Kearney ready to play hardball

Back in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was commonplace for Europe’s colonial powers to negotiate treaties with put-upon states while undertaking blatant and simultaneous demonstrations of their military power.

One obvious method of ‘persuasion’ was to dispatch a naval vessel packed to the rafters with firepower up and down the enemy coast or up an estuary in order to secure the desired political or economic concessions.

Gunboat diplomacy, they used to call it, and sport isn’t immune to similar tactics.