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Manly is failing Brett Stewart

Roar Guru
11th February, 2013
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Manly legend Brett Stewart. (AAP Image/Action Photographics, Grant Trouville)
Roar Guru
11th February, 2013
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3549 Reads

Ignoring the drugs hysteria, there is a big problem in rugby league around the dashing Manly fullback Brett Stewart. For the sake of this young man, the Manly Football club needs to act like an adult and protect their player.

In early 2009 all the talk in league was that a crime had been committed on the northern beaches. Most of us, and I certainly include myself in this, believed the worst, that an innocent young woman in her pyjamas had been sexually assaulted by a drunk rugby league player.

It turns out that we were half right, a crime was indeed committed. Against Brett Stewart.

379 days after he was accused and splashed over every news outlet, his case was thrown out of court in less than an hour.

An astonishing read in the Sydney Morning Herald magazine Good Weekend revealed that that fullback had been deliberately targeted by a brazen conman, manipulating a vulnerable young woman into making the most heinous of allegations.

Brett Stewart did nothing wrong. He simply stood in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This was three years ago.

Unfortunately Brett then suffered a second crime. Only this time, it was committed by his club, his coach and his mates. None of whom helped him to move on.

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Des Hasler disgracefully incorporated Brett’s incident into his narrative that “The NRL was out to get us” and “We need to band together since they don’t want us to win”. It won them a surprise premiership.

And left Manly with a desperately unhappy man, who shuns the media and desperately wants an apology from David Gallop.

He has gone from being the face of the game, to having ‘rapist’ screamed in his face at nightclubs and by Queensland ‘fans’ at Lang Park.

Indeed yesterday when word broke that he had been charged by police, the vitriol erupted on social media with huge amounts of personal abuse slung his way.

Manly needs to find an adult to help this man out.

If they don’t, he won’t be able to go into a pub for the next 50 years (he is only 28) without wondering if a drunk yahoo is going to bring up the worst day of his life.

If they don’t, his kids will come home from school crying because of what other kids are saying about their dad.

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It actually isn’t that hard, Matt Johns was involved in a sexual tryst that ruined a young woman’s life. He let Tracy Grimshaw harangue him for twenty minutes and now he’s a TV, print and radio star again.

His brother Andrew took drugs his whole career, thirty contrite minutes with Phil Gould and he’s an immortal, and all over Channel 9.

Indeed it will only take four steps.

1. Spend a week on Camp Quality

Meeting bright young teenagers who are going to die from cancer before they are old enough to drive is gut wrenchingly sad. It also has a sobering way of focusing your mind of how much fortune you have in your own life.

Brett has his health, his youth, and is being paid a huge amount of money to play a game.

2. Get over Gallop

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The hysteria in the media when Brett was accused was overwhelming. David Gallop was given a stark choice. He could help the code by killing the issue with a punishment to the player. Or he could have protected the player, and done huge damage to the code with weeks of highly negative press.

Not being able to do both, he made a choice and it wasn’t personal. There was never an apology coming, and there certainly won’t be one coming now.

3. Change nicknames

Snake has never had good connotations. Be it the bandit in The Simpsons or the bad guys in pretty much every Harry Potter book. Drop it and tell your mates at the club to drop it too.

4. Cry on TV, ASAP

Sit him next to his parents and girlfriend, and tell his story. Not just about the assault, and the aftermath, but about being an elite sportsman with Type 1 diabetes. About being a role model to young athletes who think their career is over when they are diagnosed with diabetes.

I have no interest in the Manly Sea Eagles. I’m a Wests Tigers fan and Manly has brought me nothing but disappointment in the last few years plus the weekly annoyance of listening to my Eagles-crazy mate carry on and on and on.

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But this has to end. An innocent man deserves retribution in the public eye.

There are lots of reasons to hate Manly. Brett Stewart shouldn’t be one of them.

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