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Having just finished a furious 40 minutes of rugby league at Suncorp Stadium on Friday night, North Queensland Cowboys skipper Johnathan Thurston heads toward the sheds – but not before doing an interview with Channel Nine’s sideline commentator Darren Lockyer.
After finishing the interview, Thurston drags his weary legs to the tunnel. He turns his head slightly and sees a young Brisbane supporter sitting in the front row with a big grin on her face.
If he kept on walking there would have been no hard feelings. Instead he changed direction, headed for the girl and handed her his headgear like he has done countless times before.
That young fan would have gone to school on Monday the envy of her classmates. The NRL should be thanking their lucky stars they have players like Thurston.
Because of that small gesture from Thurston, the NRL has a fan for life in that little girl.
On the same night in Gosford where Manly-Warringah outmuscled South Sydney, this writer picked up something that means absolutely nothing in the big scheme of things.
The Eagles kicked for the try-line with Souths’ superstar Greg Inglis watching the ball safely go dead in-goal. The ball evidently fell into the lap of a photographer who had taken a position at the north-western end of Central Coast Stadium.
Inglis didn’t just snatch the ball back and go on his merry way like many others might have.
The photographer tossed the ball up to Inglis, who in turn accepted the footy and tapped his new buddy on the top of the head.
Back in Round 1 at Pirtek Stadium, the New Zealand Warriors went down to the Parramatta Eels. In one passage of play, an Eels player knocked the corner post clean out of the ground at the southern end.
Ninety-nine per cent of players would have never thought twice about re-planting the unloved old corner post.
But for a few moments, friendly giant Manu Vatuvei forgot he was in a cut-throat NRL contest and went to work making sure the corner post took its rightful place back in the hallowed Parramatta turf.
These moments mean nothing right now, but they say something about the players we barely get to see.
Most NRL players are thoughtful, honest and respectful. Some are funny, quirky and you might be surprised by how much they have to say if they were given the chance to say it.
Yet we may never get to see what these men are really like while they are locked up by their paranoid, obsessive employers.
While putting together work for Totally Rugby League magazine, this writer was hoping to do a story on Burleigh Bears’ new recruit and former Penrith and Wests front-rower Matt Bell.
After a phone call to the club I was asked to send through an e-mail. Less than 24 hours later I received an e-mail back saying Bell didn’t want to do interviews. Perhaps that was Bell’s decision, perhaps not.
A few days later it was the same old story with the Canterbury Bulldogs. This time I wanted to speak to promising young NSW Cup forward Lachlan Burr. This time there was no response at all.
Surely letting Burr, a player who has only seen first grade on one occasion, do an interview helps promote their club and especially their NSW Cup team. If clubs aren’t even letting NSW Cup players speak to the media now, what will it be like in a few years’ time?
The more we hear from our players, the better off we will be. They are the reason we watch the game in the first place. A club can’t make money without the players which makes it absurd to keep them from facing up to the media.
There is a difference between protecting your product and destroying the relationship between players and media, because the media is the link between the players and the public.
Hopefully the time will come when, whether through a player revolt or even the NRL stepping in, we will see the clubs unlock their dead-bolted front doors and let the players reconnect with the fans.
Then we might see membership and crowds really grow.
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