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Rugby league and its poorly dressed players are often accused of being a ‘bad influence’. However, the NRL is currently battling a bad influence of its own… horse racing.
What does a ball game between 26 players have to do with a pack of hoofed mammals piloted around a track by blokes resembling 19th Century chimney sweeps for the entertainment of a couple of millionaires and drunken bucks parties?
Buggered if I know, but for some reason the ‘greatest game of all’ and the ‘sport of kings’ seem to be eternally attached at the hip, and rugby league is all the worse off for it.
The recent scuttlebutt involving team Waterhouse and John Singleton is the latest in a seemingly never ending list of dodgy dealings in the world of racing, and should have absolute zero to do with rugby league.
Sadly though it does.
Former Newcastle player Andrew Johns is overheard talking with official NRL betting partner Tom Waterhouse by ex-jockey Allan Robinson about a horse.
Robinson who, for reasons I could never hope to understand let alone explain, used to be part of the Footy Show.
Robbo rings John Singleton, owner of previously mentioned horse… oh yeah, and the Newtown Jets.
And it all started in a bloody rugby league corporate box!
It’s mental, it really is. I would give you a “no, no, no, no, no” but that would only bring up Phil Gould, a bloke who dropped out of Uni to hang-out at the racetrack.
Pardon my ignorance but I do not understand why the two sports need to be linked to one another in this day and age, I really don’t. It’s not as if Wests Tigers are thinking about poaching a gelding to play fullback for them next season, or the Newcastle Knights used to share a recovery session with the horses at Nathan Tinkler’s stables.
Horse racing is a sport that exists entirely for the purpose of gambling, like it or lump it.
Sure professional rugby league doesn’t necessarily have the ‘purest’ of intentions, otherwise players would just play for free in the park, but it certainly exists for more reasons than blokes at the TAB.
After all the drama with the Ryan Tandy affair, players admitting to problem gambling and the ACC investigations you would think the major rugby league competition in this country would slowly be untangling itself from racing, but instead the NRL is making out with it like a pimply, 14 year old kid in the corner of a Bluelight disco.
It used to be bad enough that you had to fish through the micro print racing guide to find the footy teams in Friday’s paper, but now we’re treated to a post-match panels of commentators describing the best way to lose your money on the gee-gees and more racing references per minute than at your workplace Melbourne Cup day.
I’m not saying an ex-footy player shouldn’t be able to own a race horse or Rabs can’t go for a punt at Randwick on his day off, but the powers at the NRL need to draw a line in the sand somewhere and say “Woah there, Nelly”.
After all, there is a massive element of rugby league’s fan-base that don’t give a rat’s about gambling or the ponies and are just in it for, you know, the rugby league.
And as for the horse racing hangers-on? It would be great if they could positively affect some NRL players dress sense, but for the integrity of the game most of them could do us all a favour by taking the final corner and riding off into the sunset.
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