With the NRL season fast approaching (was it really that long ago that the last one finished?), one wonders how long it’ll be before we see some familiar faces hogging the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Willie Mason has changed clubs, and personalities. Or so it would seem from all the PR-ing both he and his manager have been doing to paint him as a reformed ‘leader’, an aspirational character who has learned from his sins of the past and is ready to make good. Oh, please! I’ll give him six weeks — no, no, make it eight — before he’s back to his gold standard, headline hopping ways.
And then there’s Sonny Bill. Oh, Sonny Bill! A clone in Willie’s clothing who has been just as explosive and unpredictable off the field as he has in making his devastating appearances for the Bulldogs on the field. By all reports, he’s reconnected with his old flame again, so perhaps his indiscretions will be tempered this season. Well, for ten weeks at least.
Any takers for other league players we’re sure to see splashed aross the front pages of the tabloids this season?
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W Warambeal said | January 30th 2008 @ 12:45pm | Report comment
Tim would you be prepared to wager the indiscretions or incidents involving AFL players will be far greater than that of NRL players?
Are you a betting man?
Max Emery said | January 30th 2008 @ 12:50pm | Report comment
I think that you should be more worried about the chances of you adding to your online pseudo-journalistic career Tim.
For your sake, I hope that you’re moonlighting….
W. Warambeal, if Tim is an AFL-friendly scribe, would this be the most ironic piece of journalism ever?
Computer says yes….
Clive Woody said | January 30th 2008 @ 1:27pm | Report comment
Surely even an AFL fan wouldn’t be one eyed enough to attack RL for player behaviour, I’m guessing Tim is a union fan. Union fans love to talk about how RL players end up in the headlines, conveniently forgetting that hardly anyone in Australia could recognise a union player (well, with the exception of their high-priced RL recruits) when they see one on the steet or spot them tossing endangered native Australian wildlife around.
RL is on the rise again, can you smell the fear?
BPM said | January 30th 2008 @ 2:24pm | Report comment
I believe professional sports can be all lumped in the same basket. They all have their 5% quota of men behaving badly, it just so happens in Australia that AFL and NRL have a larger player base with big media exposure. Coaches need to be following Paul Roo’s example and implementing a no d!ckhead policy.
Tim Wales said | January 31st 2008 @ 12:58am | Report comment
Thanks Max. I look forward to reading your meaningful contributions to the site. As for the others, why should this article be all inclusive of Australian sports/sportsmen? The focus was on rugby league and rugby league only. There’s no doubt that other Australian sports have similar issues, but I live in Sydney and league is what we’re force fed. Interesting to note too, that in the past day or so — with a ball not even kicked in anger — Jonathon Thurston has stepped up to the plate. Really, these guys need to get a grip and act as responsibility as we would expect from highly paid sporting role models.
Max Emery said | January 31st 2008 @ 8:15am | Report comment
You’re welcome Tim.
A bit of advice.
When you’re giving an opinion piece of this nature, and it is an opinion piece, you leave yourself open to ridicule simply because you aren’t being open. People aren’t generally silly enough to think that you don’t have an agenda. People, in this instance, excludes anyone living south of the Murray.
Everyone who reads your original and subsequent offering on this page has little or no doubt that your offerings are agenda-driven. Whether that agenda is a desire to “do your bit” to help an ailing Rugby Union or to blow AFL’s trumpet by hypocritically criticising its opposition, that important information is sadly lacking.
Would Spiro Zavos leave me wondering?
Would Patrick Smith have me scratching my head in bewilderment?
The answer is no on both counts.
What you need to do, in your next post, is confess. Are you a Union or AFL fan.
Then, once the giggling and guffawing has died down, we can get to the bottom of your drama and maybe even help.
Yours faithfully,
Dr. Max. PMD
W Warambeal said | February 1st 2008 @ 11:35am | Report comment
Hey Tim noticed your AFL mates face at least 3 criminal charges so far this year & just a month has passed.
None so far as the NRL is concerned – your lucky you didn’t accept my wager.
westy said | February 3rd 2008 @ 6:25pm | Report comment
Look. I LIke rugby league a derivative game of rugby which I also enjoy. Rugby in Australia has over a century continued to fail my region despite the immense advantage of international rugby. This failure has been caused by an elitist class based focus in rugby union. This caused good Western Sydney players eg. Price to prematurely leave union or transfer to Gordon or Eastern Suburbs clubs to gain representative honours ( eg.Monohan). It is more than this NSWRU and the ARU turned their backs on us . They were and still are not interested in a broad based classless game. THey have unapolegetically ignoered wider rugby development. Rugby is run by Prats who continue to take pot shots at a games supported by ordinary people such as league and football. MY agenda is fairly clear the author of this hides behind cheap shots at one code and all its players. . I have been waiting for decades for a more inclusive rugby in Sydney and in its absence enjoy the on average superior athletic and rugby skills and tougness of league players.. There are much fewer elitist private schools in Western Sydney. District Trial players are asked asked before trialling what school you went to? The behavior of professional rugby league players is important . IT is important to have and maintain standards. The ARU has four professional teams .The NRL have 15 full time professional squads and 15 semi professoinal U/20 squads with no training between 9.00 am to 4.00 PM for compulsory TAFE, UNI and job training. THE NRL has compulsory induction financial education and mentoring programmes for new players. There are 8 NRL teams in Sydney. Rugby ‘s narrow support base is faltering . The AFL and football ar now in elitist private schools but they refuse to allow league or organised touch.Throw another Quokka on the barbie
westy said | February 12th 2008 @ 11:45pm | Report comment
HENJAK
oikee said | February 23rd 2008 @ 10:45am | Report comment
This guy writing this comments reminds me of the union guy in england writing about league over there, Look everyone he is totally biase, ignore this rubbish, the union guy went on to say that he hated league and everything it stands for? I just wish this guy had the guts to do the same, let it be know to league fans, we have overcome greater obsticals than words. Write a possitive blog for a change, go on, you weak bastard. sorry thats fair dinkim mate, its ozzie, but you wouldn’t know that would you, every blog i read about league on here is negative. Good luck with your expansion into league heartland, I would love to splash your face across a league headline.