By Steve Kaless
March 19th 2009 @ 7:03am
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Perhaps we should all just give up the booze!
After it had already been proven that some of rugby league’s stars needed to be treated like babies, did Brett Seymour really have to prove that they also need to wear nappies?
In week when all league fans should be raving about the fact that both games on Friday night where thrillers and decided by a point, that there looked to be some genuine stars unearthed in Jamal Idris, Jharal Yow Yeh and Antonio Winterstein, and that the two referees experiment, after all one week, might just pay off, we are once again talking about booze.
It’s enough to drive you to the drink.
Jake Friend and Buster Seymour have ensured that the game will have the naysayers filing the obituary columns and they are likely to be included in Peter Fitzsimmons next column (always one for the scrapbook).
Now, we have had plenty of theories thrown around about how to end the problem, end alcohol sponsorship, and bring back public floggings, but none of it seems to go far enough.
I have compiled a program which will ensure rugby league stays off the grog;
1. Ban the phrase “champagne rugby league” from the commentary box. Apart from the fact that this is meant to be the working man’s game, this phrase is no doubt leading the code down a wicked path.
Many a worker has stopped at the pub for a few orange juices only to watch some “champagne rugby league” and be forced to indulge in a twelve hour bender.
Using the phrase “the defence looks to have bundied off” should also be punishable by death.
2. All media organisations should immediately become alcohol free.
By practicing what they preach, the media will ensure that players have the healthy role models. The transformation should occur faster than you can say “leading News Ltd journalists with drink driving convictions.”
We can also do away with the constant in-jokes of the nudge nudge wink wink variety about the mass volumes of cocaine consumed at industry award nights.
3. Bars should only be open during match times. This limited opening schedule will ensure it is impossible for any rugby league player to get to a bar. Any pub within 20km of the Roosters and Sharks should also be closed. This may impact on the rest of the public, but it seems most of them are far too busy worrying about the players’ welfare.
4. Jake Friend is a military grade peanut for drink driving. Some say he should be sacked for this offence. In many ways, I agree. But let’s not let others get away with it. We need a new law: “anyone caught drink driving loses their job … News Ltd columnists who preach about player behaviour included.”
5. Nominate David Gallop for a sainthood (not the one currently being organised for Wayne Bennett). Honestly, who would want his job? It might sound easy and he probably doesn’t need to queue at Ticketek for the best seats, but that must be small beer (no pun intended) compared to constantly having to put up with these nightmares.
Also when the topic of the day is Benji Marshall moving to rugby union, everyone is saying the NRL should have no place in the agreement between player and club. However, in terms of player misbehaviour, if the agreement between player and club is deemed in the court of public opinion to be unpalatable, he must step in.
You work it out.
I even felt sorry for Brad Fittler when he was asked whether his alcohol policy in which players can only drink once a week was encouraging binge drinking.
Poor Brad.
When he was first in the game and winning matches, this idea was hailed as an end to the booze culture. Now suddenly it was better for them to drink every day.
See what happens when you lose to Souths!
These points should quickly bring rugby league into step with the rest of Australian society. A society in which one in eight people drink at dangerous levels, a society in which, on average, ten Australian die every day due to alcohol consumption. A society in which 230,000 children have a parent or carer who drinks excessively. A society in which Aboriginal Australians are twice as likely to die from the effects of drinking as their non-Aboriginal counterparts.
A recent report showed that alcohol misuse claims the life of an Aborigine every 38 hours.
In the end it will all lead to more wasted time talking about banning rugby league players from drinking. I contend that no country in the world spends more time talking about banning things than Australia.
But if we are serious about ending drinking in rugby league, why doesn’t everyone just give up booze.
If the alcohol industry is powered by NRL players alone, it can’t survive for more than five years. Then it will be gone and so will half the sports section.
I’m on the wagon, after all it never did Hazem El Masri any harm.
All time rugby league leading point scorer. Legend.
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Brett McKay said | March 19th 2009 @ 7:39am | Report comment
” The transformation should occur faster than you can say “leading News Ltd journalists with drink driving convictions.” ”
I like it Steve, I like it….
