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Both the AFL and NRL copped a serve of irony during their recent theme rounds, as did a prominent Sydney sports columnist.
Here’s hoping the lessons are learnt.
The NRL had just completed their Women in League round, designed to raise money for breast cancer research, pay tribute to the women who volunteer long hours to the code and hopefully amend the stereotype that league is a bloke’s zone.
Unfortunately for the code, all the terrible pink jerseys and heartfelt thank yous were overshadowed by the shocking image of a young woman whose face was badly damaged in an altercation with South Sydney forward Ben T’eo.
The press reaction to this has been fairly calm in comparison to recent off field scandals. Possibly they noticed that after they convicted and shamed both Brett Stewart and Benji Marshall, both of them were found in court to be innocent of the allegations made against them.
Maybe this time the media is going to wait until charges are pressed or actual guilt is found before lighting the torches and gathering the pitchforks.
There will be more to come from this story but already two things are clear.
The first is that the almighty arm-wrestle between clubs and code is still on in earnest.
Over a month ago, South Sydney knew that one of their players was involved in an incident that left a young woman physically beaten. Yet they didn’t even give the NRL a courtesy call to let them know.
The clubs see the NRL as their enemy, rather than their leaders.
So even in the best case scenario, where the players are completely blameless in all of this, the NRL clearly has a fight on its hands to get the clubs to put the interests of the code before their own.
The second lesson is that the code should continue to push and promote the role of women in the game. For no other reason that it indicates loud and clear that it is something important to the code and something they value very greatly.
Which is exactly what the AFL has been doing for years with the Indigenous Round.
Without even following the sport, I know that the AFL celebrates and values the contribution of the game made by Indigenous Australians and that racism has no place in their sport.
Which is why it has been ridiculous to see all this ignored because a little girl yelled out a racist comment.
The girl said something stupid and offensive. It was entirely her fault, she said it. She then got publicly shamed for doing it as security escorted her away, and she has now apologised.
So far so good, this is how most people learn. You make a mistake, there is a nasty consequence you must endure, you then apologise and try not to repeat it.
That should be the end of the story.
Yet the next two days of news were dominated by this story and featured the best efforts of everyone involved to win the award for being the most embarrassed, ashamed and appalled.
Most ridiculous was the faux sadness that this had to happen in Indigenous Round, suggesting that racists slurs from the sideline are cool again this week.
This is not just the AFLs problem.
There is a problem across society right now, with some people believing it appropriate to yell out highly offensive slurs at people with a different coloured skin. It happens on buses, trains, on the street and most definitely at sporting events.
It happens at league games, it happens at football games and it happens at AFL games.
The only good news about this problem is that when these slurs are screamed out, the vast majority of the population are incredibly angry at the clown doing the screaming, as opposed to silently nodding along in agreement.
And the longer time goes on, the more these racists find themselves in the minority.
The AFL can’t expect that their theme round will magically rid the country of racists fools who want to embarrass themselves.
The Indigenous Round is a wonderful celebration of Indigenous Australians, it clearly indicates how important they are to the code and… that’s it!
Hopefully next year, the impulsive silly actions of a child won’t dominate a weekend which, like the Women in League Round, clearly signals that this is something of enormous value and importance to the sport.
Finally, there was one final twist of irony round.
Fairfax journalist and former Wallaby Peter Fitzsimons has written numerous columns where he has been enormously critical of the NRL response to the ASADA allegations of illegal drug use.
Fitzsimons argument has been that if the clubs and code are innocent, they should provide complete cooperation, and their lack of cooperation suggests either guilt or stupidity.
It was thus, amusing to read a lead story in Saturday’s Herald that a Sydney schoolboy rugby player had been using illegal drugs and his GPS School had also been less then fully cooperative with ASADA.
One wonders what Fitzsimons will make of this.
Will he conclude that Cranbrook are just like Cronulla, reckless cheats led by a bunch of dunderheads?
Or maybe he will realise that waiting for more information before fully cooperating with ASADA is not as silly as he led us to believe.
In the words of Frank Drebin, “I guess irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.”
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