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Look, you know and I know that rugby league is currently in rude health. Television ratings are high, standard of play is excellent, Jamal Idris is taller than ever, and crowds are occasionally present.
It is a great and noble game at peak fitness and all those involved deserve a hearty pat on the back for the success of their efforts to not totally destroy it.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t problems. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and the price of a glistening goblet of gold like modern rugby league is forever being made aware of those phenomena that threaten its prosperity, so as to be able to extinguish them.
Let’s have a look at some of the more severe existential menaces that swirl about the NRL at present.
Threat One: Opinions
A shudder went through NRL headquarters, a shudder no doubt shared by all leaguies of goodwill, when Paul Green said he had “no confidence” in the judiciary. A more disturbing development I have not seen in all my years of seeing developments.
It was a textbook example of how the foundations of the game are threatened by the flagrant possessing of opinions that it seems every Tom, Dick and Harry nowadays believe they have right to. How on earth can the judiciary even function if it is aware that people have no faith in it? If Green’s dangerous activism were to spread, it would be an end to the universal confidence in the judiciary that we enjoy now.
And for those who say “it’s no big deal”, let me ask you to think of the kids. When Paul Green talks, children listen, and if you really want our young people growing up without faith in the judiciary I shall have to ask you to step outside.
But the problem of opinions goes further than just the judiciary. If Paul Green is allowed to say whatever he likes about the judiciary, what’s next? Ivan Cleary saying what he thinks of the salary cap? Wayne Bennett airing forthright views on neck tattoos? A slippery slope indeed. Thank god the NRL nipped this threat in the bud with a $10,000 fine, which will I am sure have restored Green’s faith.
Threat Two: Loyalty
It is frankly disgusting the way in which the Manly saga has carried on. Former Sea Eagles boss Ken Arthurson was quite right when he decried the manner in which “the lunatics are running the asylum” – the asylum being Manly, and the lunatics being the players, probably mainly that weird-looking one.
In a way this relates to the first threat – the fact that Anthony Watmough feels entitled to an opinion is a demonstration of the aforementioned slippery slope. But it goes further, it goes to the sudden and rather odious outbreak of loyalty in rugby league.
That Watmough feels aggrieved because the club failed to make an effort to retain Glenn Stewart is pretty repellent to all those of us who revel in rugby league’s simple manly principles of free enterprise and high mobility of labour. This sort of blatant loyalty to one’s teammates needs to be identified and eradicated as quickly as possible, or we could have players being loyal all over the place.
Watmough, it must be said, has acted disgracefully. If other players were to follow suit, we might see all kinds of unpleasant consequences, like pay cuts and increased emotional investment by supporters. What a horrible thought.
So it’s a good thing Watmough won’t be infecting his club with this nonsense much longer. Yes, he has been a faithful servant of Manly for many years, but to be honest that’s the whole problem.
Threat Three: Players deliberately spearing themselves headfirst into the ground
We go again to Manly, and courageous coach Geoff “The Termite” Toovey’s pinpointing of an unsavoury new habit creeping into the game – ball-carriers purposely performing dangerous lifting tackles on themselves just to get their opponents into trouble.
It’s a shame it was up to Toovey to bell the cat, when really the NRL administration and the referees should’ve cottoned much sooner to Greg Inglis’ habit of spear-tackling himself.
This latest incident, where Inglis created finals havoc for the Sea Eagles by having Watmough suspended for a dangerous throw which, as the Termite pointed out, was his own fault, is just the latest in Inglis’s long campaign to smear the good names of his fellow players by deliberately inflicting spinal injuries on himself.
Imagine being an innocent tackler, moving in to make a perfectly safe and legal tackle on your opponent, when all of a sudden he heaves himself up into the air, cunningly forces your hand between his legs, and performs a lethal somersault so he ends up upside down. How terrified for your rival’s safety you would be, even as you mourned the death of sportsmanship inherent in this man’s attempt to besmirch you with his self-spearing ways.
It’s time Dave Smith got tough. Introduce automatic 10-week bans for anyone who, like Inglis seemingly habitually does, causes dangerous throws to be performed on himself. If not we could see someone seriously injure himself, and more importantly, injure his opponent’s reputation.
Threat Four: Phil Gould
Well, obviously.