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So let’s get this straight: the media is in uproar because football players acted outlandishly on their Mad Monday less then 24 hours after losing the biggest game of the year?
Give me a break.
Reporters from the Nine Network, including Jayne Azzopardi, not only sat outside the premises but used a helicopter for this grand occasion.
The very same network that just paid over a billion dollars for the rights to broadcast the game they so dearly “love.”
Most of these players have not had an alcoholic drink all season. They are constantly in the limelight and rarely get a moment to themselves. The pressure on these players is ridiculous and people wonder why they acted the way they did yesterday?
A photo doing the rounds of the players urinating beats me.
They’re locked behind closed doors for some privacy and they get blasted for urinating?
Surely this is a better situation than the players being out in public. Oh imagine the stories if that was the case. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Nobody is condoning the comments directed at Azzopardi. They included:
“There are some ladies here to stick their heads in your pants;”
“S. .K me off you dumb dog;” and
“I wanna go and punch you in the face.”
If Mad Monday was such a big deal to Channel Nine, wouldn’t they have sent a Rugby League reporter?
Or at least a sports reporter?
In a Twitter exchange with colleague Erin Molan, Azzopardi remarked:
“@Erin_Molan they’re yelling some colorful (sic) things out the window at us too. Definitely not children’s cartoon vocabulary.”
It almost seems like they were just sitting there waiting for the outbursts to begin.
You can play devil’s advocate and even ask why they didn’t send a hardened male reporter? Common sense needs to be used somewhere along the line and it doesn’t necessary have to start with the players.
The boss of the ARL commission John Grant has commented on the situation.
“Based on what I’ve heard, it’s a serious issue and will be treated seriously,” Grant said.
A report from the Bulldogs has been requested by the Commission too. What kind of penalty could the Commission possibly hand down anyway?
It is getting to the point where the media will expect to be allowed everywhere. A player is getting married and he is on his honeymoon with his wife. All of a sudden a reporter slides out from under the bed with a camera crew and starts taking happy snaps.
The player would then be hammered for not co-operating.
Fox Sports personality Ryan Phelan said it best on his Twitter account:
“Filming #Bulldogs from public property is irrelevant. You’re filming for a slip up #dirty journalism let them have their time #NRL.”
It is time we accept as a community that these players are human beings too and make mistakes like everyone else.
You can argue they make plenty of money and live a fantastic lifestyle. But the pressure on them is something many of us will never understand. Everyone needs to chill and give them some space, for the good of the game we all apparently love so much.
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