Rugby League - Drama is thy middle name (2018)

2018 has been a rather topsy-turvey season emotionally for many fans and commentators. The hatred over refereeing has seen some people claim they aren’t watching the games anymore. They say this every week, all but suggesting that they are still watching.

It reminds of another great Frontline quote about outraged people.

“They’re watching…they’ll be the first people to tune in next week looking to be outraged.”

And what exactly is getting everyone so vehemently upset with the NRL? Referee mistakes and indirectly the boss of the NRL, Todd Greenberg.

No one is perfect. No one.

NO ONE.

So it amazes that there are so many perfect humans, who have never been an NRL referee, or run a major sporting organisation, who seem to be so proficient in how both roles should be carried out.

It’s time for a bit of perspective. Has this been the most controversial year in regards to officiating and/or administration.

In 1908, the game’s founding fathers, politician Henry Hoyle (President), businessman James Giltinan (Secretary) and Test Cricket legend Victor Trumper (Treasurer), were so busy in the game’s birth that they were unable to produce a basic balance sheet in the General Meeting at the start of 1909. At that meeting in 1909, they were all removed from office with politician Ernest Broughton elected to take over as President.

Broughton lasted 22 days before stepping down due to work commitments and health concerns. He was replaced by another politician, Edward O’Sullivan, who last slightly longer before resigning upon learning about the League’s secret plan to sign the Wallabies. He was then replaced by Sir James Joynton-Smith, the man who funded the purchase of the Wallabies. The year ended with Balmain forfeiting the final for a number of reasons, the main one being that they didn’t think the Premiership final should be the undercard for an exhibition game between the Kangaroos and the Wallabies.

In 1917, one player appeared in one game for Glebe. He was Dan Davies from Newcastle and he was living in the region set aside for the Annandale club, under the residential rule that existed at the time. What transpired was Glebe losing 2 competition points and Davies banned for life. Glebe players protested their treatment later in the year over a number of matters by fielding a reserve grade team against defending premiers Balmain in what should have been a huge game. Balmain won 41-2. Glebe’s first grade players who refused to play were all handed lengthy suspensions.

Meanwhile, Dan Davies returned to Newcastle and began playing in the local competition. Once the NSWRL found out, they banned nearly every player, club and administrator in the Newcastle competition for life. They then set up a rebel league and continued playing the game outside of the control of the NSWRL. All the bans and suspensions were eventually repealed and Newcastle returned to a unified competition in 1920

This article could go on a lot longer, but the fact is, Rugby League will always find a way to have drama. Some of it is excessive by the game itself, other is blown out of proportion by the media, but all of them have only served to see the game grow stronger and bigger and better.

The petulant whines of a few sooks about referee blunders and how they are going to walk away from the game for good are coming from people with very short memories.

I urge those people to stop and ask yourselves this:

Is my constant whinging about the refereeing standards, the bunker and the assumed lack of leadership at the NRL really that bad. Would I prefer another Super League war instead?

This is solely a piece to offer some perspective. There’s no need to run with fearmongering rubbish, running stupid boycotts or blindly agreeing with everything some crisis merchant in the mainstream media constantly dribbles out.

If you want to genuinely help the game out, then be productive and offer solutions to issues.

If you hate the game, then please, stop watching it and go away.

Dear Todd, Don't listen to Buzz (2018)

Monday morning before the opening State of Origin battle for the year is upon us and so too are the same people in the media trying to tell Todd Greenberg what to do.

Today it’s Phil Rothfield, appealing to Greenberg “to let the game flow. To instruct the State of Origin I referees to drop the nit-picking that has turned rugby league into a sometimes boring and stop-start snooze fest.”

What is boring is Rothfield’s pathetic nit-picking. His same old stop-start rhetoric is snooze-fest inducing.

More importantly though, Mr Greenberg, I would hate to see the day that the game is run by whatever some tired, whinging dinosaur in the media has to say.

It was their complaints after the Sharks v Storm game, where over 30 penalties were blown and legends Cameron Smith and Luke Lewis both spent time in the sin bin, which fuelled their attacks on the NRL for their unbelievable stance of enforcing the rules.

A few weeks later a total of 14 players were sent to the sin bin in one round, the most in one round in over 20 years.

Not once has any of these detractors employed anything other than the aggressively stupid and damaging tact of blaming referees. The players and clubs are committing the acts and deserve to be punished, yet are being let off and now it seems, have Rothfield suggesting they should be allowed to cheat.

What makes Rothfield’s stance today so much more laughable is the fact he was sooking about referees NOT doing their job properly last year. Now he’s demanding that they don’t do their job properly in 2018. This is enough evidence alone to prove that this man should never have his opinions on how the game should be run listened to, let alone considered.

We also know that refs have a history of being ultra-lenient in Origin games anyway, so there really is no crisis here, bar the one Rothfield is trying to create.

My message to you though Mr Greenberg is simple.

While your suggestion to #TalkTheGameUp is a good one, we are facing a different problem here on two fronts. Media attacking match officials is disgraceful and needs to be addressed, in a firm manner. We all know referees make mistakes, they are humans after all. But the constant denigration and the abhorrent insinuations by some commentators that the referees are trying to get in the spotlight, or the rubbish view of some fans that they are match fixing and the like, need to end. Be as harsh as you need to on this.

Because it leads to a bigger issue and my second point. The message this belittling of referees sends to children. That players are never at fault, it’s the referees who are to blame. Do we really want a game where kids are abusing referees? Or a game where no-one wants to be an official. It’s a hard enough job as it is, they don’t need to cop this verbal diahorrea from cowards that have never once tried their hand at being an official at this level.

Thank you.

Take A Stand Against Bullying (2018)

Just a few days ago, for some unknown reason, an alleged journalist with Fairfax’s Financial Review, by the name of Joe Aston, decided to write an asinine article full of hate speak, ignorance and petulance about Rugby League and the Bulldogs club.

The abhorrent tripe carried tones of racism, leant upon class warfare, stereotypes and worst of all, used rape as a form of mockery, when he referred to Rugby League as ‘rapeball’.

This ingrate is clearly endorsing bullying by writing such a childish and pathetic piece. The fact his employer read this disgraceful steaming pile of excrement and saw it fit to publish clearly shows that they endorse such commentary. His freedom to write such despicable matter is thanks to the many men and women who served and died for this country, including a large number of Rugby League players and officials from all over the country.

Whether this was done purely for the response is beside the point. This is clear bullying, plain and simple. There’s no reason for it, no purpose, no point, no value, nothing. It’s just the shameful unprompted and unprovoked bullying of a small minded fool.

The media in Australia has for decades been quick to defecate on the game at the slightest opportunity, with the mentality worsening with every year. And every time the game has adopted the approach of “ignore it and it will go away.”

Well no.

Ignoring it is not the answer anymore. Taking the moral highground may keep the games integrity in check, but unfortunately, staying quiet only serves to perpetuate more of this ugly attitude towards the game. When the NRL refuses to defend itself against these bullying antics, they are validating the behaviour, comments and perspective of the bullies.

And that encourages them to continue with their antiquated hate speak.

It’s time the game stands up and starts publicly putting these bullies in their place. Demand retractions. Demand public apologies and in severe cases of unprofessionalism, like this, demand the author is punished. This is slander and is blatant vilification.

So come Todd Greenberg, Peter Beattie, Bulldogs officials, NRL players, ex-players, media personalities. Defend our game! Stand up for our game!