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Queensland's Greg inglis is tackled by Mark Gasnier and Peter Wallis during the NRL State of Origin match between Queensland and New South Wales at Suncorp Stadium. AAP Image/Dave Hunt
This week, like many that have passed before it, belongs to the NRL and the new villain on the block, the incomparable Greg Inglis.
The recent history of professional sport is littered with newsprint covering alleged rapes, assaults, degrading infidelities, and many other indiscretions.
Each incident unfolds in much the same way: an act we consider utterly deplorable, a suspension, and a then cacophony of calls for someone’s head.
Then the weekend arrives.
We either don our scarfs and jerseys and head out to pristine stadiums, or take up residence on the couch and grab the remote for the flat screen.
Here we cheer and boo according to our teams fortunes.
Sure, we still make references to how Johnny Superstar has let the game down. But we do this as we cheer on his brother, Recentlydisgraced Superstar, and his cousin, Backfrom Suspension.
Our indignity only lasts as long as the headlines, whilst our admiration lasts as long as they can pass, kick, tackle or run. Once a sexually abused or beaten girl is a distant memory, we will enable the perpetrator to be a role model to our children.
Yet in the all to familiar aftermath of each incident, who do we blame? Typically it is either the league or the club culture. As this website suggests, this is the bastion of the CEO and he should wear the wrath.
The person who should be held most responsible is always the player, but didn’t we also play a role in how wide-spread this has become?
Didn’t we facilitate the payments and media attention that helps turn these young men into celebrities with a sense of entitlement and a distorted view of justice and consequence?
And yet when it happens repeatedly, does it alter our behaviour and force us to say “you know what, enough is enough”?
We continually talk about how we are stakeholders of the game, so why don’t we use this power? Possibly because we value the contribution of bunch of guys we don’t know, but wear the right coloured jersey, more than some young girl whose life may never impact ours.
Personally, I’m disgusted most with myself, as I already know that next time Inglis is breaking the line with his patented fend, I’ll look on in awe while Sally Robinson will not even be a vague memory.
So I find it difficult to blame a CEO for acting in the exact way I encourage them to. I blame myself more than David Gallop.
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