Topine vs Bulldogs an important case for NRL and players - wrestling punishment shouldn't be tolerated in a 'workplace'

In a past job I would need to fly from Cooly to Mascot, get a car and drive to Chullora for a meeting. The flight ( unlike now) was on time, but the drive was a lottery, 50minutes/3 hours. Sydney traffic got that bad I would fly in night prior and stay at Parra to make an appointment. How late to training was Topine, and was he always late ? Or was he on Gould's list with RFM?

There seems to be a fair bit of commentary off the back of Christo’s original article giving the impression footballers exist in a parallel universe, where physical toughness and mental strength is unique to footy players and a requirement held above most other workplaces. I can think of plenty of jobs where everyday people who are not athletes or necessarily physically fit or strong deal with severe mental and physical challenges with consequences including death on a daily basis, not just the possibility of torn ACLs Front line soldiers and police officers working under constant threat, ambulance officers speeding to save lives, machine operators working on machines that can kill them or others instantly if they clock off during operation, miners, life guards etc etc To put footy players on a pedastool that infers their work place is special because they engage in a tough physical game with the stakes being fans reliance on being entertained and therefore should operate on a different plane when it comes to work place disciplinary action is fanciful. Not fans but lives are reliant on many jobs where the stakes are a matter of life and death not merely win loss scenarios and fan endorsements Commentary suggesting they work in a physical environment unlike any other or without those forms of punishment the teams would fail is a stretch. I've worked in plenty of places were a lot of great footy players may not have lasted the day out due to the physical and mental challenges involved. There are many challenging workplaces where the stakes are far greater than playing rugby league and where the pay is a fraction of a league players income. League is a professional sport but at the end of the day it's fun, it's a game not life and death. Hanging out with your mates, training and playing an awesome game on huge money is not that hard when compared to many mainstream work environments. Was the punishment to harsh, I don't know, it can only be judged in relative terms against all other forms of employment. NRL players are not above the rest of us in their capacity for mental and physical resilience and work place conditions should reflect that. I'm late quite a bit and would probably be wrestling everyone every second week but I'd probably enjoy that, but it's not for everyone and with greater social awareness the odd one out needs to be considered.

Any of it. I’ve followed this pretty closely and haven’t seen any stories saying the Bulldogs lied and changed their story…

For which part?

How do you know that? Have you got a source?

There is a world of difference between being punished with extra sprints or push-ups and being punished by being overpowered and dominated by your teammates. One is tiring and physically strenuous, the other is humiliating and destructive of relationships. Shark baiting as a training technique is fine. Using it as a punishment is borderline at best. I’m not aware of any other NRL club that has ever admitted to using it as a disciplinary method, certainly not 30 against one. This case is particularly bad because firstly, the player wasn’t late to the wrestling session - he took part in the whole wrestling session. He was merely late to the strapping session that preceded it, and required no strapping. His attendance at the strapping session would seem pointless. So his extras don’t even relate to his tardiness. Secondly, when players have described similar scenarios, they have described other players offering support to the target and cheering them on. Doing it that way still makes it an arduous event for the target, but it stops it from being destructive and becoming something really ugly, which is what happened here.

The original reporting was that he had to wrestle the rest of the squad. The club tried to downplay it (ie they lied) and claimed it was only a dozen players, when in reality it was close to triple that number. The club has now abandoned that line. The new story that the club is running is that he was only forced to wrestle each member of the squad for ten seconds each.

Not sure about your premise here. The main issue is that, as a Rugby League player, wrestling is likely to be a fairly standard part of regular training, rather than some cruel or unusual form of punishment. If he worked in an office, he might have been reading spreadsheets and entering data. Without details, it is impossible for anyone to be specific in whether the session was accepable or not - how long did the session go? Was this a unique punishment, or a standard "forfeit" that was a known consequence for missing training sessions without a valid reason? Was there any sign of physical or mental injury during the session? Did he indicate distress, and if so, was he forced to continue? No-one knows yet, but I don't see a problem on the surface with people being given a consequence in line with their regular duties for unacceptable behaviour.

Spot on here The Barry. You don't have to do extras. You also don't have to be picked for the team next week, and you don't have to be offered a contract.

Please provide these statistics you have mentioned?