Kento said | March 19th 2009 @ 7:48am | Report comment
Quality article Steve. You make some good points (humourously).
I think there is slightly different rules for celebs in the limelight compared with your average joe punter. These guys are paid accordingly and it’s understood different rules apply to them.
The other missing element here is why a professional athlete would want to do this to their body (which is the basis of their livelihood). You don’t hear these kind of stories in other sports as much as their athletes wouldn’t be drinking to these excesses.
The Link said | March 19th 2009 @ 8:32am | Report comment
Good piece Steve, the moral high ground taken at News Limited could not be more ironic.
Lets go further and ensure that any reference to sauce, tiles, turps, soup and amber is removed from the game entirely.
Ian Schubert is wasted looking at the salary cap, I want him to pour through the script of every RL team song in the land scouring for references to drinking.
And if any player is seen tucking into veal masarla while finishing it off with a brandy custard, throw the book at him
Worlds Biggest said | March 19th 2009 @ 9:24am | Report comment
Nice work Steve, I heard Tunksy last night on Talking Sport in referrence to Seymour and his antics. In true bookend fashion he commented ” Seymour should be suspended for wasting good pizza “. I appreicated the humour in this whole drone of player issues.
Jets said | March 19th 2009 @ 9:41am | Report comment
If News Ltd has such an issue with players drinking they should stop paying for the broadcast rights so that the players aren’t paid so much, and they have to have real jobs to pay their bar tabs, like in the good old days when this never happened.
Spiro Zavos said | March 19th 2009 @ 10:08am | Report comment
I appreciate that Steve was making his points with humour, although the reference to journalists taking the pledge was close to the bone and well-made. At the rugby, the strongest drink the journos are served is coffee, if we are lucky – it often doesn’t arrive. There used to be slabs of beer delivered. Fortunately this has been stopped. I presume this applies at rugby league games as well.
There is a strong case, too, for journalists to behave in the same sort of way as the players they often criticise. I’d have no problem with a ban on drinking being placed on journalists and having them stood down if their inebriated or drug-related behaviour brings the news organisation into disrepute.
Bras Fitler hasn’t come out of this latest affair with much credit. Jacqui Magnay’s report of the press conference he called said that he arrived 45 minutes late. that he was abrupt to the point of rudeness and the gave the impression that essentially this was a matter of much ado about nothing.
When Fitler was made captain of the Kangaroos he told journalists he was ‘going to get pissed.’ Which he did.
You have the feeling that he and many other leaders in the code just don’t get it that binge drinking is unacceptable behaviour for anyone in rugby league, or journalism or anywhere else for that matter.
Worlds Biggest said | March 19th 2009 @ 12:32pm | Report comment
Spiro, I hope your colleague Lord Growden is looked after in the Press Box otherwise we will read about it in Ruck n Maul.
As for Freddie’s press conference, obviously the Rabbitohs flogging had to got to him as I don’t think he handled it well either. He sounded dismissive of Friend’s actions and got snappy with a journo at one point. What happened to laid back Freddie ?
The man said | March 19th 2009 @ 12:49pm | Report comment
Now just because Freedie doesn’t decide to dance to the media tune he is going to be forced to walk the plank. Fair dinkum. It is unfortunately a case of damned if you do or damned if you don’t.
I thought we wanted people to speak there mind in the game, not just repeat the party line. (ie there are no more characters in RL anymore). The fact their view might be out of step with the overly PC society is a good thing.
oikee said | March 19th 2009 @ 4:01pm | Report comment
Mates looking after mates culture is the main cause, yes we did this in the old days but hey, c’mon fellas its the 21 st century.
Time we started to take responsabilty for our own actions. You dont get any of these problems in Union, they must have better carpets. Cleaner.
Campbell Watts said | March 19th 2009 @ 4:04pm | Report comment
It’s not that hard for the NRL to clamp down on this. All they need to do to get on the front foot is come out with a public statement saying “Next player who gets drunk and makes a tit of himself cops a ten week ban – no excuses”
Reckon that would sort it out pretty quick!
oikee said | March 19th 2009 @ 4:38pm | Report comment
10 week ban for public disorder. Excellent.Old enough to drink old enough to accept the punishment.
