The smell of scandal has become a stench that threatens to derail rugby league
Rebecca Wilson
RUGBY league used to be a proudly working-class game. This season it has proved it is fast becoming a no class game, replete with drinking binges, sexual and physical assaults, drunken vandalism and unprovoked on-field bash-ups.
The events of recent weeks have also shown that no amount of tut-tutting from the powers that be has an ounce of impact on the recidivists who do not abide by rules, or learn from the errors of their pasts.
The multi-billion game that has become rugby league is living a public relations disaster of its own making, with no apparent signs that some of those who play it have any regard for their code or those who pay their bills.
While television ratings are drastically down on last year and the year before, league bosses do not appear to have put two and two together. At present, they seem to genuinely believe there is no link between normal mums and dads turning off their televisions, and the players who practice unlawful behaviour on and off the field.
Dave Smith, the new commission and all of those who continue to hand out light punishments to the offenders, must understand that this has become a mammoth crisis.
Let's start with Paul Gallen. The NSW captain has turned himself into a hero for his cowardly attack on Queenslander Nate Myles. But those wise enough to distance themselves from a debate between Blues and Maroons supporters believe league sank to new depths the night of the first Origin.
Here was the captain, unleashing on a player who did not raise a fist in protest. Under the rules of any other sport, he would be immediately sent from the field. In league, his coach says it was a "great moment in Origin" and his judiciary judges ruled king hitting an opponent without answer was only worth a week off the field.
Gallen had the hide to arc up about his punishment, blaming Myles, the judiciary and even the code for promoting the biff. Some former league players who now make a handsome living from commentating on the game patted him on the back on his way through more than a dozen media appearances.
Gallen soon appeared to believe he was truly wronged. Nobody had asked those who had watched it, the fringe observers who only engage during Origin, what they had thought of the sickly attack as they watched from their lounge rooms.
There is little wonder that his teammates, Blake Ferguson and Josh Dugan, approached one of their apparently regular drinking binges with an element of bravado. These two are very, very lucky to even have a contract, let alone to be playing at the highest level. They have been resuscitated once before this season after a drinking binge that encompassed all that is bad about Gen Y athletes.
No matter. Off they went to Cronulla for a marathon drinking session that ended with Ferguson being charged with indecent assault. Dave Smith and the rest banned Ferguson from Origin but ruled Dugan 'had done nothing wrong', so he will wear his Blues jersey on Wednesday night.
The pair of them should have stood before Smith and NRLC chairman, John Grant, while their contracts were ripped up. Fans with a semblance of decency cannot believe that, once again, a superstar player involved in another off-field incident had been given another reprieve.
It goes on. Queenslander Ben Te'o should not be playing this week or next while allegations of a violent assault against a young woman are investigated, even though he denies it; South Sydney's rising star George Burgess has been stood down for a couple of weeks while he works out that throwing a street sign threw a car at 2.45am is not appropriate; and Queensland coach Mal Meninga should not have been in any bar at one in the morning during an Origin camp.
Only James Tamou has been handed the right punishment, copping a pay cut of $50,000 and a ban from Origin for driving unlicensed at four times the legal limit. The Cowboys were the ones who suggested he be stood down, not the NRL.
League is facing its toughest challenge. The smell of scandal after scandal has become a stench that threatens to derail the game. The converted, those who fanatically turn out every week, will stick solid. The rest will disappear. Parents deciding which code for their kids won't cop what they have seen in recent weeks. The television ratings are not just a downward spike. They are a trend that will continue if authorities believe on field talent is enough to justify off field atrocities.
Only when contracts are thrown in the bin will any of these blokes finally twig you do wrong, you don't play. It's not rocket science.
