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What a waste of a front page

4th September, 2018
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4th September, 2018
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We’re just days away from one of the most even NRL finals series in recent memory and the historic first weekend of the NRLW too. But here we are again, copping another front page of an alleged rugby league crisis.

Apparently the NRL is “at a new low” because Canterbury can’t organise a decent mad Monday hoedown.

Whether this is an officially sanctioned club event or not, the Bulldogs need to be smarter.

Do what everyone else does: organise to use all of a friendly licensed venue, do some token media on the way in, lock the doors, and then get as pissed and as naked as you want.

The Bulldogs would possibly be the only pro sports team in Australia stupid enough to have mad Monday in a freakin’ public beer garden.

The drunken antics were breathlessly reported by Sydney’s Daily Telegraph and all the cliches were there – including my favourite, “the game copped another black eye”.

Interestingly, it wasn’t big rugby league journos breaking this massive story. That solemn job fell to relative unknowns Jack Houghton and Sam McBeath.

It’s a truism out there that young writers who are keenest to write the trash, the outrage piece, to rake the muck, will be the ones set for promising futures. So make sure you keep an eye out for those names the next time a celebrity arrives at Sydney airport.

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Maybe we should feel for poor McBeath and Houghton.

Like many journalists in this day and age, they thought their careers were going to be more than this. They thought they’d be taking down governments and dodgy corporations, rather than begging punters for photos of footballers on the piss and whipping ten shades of froth out of it.

But I’d wager that, like most of the Daily Telegraph crew, they harbour a deep animosity towards rugby league and in the end it’s all about the clicks, baby.

In total, the Tele punched out more than half a dozen articles about the ‘incident’, one every 90 minutes or so from daybreak until just after lunch.

Among the Telegraph story’s twitter ratio was a reply from former Sydney Kings NBL player turned Daily Telegraph head of sport Tim Morrissey, complete with a smartarse #ThisIsHowWeLeague hashtag. At the time of writing, his tweet had four likes.

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Among all the hyperventilating, we should salute the Rugby League Player’s Association CEO, Ian Prendergast.

“We share the disappointment of other stakeholders regarding the impact that these incidents can have on the perception of the game and players, particularly given all of the impressive things that players are doing, on and off field, and the positive direction that the game is heading in,” Prendergast said.

“Given the emotion involved around incidents such as these, it’s important that we all take a deep breath and put things into context, while working through the process in a measured way.

“We’re also concerned about the intrusive nature of the reporting involved here.”

Where does the Tele’s hatred of rugby league come from? As it was put to me by a friend – why do they insist on sawing away at the branch they’re sitting on?

Thankfully, the tide is turning against this sort of trash. If you don’t believe me, check the reaction to not only the original piece, but also the follow-up, Helen Lovejoy-style ‘think of the children’ pieces.

When I looked at their online poll, three out of four people responded to “Is the Bulldogs’ Mad Monday behaviour really that bad?” by choosing “no, boys will be boys”. Even the Telegraph’s own readers weren’t buying it.

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I’ll let you in on a dirty secret of mine: earlier this year I subscribed to the Daily Telegraph. I lasted less than four months before I canned it.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was when Paul Crawley attacked a “ridiculous outpouring of political correctness” after it was revealed referee Matt Cecchin had received death threats.

So I bailed. It’s not even worth the tax deduction.

And I’m not alone. People are tired of this. They’re tired of relentless muck-raking and beat-ups.

According to Roy Morgan market research, from June 2017 to June 2018 the Tele’s cross-platform audience (that’s papers, online and their app) is down 5.1 per cent, or almost 175,000 people.

Imagine if something the NRL did went down by those numbers – think about the coverage it would receive.

Imagine if NRL CEO Todd Greenberg had said what McLachlan said. He’d have been hounded out of his job within hours.

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The Daily Telegraph is now well over a million readers behind the Sydney Morning Herald. If the NRL turned its back on them, they’d be dead in the water.

I’ve written before that the public needs strong media to hold the NRL accountable. But cheap crap like this is a waste of their time and an insult to our intelligence.

Do better. Because rugby league fans deserve better. And they’re voting with their feet and their wallets.

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