Amputation is the only answer
By Patrick Smith
This is the tragedy of rugby league. The code is so wretchedly ill that it cannot heal itself. Left alone, league has neither the strength, the spirit nor expertise. It cannot even determine the illness which has left the game so fevered and bleeding that its condition might be terminal.
Geoff Carr must go immediately. The ARL chief executive has had time and opportunity to show that he at least understood the disease, could spot a symptom. He cannot even take its temperature. Three times Carr has got it wrong. If he was your local GP you would be reading this in heaven.
Last month Darren Lockyer makes that awful joke about Johnny Raper and Carr defends the Test captain. It was the joke of the week and someone was going to repeat it, Carr said. On Thursday news breaks of an obscene phone message left by a league player and Carr declares it a media beat-up. The reporting is vindictive. He actually believes Anthony Minichiello lost his phone. When the evidence is indisputable, Carr offers the woman compensation - free tickets to the footy.
These are examples of a man oblivious to a culture which has swallowed his sport. It is a culture that recognises no barriers, has no respect for women and none for the game. Everything and everyone is held in contempt. The game only respects money and the trappings it delivers. It is deaf to advice and blind to precedent.
Carr does not condone it but nor does he understand it. His football code stinks. Parts of the sport acted in a vile manner in the wake of the Coffs Harbour allegations. Parts have acted obscenely this week. It is no better one month from the next. If nothing changes as a result of this week's humiliations league will be as putrid in June as it was in March.
Some of the players are fools but they not only survive in league, they prosper. The players are shown no guidance by the men employed to direct and counsel them. The best advice the game can give players in preparation before State of Origin is to get drunk together. Players are protected, the game laid vulnerable.
After all that has happened in Coffs Harbour - not once but twice; after all that has happened at State of Origin camps - not once but countless times, coaches and administrators watch and condone their players drinking themselves into stupidity and strife. NSW coach Phil Gould had wanted a dry camp but succumbed to pressure from players. As if it should be a point of discussion. The game is guzzling itself to irrelevancy.
Supporters are betrayed. The phone message is published in full in The Australian. The outright obscenity of Mark Gasnier's comments means the incident could not be passed off as a harmless prank. A 22-year-old man is not a kid; obscenity is not funny. You can hear the hurt in the voices of the fans.
They ring to tell of Willie Mason. Of his language in front of children, of his inappropriate doodlings at autograph sessions, of deliberately signing another player's name. All of this after Gasnier was forced into a confession.
They watch the story unfold. Another voice is heard on the tape. The ARL summons three more players to headquarters. There is a news conference yesterday set for 3pm. By 6pm nothing has happened. The ARL is paralysed.
Rugby league cannot help itself. There is no cure for a disease you cannot diagnose. Fines and suspensions won't help the code now. Now is the time for amputations, not operations. Players must be thrown out of the competition. Administrators must be removed and outsiders brought in. A transplant of heart and soul is required.
The traditional, secretive code remains in place. David Gallop, the chief executive of the NRL, has worked tirelessly but as of 3.41 on Wednesday morning, ineffectively. As the Gasnier story breaks Gallop is addressing a seminar on sport's attitude to women. His own code mocks him. Canterbury will not name the players who breached the code of conduct. Justice in league is anonymous and random.
State of Origin is league's showcase. People who gave up on league clung to these mighty representative confrontations. Now they ring radio stations to say enough is enough. Every part of the game has been soiled. Channel Nine must fear for its ratings. Perhaps fittingly, it is only the hard-core fans who will stick. Sponsors and families won't.
If rugby league is to start to recover at all, then it must start all over again.
The Australian
