and for no reason she decides to write the same shit she has before
and Ken Edwards doesn't even play
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/s...e/news-story/5b9762f2dcdd2c3772a13c555f364e53
NRL players found guilty of domestic violence should face life bans from the game
Jessica Halloran, The Daily Telegraph
43 minutes ago
YOU can violently throw your girlfriend against garage walls and play rugby league. Kirisome Auva’a did that, won a premiership with Souths and now plays for the Parramatta Eels.
You can punch, kick, slap and throw your girlfriend across the room during fits of rage, but don’t worry, you will be given a second chance in the NRL. Zane Tetevano, who did just this, may have had his Manly contract torn up after he did just this but he is now a Sydney Rooster.
It is just how it is in rugby league. You can be guilty of domestic violence and still have the privilege of playing the ‘greatest game of all’.
You will still be able to run out in front of thousands, have little children idolise you, earn hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of dollars and live out your own boyhood dream.
Currently there are six footballers in the NRL who have either pleaded guilty or been found guilty for a domestic violence offence.
That stat includes one of the biggest stars of the game, Queensland captain Greg Inglis, who was charged but avoided conviction after assaulting his now ex-partner Sally.
Inglis accepted responsibility of an open-hand push on Sally and attended a behavioural change program as well as donating $3000 to a women’s refuge.
The others are Bronco Matt Lodge, Eel Ken Edwards and Manly’s Addin Fonua-Blake who have all pleaded guilty to assaulting their then respective partners. Fonua-Blake was given a 12 month suspended jail sentence after he pleaded guilty and was convicted for pushing and kicking Ana — the mother of his two children.
In the AFL there is not a single player currently on a club list who has a domestic violence conviction. No Rugby Australia players have been found guilty of domestic violence since the code went professional in 1996.
Pointing out these statistics is not to say these football codes’ players are devoid of serious behavioural problems. No way.
Several AFL players who have since left the game have been found guilty of domestic violence. Two years ago, former Carlton star Nick Stevens was thrown in jail for three months after he admitted repeatedly bashing his former girlfriend, including kicking her as she lay cowering on the ground.
Last year former AFL star Justin Murphy pleaded guilty to 28 charges for a series of attacks on his ex-partner, including one which involved a blowtorch causing her disfiguring injuries.
Years after his retirement former Kangaroos star, and now a leading AFL commentator for Channel 7, Wayne Carey allegedly smashed a wine glass into the face of his former girlfriend Kate Nielson. She did not press charges, but Carey pleaded guilty to assaulting and resisting Miami police who attended the scene.
But back to the current cold hard fact that six domestic violence offenders are playing NRL is evidence that men in league are way too forgiving. NRL officials have set an ugly and dangerous precedent by being hellbent on allowing men that commit violent acts against women back into the game.
The attitude of “rugby league doesn’t walk away from challenges” and people who make “horrible errors” is hurting the game commercially say several club bosses.
“If someone is behaving poorly they are taking money out of our pockets and we need to make sure that doesn’t happen,” one NRL club executive said. “No one has a God-given right to be playing in the NRL every week. It is an absolute privilege.”
Another club boss said the code needs to start putting the value of the game above any individual.
“We need to stop forgiving men who commit violence against women,” the NRL club official said.
“There is currently no consequence for men in our game for men who commit an act of domestic violence.”
“The bottom line is rubbish individuals should not be allowed to be heroes to our children and men.”
The NRL should have a zero tolerance of violence against women and children. That is footballers should be banned from playing for life if found guilty of domestic violence.
In fact, all football codes in Australia, if they were serious about this issue that has seen 30 women die this year, would take a true leadership on the issue and implement a policy of life bans for DV offenders.
The NRL are currently working on policies and protocols around domestic violence. They say they are considering life bans. But the sense is under its current leadership, where they are determined on giving a player a second or third chance, the likelihood of life bans seems dim.
Talk to NRL fans and many will tell you they don’t want “grubs” in the game and back life bans. The problem is the code and many club hierarchies are packed with men willing to absolve players of some of their serious responsibilities.
Take Matthew Lodge.
Lodge finally settled an amount on compensation this week with the victims he violently tormented in the States.
Yet, Lodge didn’t take time off work to get on a plane to physically make amends. Lodge’s father, Bronco’s chief executive Paul White, his lawyers represented him in New York instead to reach a compensation agreement.
Lodge should have also apologised to the woman he emotionally and physically tormented by now; his ex-girlfriend Charlene Saliba. Lodge hasn’t and keeps denying he ever hit her despite there being a witness to the assault he pleaded guilty to. No one from the NRL has ever reached out to Ms Saliba to offer her counselling or to just see if she is OK.
And I guess this is the problem. Victims are rarely thought of in the game of rugby league.