The Answer said | March 19th 2009 @ 4:42pm | Report comment
Hang on Campbell, it is about players actually breaking the law when drunk or just making a tit out of themselves?
If it is about making a goose out of yourself, well that is a fairly large double standard when this country’s pubs are full to the brim with people spending the government’s stimulus package trying to do just that most nights of the week.
I have no problem with people having the book thrown at the them for criminal behaviour but need to make sure this doesn’t just become a witch hunt. I notice that yesterday while many people were moaning about drunk footballers the Libs, nationals and Family First members were voting down the alchopop tax, so there really public will against booze?
Also a large part of the punishment seems to stem from the fact that players make a lot of money. Jake Friend is on $50,000 a year, many young people earning the same continue to live at home. It pales when compared to the salaries of many in the banking world who have destroyed the economy. Can we bring back the stocks for them as well?
Steve Kaless said | March 19th 2009 @ 5:02pm | Report comment
Yes Spiro, I can confirm that rugby league press boxes aren’t filled with tequila shots and lap dancers. The hospitality is always warm, but the same can’t always be said for the pies.
Of course, many a relationship has been formed between player and journo over some post match drinks, but I can attest to also seeing Fairfax journos enjoying the largesse of their host.
While Brad Fittler may have publicly stated he was going “to get pissed” when made captain of the Kangaroos do we really want to gag players from saying anything resembling the truth. I honestly don’t think anyone would begrudge a night out to celebrate so long as the law wasn’t broken. As far as I’m aware it isn’t actually illegal to get drunk. It is the other stuff that people are rightly horrified by.
Also in a heart beat a $10,000 fine has gone from being the correct response to misbehaviour to being completely soft. That may be fair enough, but Magnay wants the cheque publicly handed over as well….should the player do it in his underwear and wearing a sandwich board proclaiming “I’m a drunkard”. How great is our appetite for public humiliation?
Brian Ferrie said | March 19th 2009 @ 5:13pm | Report comment
You can walk down any mall in Australia on a weekend night and film young blokes who have had too much to drink and no one cares and no one does anything about it at all. Have a laugh, step around the vomit and head for home. You can even freely join in.
BUT if you are lucky to enough to spot a NRL player in this condition while you’re out you should immediately grab your mobile phone and film him.
Then give all the tv stations and newspapers a phone call and start a bidding war. You’ll make a tidy profit!
Even better if the NRL or the clubs introduce a booze ban because the players won’t even need to be drunk for you to make money! All you need to do is get them anywhere in the vicinity of any drinking hole.
Chase NRL players and with any luck you will have plenty of $ in your pocket to go and get yourself blotto with!
Gotta love this country!
Crosscoder said | March 19th 2009 @ 6:02pm | Report comment
Every person over the age of 18 is considered an adult,is able to enlist in the armed services,therefore take on individual responsibility for themselves and their country in which they enlist.Same should apply to rugby league AFL /Union players.
If you can’t handle the drink,steer clear.
The NRL came down hard,good on Gallop for trying to preserve what is left of a tattered NRL image,due to the actions of dopes.
For News Ltd journalists, in fact any journalist to take the moral high ground on alcohol,when one considers the antics of some of them and in fact some radio broadcasters exposed to over indulgence, is irony of Olympic class proportions.At last reports these are gents and women of mature age supposedly.In a few instances there was little or no reporting of their incidents.Damn convenient I say.I could name names but hell we need to protect the “innocent”.LOL.None of them stood down or fined by their employers.
It is also amazing that cameras are always at the ready when a NRL player does the dumbo act,yet it is feasible to argue that the vast majority of people in the street would not recognise a drunken player from another code in Sydney or Brisbane .
This is not offering an excuse for rl players acting like asses,it is simply to say that as high profile footballers you represent your code both on,as well as off the field.Why ? It is the perception of sponsors,potential fans,the general public and the media that can make or break you and/or the code.
In a nutshell get with it,or get out.
matta said | March 19th 2009 @ 7:22pm | Report comment
oh lord, now we are saying it’s not right for society to expect more out of sportsmen?
