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Gorden Tallis was a terrific rugby league player. His charges into opponents, with and without the ball, made you recoil even though you were watching on the television screen. He was handy with his fists, too.
There were any number of iconic moments in his career when he was captured on film smacking into his opponents, with his fists flying in a raging bull mood.
All this was great stuff on the field.
But, unfortunately, he has taken this raging bull mode into career as a former player who sees his role as putting the biff on rugby union in defence of his beloved code of rugby league.
One of things that enrages him most, it seems, is the defection of rugby league players to the dark side of rugby union.
A day or so ago, Gorden was putting the biff once again into rugby union – a familiar rant actually – about the way that rugby union wasn’t concerned about the long term interests of players poached from rugby league.
“They use these players (league players) to get crowds to games and get more publicity,” Gorden fumed, giving rugby union yet another Tallis uppercut. “But when you stop getting them publicity and you mess up, they kick you out.”
This is supposed to be a warning to Jonathan Thurston not to switch to rugby union. The players he seems to be talking about are probably Mat Rogers, Wendell Sailor, and Lote Tuqiri.
Rogers was released from his contract with the ARU when he said he wanted to make a break from his rugby life in Sydney and go back to Queensland and play rugby league there.
Where is the abuse here?
Sailor tested positive for cocaine and was banned for two years. He decided to come back as a rugby league player. The abuse here was clearly that which Sailor inflicted on himself.
Tuqiri had his Wallabies contract wiped out over a disciplinary breach. He has never revealed publicly what this breach was, even though no one has tried to stop him from doing so. He has subsequently played rugby union in England and now has joined the Wests Tigers.
If the breach was serious, then he can hardly complain about his treatment by the rugby union officials.
There is nothing in any of these cases that reflects badly on rugby union. Nor are any of these cases matters where players have been casually and cruelly thrown aside after their marketing value to the rugby union has been exhausted.
In fact, if you look at the history of rugby union in Australia you’ll find that the code has an excellent record of embracing and helping players after their careers are over.
This applies even to players who left rugby union to play rugby league.
The most significant defection from rugby union (after Dally Messenger, of course) to rugby league was Trevor Allan. When Allan retired from rugby league, he came back to Australia. Rather than being ostracised by the rugby union game, he was, for many years, a revered rugby union commentator on the ABC.
Lloyd McDermott was the first Aboriginal to play for the Wallabies. He switched to rugby league to put himself through law school. Now a successful QC, McDermott runs an annual camp for Aboriginal youngsters based around a special rugby union side.
Going to the NSW Waratahs launch a couple of days ago I spotted Ken Wright, a Wallaby who then turned to rugby league, and now involved in rugby union matters.
And who is that coaching the Australian Sevens side? Michael O’Connor, that’s who. O’Connor is another Wallaby who went across to rugby league and has since been embraced again by the rugby union community.
Where is the “you mess up, they kick you out” in these cases?
The fact is that rugby union has a much better record of looking after former players (even those who decided for whatever reason to play ‘the greatest game of all’) than most other codes. Tallis is wrong to make the accusations he makes.
If he wants to retain any credibility, he should stop talking this nonsense.
His ludicrous (malacious is probably a better word) accusations invite the response that rugby league should look at its own history before putting the biff on rugby union.
Rugby league owed an enduring debt to the great Dally Messenger. He was the prize convert from rugby union and gave the new rugby league code in Sydney in 1908 a needed star attraction.
To refresh Gorden Tallis’ memory of how much the rugby league code cared for Messenger in his retirement, when he could no longer put bums on seats with his glorious play, here is a paragraph from Jack Pollard’s entry on Messenger in his magisterial history of Australian Rugby, The Game and the Players.
“There was a public outcry when the NSW Rugby League decided to charge him (Messenger) for the room he occupied at the Leagues Club in Phillip Street. Dan Frawley, who was the club’s chief steward, called the League officials, ‘a pack of ignorant and ungrateful bastards.’ The dispute was settled when Dally’s son paid the rent for him, in defiance of advice from his father’s friends and supporters.”