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Plenty has happened in rugby league over the past couple of weeks, with the Four Nations tossing up some interesting games and results, a large amount of player movement, and yet another mindless act from a player involving a mobile phone or computer.
At the time when rugby union wrestled with the Kurtley Beale issue which had a mobile phone transmission as its ugly centrepiece, out comes league’s Paul Gallen with a tweet containing offensive language seemingly directed at NRL officials.
A hefty fine and a long ban from playing for the Kangaroos has ensued, and we hear the Blues captain may challenge the penalties legally.
Good luck to him in this latest endeavour, but I don’t fancy his chances.
A man of such seniority in the game was always going to get the kitchen sink hurled in his direction. It’s just that the double-barrelled penalty was handed down without the ruling body giving the player a chance to defend himself.
Anyway, let the lawyers go at it as hard as they like. They really need the money in these trying times.
What I am dirty about is that players are not heeding repeated warnings about mobile phones and the ever-expanding social media domain.
We are told that they are schooled repeatedly on the potential dangers yet hardly a week goes by without someone offending someone, and quite possibly everyone, by sending an inappropriate picture or text message which inevitably explodes in the public domain.
The game certainly doesn’t need it, some players’ images are slumping to gutter level, and I wonder if the time is fast approaching when the game’s top brass draws a line in the sand.
Of course they can’t and won’t ban mobile phones, computers or tablets. These are the preferred mode of communication for the bulk of society these days.
At the risk of being branded a wowser, I’d like the game’s powers to ban (or at least severely restrict) NRL players from doing the Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Pinterest thing.
The game’s image could certainly do with some respite from the garbage emanating from social media. Seriously, would you be heartbroken or even mildly miffed if your favourite player kept his tweets to himself?
Would there suddenly appear a gaping void in your daily routine if Front rower X or Fullback Y’s spur-of-the-moment thoughts weren’t being transmitted ad nauseam? Would you be crestfallen if you missed a message with the ‘c’ word within, or a picture showing some weird bathroom stunt known as bubbling?
It’s time the NRL community got a whole lot more responsible about the use of social media and, primarily, mobile phones.
Banning player activity on twitter and the like might sound over the top, but more discipline in this area would surely save the image of rugby league being dragged through the sewers time and again.
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