If I had to pick only one thing to try and explain to sports naysayers why I spend a fair proportion of both my work and spare time watching men chase balls around rugby and football fields it would be passion.

Passion can be a wonderful thing. It leads people to eight-hour round trips to watch a midweek night game against bottom of the table opponents (yep, done that). It leads to people travelling without a ticket to the other side of the world to see a UEFA Cup Final (I would have done that if the wife hadn't promised me a divorce as a returning gift).

It even leads to people crying when their team wins their ninth Scottish Premier League Championship in a row. (No, no that wasn't me. It was just another fat dude who looks a bit like me. Honestly.)

More importantly it's why whenever a team wearing a Silver Fern on their chest plays a game you can rely on a friendly Kiwi face in the crowd and it's why, even when your first sporting love is in the worst of forms, you can't help going back for more.

Unfortunately passion has its downsides. People have been killed because of footballing rivalries and there's even been suggestions that the All Blacks losing leads to a higher incidence of domestic abuse in New Zealand.

It also leads hundreds, if not thousands, of Kiwis to pick up a pen and paper, a telephone or a keyboard and demand their right to be heard.

The latter is the kind of reaction I can support. Graham Henry being called a tosser by a semi-illiterate anonymous poster on the internet never hurt anyone.

Unfortunately sections of the crowd in Dunedin thought a much more sensible approach would be to throw bottles at the triumphant French team instead.

It's just a further indication that passion for a sport doesn't necessarily lead to cogent actions and arguments - it can just as easily descend into name-calling, abuse and criminal charges.

My point is, I'm all for passion in sport. It just wouldn't be the same without it. But the passion has to be a positive thing.

New Zealanders, rightfully, are well thought of and respected for their welcoming nature, their ability to have a go and to punch above their weight.

Unfortunately most of those positive tends to go out of the window when the All Blacks have been beaten and a mass hysteria seems to envelope this damned fine nation.

In the build up to the 2011 World Cup we'd be wise to realise the entire rugby world is looking at us to lead the way (as we've done in the past) and to show ourselves up to be the classy winners (or losers) that we can be.

Throwing bottles at a bunch of players who out-performed the boys in black both mentally and physically sends the message that the idiots who shout loudest and longest represent all of us.

And that's just not the case.

So what do you think? What's your sporting passion? Do you become a little unhinged when the All Blacks lose? Let me know what you think.