http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/rotten-to-the-core/story-e6freyar-1111119127871
Rotten to the core
By Rebecca Wilson
The Daily Telegraph
March 14, 2009 12:00AM
RUGBY league has spent millions trying to sell the message that it is a great example of what happens when professionalism meets athleticism - and the athletes happen to be working-class boys.
Scratch the surface of the glamorous launches, the multi-million-dollar advertising campaigns and the gender experts, and what you have is a booze-fuelled, male-dominated culture full of accidents waiting to happen.
Where to start in one of rugby league's most shameful weeks? There is no need to discuss the sexual assault charges here. That is for the courts and it is irrelevant, really, in the scheme of things.
Where we can start is at an official club function.
I wrote last season how wonderful it was that the premiership-winning Manly team could manage to have a week full of drunken celebrations and not offend anyone. Their Grand Final party was joyous, fun and pretty innocent by league standards.
How wrong could I have been about a football team?
The club has started 2009 with a transformation - the team's official season launch degenerated into an alcohol-fuelled, unsupervised rabble with which even some club administrators were involved.
Witnesses say some present at the function were drunk. The blank-eyed Anthony Watmough allegedly told the father of a beautiful young woman present at the team's season launch that his daughter was a "s**t". He decided then to slap the girl's father.
It must be stressed here that these facts are not challenged by anyone at the club. Watmough was forced to apologise to the father, who turned out to be a club sponsor.
This is not an isolated tale of club members playing up on a night out. Their club could be any one of 16 in the NRL competition.
The last week has proved beyond any doubt that rugby league is crook to the core - that some of its players, clubs, administrators and even its fans are still willing to accept behaviour that is below normal social standards.
Manly reacted appallingly to the crisis. They did not stand Stewart down. The board voted unanimously to keep him in the team, even after NRL boss David Gallop implored them to drop him from the side.
The weak board ridiculously asked the team's coach what he wanted. Not surprisingly, Des Hasler opted for the win-at-all-costs option and the board bought it. Even a gaggle of famous female fans came out in support of Brett Stewart without having been present on the night or hearing the facts of the story.
A battle-weary Gallop suspended Stewart for four weeks (for being presented as the face of league one day and being too drunk to speak the next). He fined Manly $100,000 for Watmough's behaviour and for bringing the game into disrepute.
Gallop is starting to realise that badly behaved footballers need to be treated like children, not adults earning up to $750,000 a year. He is also sadly aware of the culture that exists within clubs which excuses "the boys".
How many more times must we hear "the boys needed to let their hair down" and how many more times must we witness the sport implode as a result of yet another player having 30 schooners?
Rugby league is its own worst enemy. With the exception of Gallop, the week has thrown up another bunch of drunken footballers who believe they are bullet-proof, weak administrators who love having a beer with "the boys" and fans willing to forgive all if their team is winning.
Stewart's face should never grace a poster or television advertisement again. If a 24-year-old with the world at his feet can't say no to a beer at the end of a long drinking session, he doesn't deserve to be adored by any of us.
Watmough's anger and nasty outburst has not attracted the attention it deserved either. He is obviously a troubled and cocky young man with no idea of social graces or sensibilities.
I attended the national rowing titles last weekend in Tasmania. These athletes are world class, do 14 training sessions a week and rarely say yes to a drink. They work fulltime to pay for their sport because, for them, it remains a noble pursuit.
Perhaps a few of our so-called elite footballers should seek these rowers out to see what makes them tick, to understand a little about how tough it is for most athletes pursuing dreams.
Brett Stewart and Anthony Watmough have forgotten the word "struggle" - the very word that drove them to shrug off their working-class upbringings in favour of a better life in rugby league. They have irreparably damaged themselves and their sport in the process.
