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What is with the number of anti-rugby league stories? It seems almost every day there is a fresh headline of league players engaged in deviant off-field incidents.
While not condoning the actions of these players, are they really all that different from their other professional sporting counterparts or young males in Australian society, generally?
Take a moment to compare some of the NRL incidents that have hit the paper and wonder why you didn’t hear about these comparable AFL versions.
Did you hear about Jackson Trengrove of the Port Power damaging a car windscreen after a night of loutish drinking? How about Collingwood’s Ryan Cook being charged for causing a man injuries requiring facial surgery?
Rugby League is constantly trashed nationally for its players’ attitudes to women. Yet Adelaide’s Nathan Bock was charged for assaulting his girlfriend.
Let’s face the cold hard facts: the AFL is no better than the NRL when it comes to off-field behaviour. Show me Greg Bird? I’ll raise you Wayne Carey.
This is not meant to demonise AFL players, but the truth of the matter is, that AFL players are engaged in just as many incidents of anti-social off-field behaviour, and yet most of the reporting jumps on the NRL being filled with criminal deviants.
This week is prime example.
A lot of intense scrutiny has been placed on the Queensland State of Origin team over an apparent night of drinking and mixing over the counter medication.
While none of these rumours have been substantiated, News Limited ran a story by Karl deKroo and Matt Marshall lambasting the Queensland Rugby League’s investigation into the matter.
Did these bastions of journalistic and moral right care to mention that the AFL has a policy that refuses to name and shame players who are found to have tested positive for illicit (that means breaking the law) drugs?
Have they ever written a critical piece about that?
No, but apparently writing a critical piece about the investigation of an alleged incident involving the consumption of perfectly legal drugs is very pressing.
Alcohol related behaviour, particularly binge drinking, has been acknowledged by the Australian Federal Government as a social problem. Hence the Rudd government has begun taking measures to combat the anti-social consumption of alcohol in young people.
This same target age group makes up a large contingent of both the AFL and NRL’s playing stocks.
If it is indeed a social problem, it makes sense that players from both codes, and also most other professional sports in Australia would be in need of combating this issue in their players.
It really does make you wonder why the rugby league stories are force-fed upon the media consuming public, and very similar stories from other sports hardly raise a ripple in the ocean.
Eventually we may be able to enjoy some balanced reporting.
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