'd like to be able to say that rugby can't be linked to domestic violence, because the last thing I want is to be associated with the kind of bastard who bashes a women.

Well, bad news. A recent study in the US demonstrated clearly that sports events do increase violence and anti-social behaviour. And worse, they're regarded as causing the behaviour.

Some researchers at the Denver University Department of Economics have published a paper that clearly links increased assault and vandalism to upset losses, with a corresponding increase in anti-social and non-violent-but-outright-stupid behaviour like drink driving. Terrific. The paper also argues that you can't blame this increase on fans getting loaded and misbehaving, because while alcohol is a factor, it is not the cause of the chaos that seems to ensure after a loss.

Unfortunately there is no indication in the paper that women are suffering because of sports, but this is only because the researchers don't seem to have the available data. Once again, it might be that violent relationships are just plain worse on loss days. But this paper could also be read to suggest that some non-violent relationships could become violent after a loss.

Terrific.

So what is there left to say? "Just behave, you idiots."

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