Patrick Smith wrote:
Sad for sport, great for rugby league
Patrick Smith
From: The Australian April 23, 2010
IF you have anything to do with the NRL you should feel very proud today. Whether you support Manly, whether you are a fan or sponsor of the Bulldogs, even if you are a mildly keen Victorian who keeps an eye on Melbourne Storm's fortunes.
The NRL has shown leadership of the highest order, prepared to take a savage punch to land a necessary knockout. There has been no compromise to save the brand, no spin to soften the blow, no cover-up to hide the damage.
Everything the NRL has done to Melbourne Storm is just and appropriate. Yes, rip the premierships off the club, fine it heavily, force it to repay ill-gotten gains, make it play the season out unable to gain a point - every game a stark reminder of its corrupt past.
David Gallop and his team have rebuilt rugby league, a game ripped apart by the Super League wars and regular abhorrent off-field behaviour of players who had no respect for their fellow citizens, never mind the game itself.
Gallop has used every setback - and they have been severe and regular - to refine and strengthen the code.
He could have walked away, for a man can only take so much. But he has never wavered, his belief in the sport tested but never severed. His courage and integrity were at first the glue that somehow kept the competition from imploding and yesterday they drove one the most important moments in Australia's sporting history.
He will be further tested, of course, as it is imperative that rugby league maintains its presence in Melbourne.
The Storm had won a market share. We only now know that it came with 12 pieces of silver.
News Ltd boss John Hartigan was both a hurt and angry man last night. His sense of fair play violated.
He supports the actions of the NRL because he knows how much trust has been breached by the cheats at Storm. But he should be proud that the NRL has had a depth of courage no other sport has shown.
As contradictory as it seems, Melbourne's treachery will prove to be the NRL's finest hour. The AFL turned its back for too long while West Coast players ran amok, Cricket Australia hid the Shane Warne and Mark Waugh bookmaker link and rugby union tried to bury Ben Tune's positive drug test. The NRL has done none of this. When every football code is hell-bent on taking over the world, Gallop has put the future of the Melbourne outpost at stake for the sake of principle.
The rats that Hartigan mentioned at yesterday's media conference appear to have been led by Brian Waldron, the club's former chief executive. Waldron once lectured his players as to how they must respect the game. It might prove to be one of sport's great one-liners. If Waldron is still employed by rugby union franchise Melbourne Rebels come today it must only be because he could not be contacted. And that might be entirely likely given how his reputation as an honest sport administrator has been shredded.
The frauds at Melbourne, who kept two books, one for appraisal by the NRL salary cap investigators and another for the amusement and benefit of the corrupt, might not have blood on their hands but they do have tears of loyal supporters. They wept last night that they had been cheated, their loyalty misplaced, their premierships nothing but secretly funded corruption.
Worse, they will realise that former officials at the club cheated not for the success of the club but their own self-aggrandisement. That they could swagger about town as masterminds of the outpost with the mostest. Do not think that the NRL will not go looking for second sets of books detailing illegal payments at other clubs. Having tasted the blood of the corrupt they will be thirsty for more.
You can argue this was the blackest day in rugby league history. Perhaps even in Australian sport. A better perspective, however, is this: it is an insidious and irksome day for a handful of grubby officials at Melbourne Storm but it is a day of triumph for Gallop and his team. They have shown sport in Australia that there can be no compromise to the sense of fair play. No matter the consequence.
Is it Fat Pat has gone of his Meds????
