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Opinion
Brandon Smith is one of the elite players in rugby league, but I don’t buy the ‘Hectic Cheese’ bit.
Media types fall over themselves to talk about what a throwback character he is, with his cheeky personality and professed love of the beers.
Me? I see a dude who shoots off at the mouth with about a five per cent chance of actually saying something remotely interesting (as I’ve said before, the word “hilarious” needs to be removed from any and all headlines regarding footy players’ post-match interviews and antics, although I do understand it’s shorter than the honest headline of “Player X says something mildly amusing”).
When he’s bouncing off defenders and belting guys who have a 30-kilo size advantage over him, Smith is one of the most inspiring sights in the game. Love that.
When he’s opening his mouth, he’s probably saying something dumb. But dumb is better than boring, so the panel shows can’t wait to get him on air and congratulate him on being so unique.
Last Thursday night, his propensity for dumb comments was on full display, as Smith received ten minutes in the bin for calling referee Adam Gee a “cheating bastard” in the Storm’s loss to the Sharks.
“It was me just getting frustrated, I lost my temper and it’s very disappointing on my behalf,” Smith told reporters after the game.
“I went in and apologised to [Gee] afterwards. I just lost my cool at the time and have got to be better than that.”
It’s worth highlighting the apology not because it should be a considering factor in any potential suspension, but because I believe it’s Smith’s true character. When he’s not being egged on to play ‘Hectic Cheese’, he’s a respectful young man with a level of intelligence and empathy that is downplayed.
Nonetheless, Smith will still face the judiciary, having been referred directly on a contrary conduct charge.
So what can he expect in terms of time on the sidelines?
(Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
At this stage we’re speculating, with the judiciary to sit on the matter this evening, but most decent judges have Smith getting somewhere between two and four weeks on the sidelines for his remarks.
Obviously, the best bet for something like this is to go with an apples-to-apples comparison. Happily, the incidences of players calling referees cheats on the field are few and far between.
Honestly, the only example I could find was of Gorden Tallis going after Bill Harrigan in Game 1 of Origin way back in 2000 – meaning Smith had just turned four years old when ‘The Raging Bull’ was sent from the field after he called ‘Hollywood’ “a f**king cheat”.
The fact that Tallis was in Harrigan’s face at the time when he said it, and had in fact already been sent for ten minutes for dissent, coloured the fact it was a send-off compared to Smith’s sin-binning. Doubtlessly, that it was the 71st minute of the game was a factor too. Had it been the 59th minute, like Smith’s was, I wonder if Tallis would have been told his night was over.
Regardless, Tallis received precisely zero games out for his far more aggressive actions towards an on-field official on what was the game’s largest stage.
Brett Hodgson is tackled by Gorden Tallis. (Photo: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)
Now I know the world has changed a lot in the 22 years since, but whereas we have far greater understanding about the seriousness of blows to the head and no longer accept casual homophobia – more on those in a moment – the way we may have at the turn of the millennium, calling the ref a cheat is pretty much the same.
It’s not like we’ve done studies that show calling a match official a cheat has got far greater capacity for harm than we understood more than two decades ago. It was a disgraceful act and a terrible example then and remains so today.
So zero games for Tallis but potentially four for Smith? Yeah, I don’t know about that.
The next closest comparison we’ve got for someone shooting off at the mouth in a way that is completely unacceptable is from April this year, when Marcelo Montoya was heard calling Kyle Feldt a “f****t”.
The league came down hard on the Warriors’ winger, Montoya being referred straight to the judiciary where he received a four-match ban.
The reaction was mixed, with some applauding the NRL for taking action that made it clear homophobia would not be tolerated, while others said it was too harsh a penalty for something said in the heat of the moment.
Four weeks was about right to me – it set a standard that, if maintained, is evidence the code is serious about stamping out insults and attitudes that need to be gone from society, let alone footy.
Montoya’s actions brought the entire game into disrepute and had the potential to cause far deeper harm in a societal context. Would anyone say the same about Smith? I mean, just compare the words they used. Which is spelled out and which is getting the asterisk treatment?
The final comparison to be made is with other players sent from the field over the weekend, specifically David Klemmer and Tariq Sims (twice) – the former for a forearm to the head of Daniel Suluka-Fifita, the latter for a late hit on Adam Reynolds and a high shot on Rhys Kennedy.
Klemmer actually got sent off, as opposed to given ten, although much like Tallis all those years ago, the fact it was in the last minutes of the game surely coloured ref Todd Smith’s decision to go the whole hog (although how Smith decided Latrell Mitchell didn’t even deserve a sin binning as the third man in, particularly after the other questionable shots he’d performed that night, was baffling).
As for the ramifications for next week? Klemmer will be a little lighter in the pocket, facing a $1000 to $1500 fine, but is fine to line up against the Sea Eagles on Saturday night.
For Sims, it’s likewise a $1000 to $1500 fine for the hit on Reynolds, while he’s looking at one to two weeks out of action for the Kennedy shot.
So for three separate incidents, two of which involved hits to the head – of which there has been a mountain of evidence since 2000 showing how damaging that is – the players involved will probably end up $2000 poorer and miss one week.
Now, I know this last example is the apples-to-oranges comparison. Physical acts just aren’t on the same page as shooting your mouth off.
But, again, long-term, what’s the more damaging action for the player, the ref and the game of rugby league as a whole – a cheating accusation or two forceful knocks to the head and one in the back of a much smaller man?
I reckon I know the answer.
Yet we’ll see Smith get as much as quadruple the amount of time on the sidelines as two big men combined who committed physical acts that have the potential to end careers and cause long-term health problems.
At the end of the day, I suppose the NRL are making it clear they won’t tolerate such blatant disrespect for match officials – except they kind of do every other weekend when the likes of Ricky Stuart or Trent Robinson lose a game in circumstances they don’t appreciate, to sometimes get fined, sometimes not.
Nonetheless, if it’s another 22 years before we see a player call a ref a cheat, I guess the NRL have got it right.
Of course, given it’s been 22 years since the last time it happened, maybe they got it right when the offending player received zero weeks.
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