Who Is The Real Problem? (2006)

I will draw you a picture, metaphorically speaking, with words. This is a picture of an Australian male aged between 20 and 35. This Australian male has a whole day off work, that’s right, no work for one whole day, lucky bugger! He's out with some of his mates, other Australian males aged similarly to the man in the metaphorical picture.

Now here's the question. How do you take this picture of Australian men, and make them look happy?

Now I know no one here is really scratching their head trying to think of an answer to the question posed here. Men in this case need beer to make life more enjoyable.

Which is why I can't understand the big brou-ha-ha that the NRL and the media are making over NRL players having drinking problems. Men drink alcohol, most of them will even make up an excuse so that they can go and drink alcohol at times when they realise they probably shouldn't.

Footballers have a lot of time on their hands, they have a lot of mates, they have a lot of money, a lot of money buys a lot of beer, a lot of beer means a lot of parties, a lot of parties means many drunken people on a regular basis.

It’s no surprise that footballers are renowned for enjoying a few ales regularly.

If the NRL wants to do something to change this culture, they have only two options.

Option one (also referred to as the 'attempt to get a laugh from the guy marking this article option'): sack every male that’s playing in the NRL and replace them with a female, or;

Option two (or the 'sensible to a point that it almost makes sense option'): Give every NRL player a job away from football. Make them do this job voluntarily and make it community minded.

Option two may seem harsh, but if you think about how the image of the game would change, It’s almost a good idea, considering its one that come from me.

Imagine how League players would be seen in the eye of the public when you see Trent Barrett and Matt Cooper wandering around the streets of Woolongong picking up rubbish, or the whole Rabbitohs team wandering around Redfern washing all the graffiti off the buildings and walls.

Seeing the Bulldogs players at schools teaching teenagers about the implications of unsafe sex.

The general public will finally realise what a sporting hero really is. I don't care how much any player, official or fan says that players today do a lot for the game of Rugby League in Australia, because everyone knows its a load of crap!

They aren't doing anything positive for the game at all, look at all the negative things that happen in the Rugby League world over the last 6 years, and compare that to the great things players have done for the game.

Think about how players of yesteryear HAD to have another job, so they were actually working for their money, they were actually putting a lot of hard work back into the communities that helped them get to the first grade.

Players today are lazy boneheads. They ALL need to do a lot more for their local communities.

If they spent more time working and helping communities out, they'd have less time to be part of a written metaphorical picture of drunken men. They wouldn't have as much time to ruin the once great name and credibility that Rugby League and its players once had.

So as of tomorrow Mr Head-of-the-NRL, I want to see Brett Kimmorley walking around near my house picking up doggy doo-doo's with a little doggy doo-doo picker-upper thingy. I want to see Andrew Johns at an intersection with a bucket of water and a squidgee, washing windscreens at traffic lights. I think we would all like to see some of the money we pay at the games, come back to us in some way, to make our lives better, and to bring us closer to the people who we watch on the television and at the games every weekend, every winter.

I think I made my point, it kind of makes sense, that’s good enough to enforce it as far as I'm concerned.