In the aftermath of Friday’s 1980’s revival night at Brookvale, The Sydney Morning Herald reported Manly’s Chief Operating Officer David Perry as having some interesting input as to ways the game could ensure such acts of mass thuggery don’t take place again.
”They need to put something in place where the touch judges could individually take these players a reasonable distance off the field, where club officials can take over and escort them to the sheds, as long as they’re separated,” Perry said.
”If there was a touch judge with Adam Blair, he wouldn’t have caught up with Glenn Stewart. They would have been separated and that incident wouldn’t have spilled over.
“I’m not blaming the NRL, but let’s all learn from this.”
In an age where clubs ignore calls for players to have minders ensuring they behave themselves off the field, this is surely the first in which a club official has called for minders on the field.
But in Perry’s defence, he’s 100 percent correct. If the touch judges had escorted both players from the field a reasonable distance from each other before allowing club officials to take over, none of the violence that ensued would have taken place.
But Perry’s suggestions really don’t go far enough.
For starters, if we’re going to put Perry’s suggestions in to place, we need to rename the sin bin “time out”.
Then, rather than the touch judges escorting the players from the field, referee Shayne Hayne should have made Adam Blair and Glenn Stewart shake hands and apologise to each other – like they meant it – on the field before either of them were sent to time out.
Hayne even had the fantastic ace up his sleeve of none other than David Gallop – AKA the Headmaster of the NRL – sitting in the stands. If those two naughty forwards would not shake hands in a sincere manner, then Hayne should have sent them to sit in time out (escorted there by the touch judges of course) with the promise that they would both have to explain to Mr Gallop what they had done when the game was finished.
And if none of that would be enough to keep Stewart and Blair on the straight and narrow, then Mr Gallop would be forced to call both those naughty boys’ parents.
Yes, calling their parents in may sound a bit melodramatic but if shaking hands, sitting in time out and even a stern talking to from Mr Gallop doesn’t set them on the right path then it’s time mums and dads came in to be told just what proper scoundrels their sons have been (and in the case of Mr and Mrs Stewart, both their sons have been).
Without a doubt getting the ball rolling on these few ideas would see violence in the game of rugby league rubbed out altogether.
Now if we could only get the players to stop running with scissors.
Any ideas, David Perry?
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