The most selfless, extraordinary act I’ve seen in a boxing ring took place in the UK last weekend.

As Chris Eubank jnr piled on the pain and hurt against Nick Blackwell, his father, former champion Chris sr, urged him after the eighth round to stop hitting his opponent’s head.

“The next time you throw a flurry like that, if the referee doesn’t stop it then I don’t know what to tell you. I will tell you this, if he doesn’t stop it and we keep on beating him like this he’s getting hurt.

“Why hasn’t the referee stopped the fight? I don’t get why. So maybe you shouldn’t leave it to the referee. You’re not going to take him out to the face so take him out to the body.”

After the doctor stopped the fight in the 10^th, Blackwell was rushed to hospital with bleeding on the brain and later placed in an induced coma.

The irony is that Eubank snr was one of boxing’s supreme prats, a self-indulgent ponce obsessed with his own importance.

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Eubank, though, has unique insight into the perils of the fight game: he endured a life-and-death ring battle against Michael Watson 25 years ago that left Watson in a 40-day coma with brain damage. Watson has recovered somewhat but the scars remain.

Eubank has long had a complex relationship with boxing and even at the age of 49 he courts controversy. He is an advisor to his son, but his arrogance in dealing with managers and promoters is seen as an impediment to his son’s progress.

If Eubank’s moment of compassion offered a striking paradox to his personality, it also illuminated the often complicated father-son dynamic that is occasionally found in sport.

Recently there were reports in Johannesburg of Lions coach Johan Ackerman favouring his son Ruan, like his father a big, loping forward with mongrel. The rumours weren’t born out by any substantive facts, but you can imagine the tight line Ackerman snr must walk to ensure he isn’t just fair, but seen to be fair. From what I’ve seen of Ruan he looks like an outstanding player, although he’ll have to play out of his skin to convince the doubters he deserves his crack.

There’s a similar situation at the Sharks where assistant coach Robert du Preez oversees two of his three sons, Jean-Luc and Daniel, both members of the squad.

By all accounts there is no special treatment from the old man, who raised his sons with a firm hand and encouraged them from the moment they first laid their hands on a rugby ball.

But if the players’ form wanes and hard conversations must be had, just how dispassionate could Du Preez snr be? It’s a fraught position to be in, but you would hope that a professional view, rather than a familial one, would hold sway. We shall see.

One excellent reference point comes by way of England where for many years Owen Farrell played under his father, Andy, at both Saracens and England, where his dad was an assistant. Owen had to dodge questions about his dad’s coaching role from the age of 16 and it flared up a few years ago when he lost form for England and there was pressure to make a change.

“I’ve had him around a fair bit since I started playing but it’s always been separate to him being my dad,” said Owen, emphasising the point that Andy was his father at home and his coach at work.

It gets a bit stranger, though, because Andy has since taken up a big job with Ireland, part of which will include plotting how to neutralise his son, England’s No 10.

There are many more father-son examples, some good (Manchester United’s Daley Blind’s father Danny is the Netherlands head coach and Daley also plays for him), some bad (like boxer Roy Jones jnr, who threw his father out as his trainer) and others ambivalent (like Kaizer Motaung jnr, son of the great Kaizer himself).

History dictates that the father-son dynamic in sport is much as it is in family life: there are highs and lows, good and bad. The ones that work best are those based on trust and honesty.

Not everyone manages it. – © Sunday Tribune