This comment is spot on. There is a difference between bullying and imposing high standards of fitness and mental toughness. The author confuses bullying with fitness standards. The punishment is doing two things, showing that you can't let the team down by being late and then giving the offender extra fitness training. The Marines, SAS, Paras and all the other special forces around the world impose tough physical standards for a reason. When the bullets are flying and soldiers have had little sleep, little food and have marched for 50km, who is responsible for making sure their training was tough enough to give them the ability to cope and survive? If a player can't handle the physical duress of a round of wrestling then they really shouldn't be playing NRL. They aren't mentally tough enough to cope. That is OK, not everybody can do it and is why they get paid so much. NRL players are physically elite and mentally tough. The other side of this, if a player is injured during a game and as a result suffers mental illness, can they sue because the physical preparation they have been given wasn't hard enough to give them the ability to cope with the physical demands? Where does this end? If you want to play professional sport and can't cope with the pressure, you need to do something else. Society doesn't need to lower the standard so you can join in.

How far are we going to take this here? Late to training traditionally means you do extras. Can it be seen as punishment? absolutely. But how else do you drive standards and maintain fitness at the highest level? In a workplace, discipline may ensue for tardiness. Just not physical forms. I have seen Apprentices have to spend a day on a shovel for being late. That could be seen as a physical form of discipline, but it is also accepted in that industry. If you work in an office, and are late to work, I suppose some sort of counselling and performance management may occur. But your job is not a physically demanding one. Suppose a team gets flogged on the weekend and their defence was a big reason. Monday morning coach says we are doing a contact session focussing on defence when fatigued. Could that also be seen as punishment? I think Mr. Topine needs to find another vocation as it seems he may not be best suitied as a professional athlete.

I agree that this reads as someone (Topine) with an axe to grind. I have no problem with the physical side of the ‘punishment’. I have good memories of coaches getting us to do extra work to make up for letting the team down – it was a powerful lesson. But those memories are of a coach who was both firm and fair, and I’d take the odds that most others with similar memories are also of a firm and fair coach. This trainer sounds anything but. His comments come across more as ‘I own you’ rather than actually being interested in teaching a lesson in discipline. There seems to be something to this, as other players are quoted as saying it was a humiliation rather than a lesson, or, regarding the training environment more generally, that it wasn’t very healthy. The point of a punishment is that it ends whatever you’ve done wrong. You’ve made up for it. It seems the trainer didn’t respect that, and wanted to keep it running and doesn’t have the intelligence to realise that the way discipline is issued is far more powerful than the discipline itself. Topine hasn’t respected this either, else he wouldn’t have brought the case, but the trainer has far greater responsibility in creating a cohesive team culture, and it seems he’s failed massively. Do you want people on your team who don’t turn up late because they are worried about how the trainer will treat them, or because they don’t want to let the team down? This incident is emphasises the former, and to me, that speaks volumes about what a significant contributor to the past decade’s performance is likely to be.

It strikes me that this punishment touched on shaming by a peer group. That can have disastrous effects on some people. Others would see it as a bit of laugh. Many players would have been called a ‘monkey’ like the Bronco’s Lam was, but he drew a line in the sand. That’s how progress is made. I believe the Australian cricketer Symonds was very badly hurt by that racist slur. So the argument that this has always happened isn’t relevant. There r different reports of how many people he wrestled. If it was 30 that is a physical punishment I would have thought. A young man died a year or so ago from over training in heat. Perhaps he didn’t want to be subject to a negative judgment by the group.

You're right TB. Professional sport, especially body contact, is definitely not like any normal workplace.

I heard the nickname might change. Apparently they're going to play one match at North Sydney Oval each year.

Interesting article. Hopefully it’s an eye opener for people who suggest an NRL club is just like any other workplace…

I really like Topine. He was the Dogs reserve grade player of the year a couple of times He had a few chances in first grade. A couple of times he was a bit unlucky in that he ended up having to play in the centres because of injuries on the day. One was a Good Friday massacre where Latrell wrought havoc down his side of the field and scored three tries He was a hard worker but overall just a little too small to make it as a first grade edge backrower It’s a terrible shame things have gone down this way…

That’s fine, it’s just a bit rich when anyone responds to what you’ve put forward you tell them they don’t know what they’re talking about… you’ve done it multiple times You’re happy to speculate but jump on anyone else doing it…

Singing Blake Ferguson... John Sattler must've been rolling in his grave that day.