I was dismayed to read Paul Crawley’s article in The Daily Telegraph. I can’t dispute what was in the article as I was not there to witness what happened.
ARTICLE: HAS HAYNE ALREADY MADE THE 49ERS’ 53-MAN ROSTER?
If you haven’t read it, the accusation is that Paul Gallen swore in the vicinity of some young Cronulla fans who wanted his autograph.
“Then he said, ‘F*** this, I haven’t got time for this s***’,” Gallen is quoted in the article as saying when around the kids.
What I would like to do is recount something I witnessed, in regards to Paul Gallen’s attitude and approach to young fans.
I was at the Sharks versus Titans game earlier this year at Remondis, to watch my young bloke play a demonstration game prior to first grade.
Once that was complete, the first grade team came out to warm-up. A number of the juniors who had just played the demo game, got to create a guard of honour for the players to run through and high five the first graders as they ran on.
To say that the juniors were tickled pink to be able to do this would be an understatement.
Paul Gallen was one of the last to run out. He high-fived the juniors as he came out, and the last junior in the guard was so excited that he leapt up and missed Gallen’s hand. The disappointment on the young bloke’s face was extreme and he started walking back to his seat on the sideline.
What he didn’t notice, as he walked back, was that Gallen had noticed he missed his high five, and had gone to his knees and called him back ready for another attempt. Gallen stayed there and called back to the junior repeatedly until he got his attention, and came running back to gleefully high five his hero.
Paul Gallen didn’t have to do that. I certainly expected him to give up after he called the kid back a couple of times, but he didn’t. He stayed until he got the young bloke’s attention so he didn’t miss out. And he went up in my estimations 10 fold.
Gallen’s battle with anxiety or depression has been well documented. These things happen after sustained periods of stress.
If something did happen along the lines of Crawley’s story, or a variation of it, I’d like to imagine that we can all understand that nothing in life is completely black or white.
Squidward
Roar Rookie
I'd love a defamation suit against the Tele if these allegation are unfounded as it almost appears they are. Poor kids of that dad dragging them through this all with his conflicting Facebook posts with their faces in them. Or what he did the following week
Maverick1990
Roar Rookie
I despise Paul when he's in a NSW jersey, but that article seemed like a pile of crap to me, crawley is a boofhead
Adsa
Guest
I read a good story about him in a regional Qld paper, he gave up his time to take photos and sign autograph to a junior Qld team in NSW on tour. He is not my cup of tea on the field but I think he is coping it unfairly on this one.
up up cronulla
Guest
It was only a couple of yrs ago that i went to my first game at home for many yrs as id moved away, anyway id had a few ales and was pretty drunk bfore the game and was out the back waiting for players to arrive , smoking cigarettes(ive since quit) , in walks Gal and i told him id moved away etc , i asked for photos etc and he was more than happy to give me his time , me who was 38 drunk and stinking of smokes, putting up with my ramblings , not once to he try and avoid me!!!
Con Scortis
Roar Guru
I posted a comment last week about how on the same day the Daily Terrorgraph came out with a headline "Gallen is the NRL's Mr 1.2%". It was about how in their fan poll, only 1.2% of Daily Terrorgraph readers nominated Gallen as the NRL's best player. The article was essentially arguing that Gallen is over-rated. The thing is, Cooper Cronk only polled 2%, yet there was of course no Daily Terrorgraph headline calling Cooper "Mr 2%". James Graham only polled 1% and yet there was no headline calling him "Mr 1%". So given that this piece of tripe was published by News Crap on the same day as the swearing allegation, I take the whole thing with a grain of salt.
Up the Wahs
Roar Guru
That's a great story and I have heard hundreds like it about Gal, the fact he is so strongly coming ouit to deny it, citing wtinesses and the like suggests Crawleys mate might have been a bit liberal with the truth. After the telegraph were found out to be oh so wrong about club rebellion and Telstra pulling the plug with the NRL, is it really a stretch to suggest this story falls in with their war on rugby league. This is poor journalism if you can call it that.