The Answer said | March 19th 2009 @ 7:50pm | Report comment
Matta,
I’m not sure anyone is saying that. We all heard about Buster Seymour, he was fined and suspended, why do we need the mobile phone footage from some clown. And if we want our footballers to be down to earth should be filming there every movement in the public arena?
Spiro, they might only serve tea in the rah rah press box but when the journos go away to cover tours I’m sure the expense accounts get a good work out on more than just earl grey.
matta said | March 19th 2009 @ 8:11pm | Report comment
I agree filming is shit and who ever did it is pathetic but its not their fault that the lad wrote him self off…and well he did just that.
At the end of the day we all know, as do the players, that there are more expectations on them and the sooner they understand they have they are in control of their own actions the better.
They need to not have excuses made for them – tell me if I am wrong but the whole post and many replies have the tone of “so what, they are only lads on a night out”….? Well, they are not. They are professional players of a code under the pump for its drinking image… they also have brains… well maybe not.
The Answer said | March 19th 2009 @ 8:16pm | Report comment
Matta, you are right players are truly naive that their actions will not be scrutinised far more than anyone else. Wrong or right, they need to understand this and lock themselves away with their bourbon before the night out gets 20k more expensive.
Billo said | March 19th 2009 @ 9:18pm | Report comment
Steve,
What really needs to happen is that David Gallop needs to stop reacting like a scalded cat every time someone accuses an NRL player of having a beer.
If you react as Gallop does, with a sense of outrage at each incident, then you invite more ‘revelations’ and the embarrassment that goes with them.
In England none of the sporting bodies react in this way, despite having a lot more to react to. They just zip it, or even offer their support to the players accused of assaults and other outrageous behaviour, and the media lose interest, unlike with the NRL.
We even had the BBC Radio 4 ‘Today’ program, which is a national news show broadcast nationally, running a four-minute segment the other morning on the NRL’s booze culture, when it could, if it was so inclined, run stories every morning on soccer , rugby and league players in England behaving badly.
Gallop needs to stop being so bloody puritannical, and recognise that incidents will happen with young blokes and alcohol.
On the other hand, if he really needs to do something useful, he should move the NRL away from alcohol sponsorship of the game. How can he criticise the players when the game itself binges on alcohol money?
In England the ERL has move rugby league right away from booze sponsors, and surely the NRL can do the same.
TonyClubCollaroy said | March 19th 2009 @ 9:41pm | Report comment
Not many of the “die hard” “RL fans ….are defending “this” week latest instalment of foolish RL players on roar.
I guess when happens week after week ( 2 weeks in to the season too
) gets tiresome defending these fools.
I am still not sure who gets the “stupid” award this week…… the young rosters player getting in his car drunk or the staff thinking was a good idea to get on the piss after been flogged by souths, blows me away these RL clubs learn no lessons from Manly a week ago … can see my point who to give the “stupid” award to this week.
Even feel sorry for you RL fans …..then again
Now I am waiting for the RL fans postings …can not wait for this week excuses 
westy said | March 19th 2009 @ 10:21pm | Report comment
Tony I think i could tolerate your point of view it is just that you never talk about sport . You do not contribute to rugby or AFL or rugby league discussion. you only come on this site for one common theme.. What do you think of the ELV’s , do you think the South Africans will hold out for the Currie Cup , where do you think the fifth franchise will go in australia. before you go for the jugular talk a bit of sport. until you do so your motives are in question. i personally have never thought of rugby league supporters as the enemy. If rugby is to expand they are a natural reservoir of future support. i have also never hidden the fact that the game can be damn entertaining.
There is a guy on here called MC passionate and prolific about AFL. i do not aree with him but I respect his point of view. you give me no opportunity to appraise what you on about except to pour shit on a sport and the people who follow it.
I actually think gallop deserves even more respect and i applaud his actions. The morons( who i think do rugby league great damage )are i still believe in the minority. i have not entered into abuse or name calling here nor have you to be fair but talk about a one issue poster.
You call the league fans to battle . what do you expect them to do? Defend their “game “not the idiots . I would expect no less .
