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Something's gotta give: Mitchell Pearce a symptom as well as a problem

Can Mitchell Pearce get the Roosters back on track? (AAP Image/Action Photographics, Renee McKay)
Roar Guru
28th January, 2016
2

Far from being vilified, Mitchell Pearce should be celebrated as a hero; a deadset freak, legend and worldbeater.

When rugby league needed a champion Pearce stepped up, putting the greatest game of all on the front pages where it belonged, and leading news bulletins.

More Mitchell Pearce:
» The new and improved NRL Code of Conduct
» Mitchell Pearce speaks for first time following Australia Day scandal
» Whatever Pearce’s punishment, make sure he learns from it
» Pearce faces anxious wait on NRL career
» Roosters stand down disgraced captain Mitchell Pearce
» Footage emerges of Pearce simulating sex act with a dog

The AFL may have peaked too early with its Essendon drugs saga. Now it will be playing catch-up atrocities for the rest of the season.

Pearce has given the AFL a kicking, hit the cricket for six and smashed the tennis off the court.

It could be said his performance was derivative, a salute to a previous master in Joel Monaghan, but Pearce added new, imaginative elements.

There’s been only one missing. Where has been the voice of Barnaby Joyce in defence of the dog?

Otherwise, it’s been a ten out of 10.

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When the AFL’s torso-tattooed Ben Cousins was pictured stumbling out of a car, that would have appeared the final, unmatchable image of football boofheadery, the ultimate example of talent unaccompanied by maturity.

Rugby league needed something more. Some players did their best, but the usual drunken brawling wasn’t enough. It needed innovation to capture imaginations.

Cometh the crisis, cometh the champion in the form of Todd Carney, with his inspired piss de resistance.

Now Pearce has put himself up there in the pantheon, and as long as rugby league can produce the Carneys and Pearces, the game is in safe hands.

But there is an opposite view.

That view says one bad apple has tainted the bunch, that all the good work in education and community relations has been forgotten, that the stereotyped image of the drunken, inarticulate aggro footballer has been reinforced.

If that view is true, Professor Catharine Lumby’s dismay at all her work in teaching gender respect being undermined is understandable but points to the problem.

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When you’ve got to address adults as metaphorical children the game has already been lost, but it points to the steps that can be taken.

In times not so long past, there were doctors, civil engineers, lawyers and teachers – professional people – and skilled tradesman playing rugby league.

That’s no longer possible.

Manly’s recently retired Jason King qualified as a lawyer after taking twice the normal time.

King spoke of how hard it was to find time to study, of how mentally and physically buggered he was after training demands.

At the same time, he said it was a break from a world where some players’ only topic of conversation was football.

The difficulty of players pursuing a career path outside of football places an extra moral burden on clubs, who have been playing catch-up responsibilities.

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Are they their players’ keepers?

Indeed, but it requires a bit more than Mickey-Mouse courses and a requirement for young players to study. Study what?

If it were fair dinkum, the NRL hierarchy could help.

It could discontinue major schools competitions, leaving just inter-zone games.

This could remove the incentive for schools to scour districts, vacuuming up players from rival schools and waving fees.

Clubs now sign potential stars virtually from the cradle.

Players could be prevented from signing with clubs until they were 18, and have to pass basic literacy and numeracy tests, or come back a year later.

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That might help those who boast they are only at school to play football; school being a necessary chore until they become football stars and make lots of money. What these guys don’t realise is that many dream, but few are chosen.

Watch 14-year-olds play now and see pre-match warm-ups and drills longer than the game. See trainers running on and issuing instructions at every break in play.

It might gratify the coach’s ego, but it does little for playing what’s in front you, chancing individual skills and having fun.

Gone are the halftime oranges and forgettable words.

This is serious stuff, and little wonder there are sideline and after-match brawls, when future NRL careers are at stake. Or so it’s imagined.

Pearce is a product of this world; a talented player who can speak in sentences, but a bad man on the piss, who thinks his football celebrity can place him above society’s expected norms of behaviour.

He’ll be made an example of, will probably finish up in English Super League, but he’ll have successors.

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The nature of the game means there’ll always be successors, and their numbers won’t be reduced until the NRL gets fair dinkum about the game’s structure.

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