You basically bait them and Spiro wonders why we get so few on this website.
Norm said | March 19th 2009 @ 10:26pm | Report comment
The only one making excuses around here ClubTony is you for your multiple character failures. Dishonest, deceitful, unprincipled and undisciplined you are the antithesis of enlightened and civilized community leadership. What still puzzles me though is this calamitous deficiency a product of the environment at your school or home?
TonyClubCollaroy said | March 19th 2009 @ 11:37pm | Report comment
Norm
Norm Norm ..I promised myself I would not respond to you …but you are such a fool ..how can I resit … Hey Westy …Norm is the perfect example of no comment on sport ..I am hurt you think it is me …Norm more than anyone else use his 2 lines max ..and comments on the writer than the sport … I enjoy most about Norm is you can tell from his writing he likes to consult the dictionary to insult you … again I am touched with the effort Norm … one more thing do you and Westy text each other when I make a comment ??
Crosscoder said | March 20th 2009 @ 5:42am | Report comment
Matta.
What are you on about no one is defending their actions or suggesting they should not set examples for the young ones.The convenience of the phone camera and the paying for the film by the media ,gets me.Do people in the media,or social scene in Sydney get their photos taken when they are DUI or under the weather.
No! you get the title ‘guess who don’t sue’ from the Telegraph.
Crosscoder said | March 20th 2009 @ 5:58am | Report comment
Tonyclubcollaroy.
Your attitude in general towards rugby league as evidenced in your posts,is typical of one of the many reasons I turned away from rugby union.The at times sanctimonious and hypocritical claptrap ,offers nothing in rational debate.I have read and heard it all before.
Your dislike of rl sticks out like a beacon.
We expect of course should some idiot carry on like a loon in your code,you will return to shrinking violet mode.
The debate is about how to deal with the problem of idiots in rl,not(as appears to be your delight) bagging the game or the fans.Believe me fella(as a former follower ),i could fill a semi with some of my grievances and historical nasties about your code.I choose not to in this thread,because that is not the debate.
It is about the no 1 problem in the game,the missuse of alcohol by the few ,who give the rest a bad name.
i don’t know what your agenda is,but as my dear old dad used to say”he is like the man who fell out of the balloon,he is not in it”.
Norm said | March 20th 2009 @ 7:42am | Report comment
here you go ClubTony an event for you and your son
http://www.rugbyheaven.com.au/news/news/booze-invite-leaves-hangover/2009/03/19/1237055003063.html
TonyClubCollaroy said | March 20th 2009 @ 9:49am | Report comment
Nice……
..I guess the bitching and moaning of the RL fans here has worked, just curious …. been so called journalist that you do subscribe to censorship of people on this site ? well you guys should change the name of the site to “Meow”
Thanks Roar pulling 2 of my postings in the last 24 hours
Norm said | March 20th 2009 @ 11:32am | Report comment
ClubTony
there’s a certain standard of intellect and finesse that the Roar moderator demands and you obviously don’t measure up. A failure of your school or home?
Zac Zavos said | March 20th 2009 @ 12:17pm | Report comment
Guys – we’ll pull comments which are reported to us and which are personal attacks / flames against our readers.
We work hard to make The Roar a place for informed and respectful debate. Please report comments which are inappropriate.
Zac
The Roar
ANONDrugtester said | March 20th 2009 @ 12:23pm | Report comment
Has anyone considered the increase in alcohol fuelled incidents being related to the tightening of illicit drug testing in the game, following the Johns “confession”??
An absence ecstasy and coke = sloppy drunks!
However I’m sure there was never a climate of drug taking in our sport.
oikee said | March 20th 2009 @ 12:38pm | Report comment
HeHe, i must not be doing to badly then, some of my posts have been far from impressive. I think i have learned how to step back abit and trying not to comment about one persons post, i noticed i was doing this alot. Must learn not to attack spiro, he might start deleting my posts.
I missed what tony said, must have been good. Just another day in the office for league supporters. Just add one thing, i think Gallop is making statements because the sponsers are starting to get nervy. Cant blame them, we are in a recession.