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Opinion
The footy has been absolutely incredible this year. I would say the best NRL premiership we have seen in years.
We have seen teams like the Brisbane Broncos, Melbourne Storm, Cronulla Sharks and Sydney Roosters play a really exciting, attack-focused style of footy. Our players continue to go from strength to strength, defying gravity like Xavier Coates and zipping through defence like Ezra Mam.
There are teams whose fortunes have dramatically changes, some for the better like Dolphins and others for the worse, like my beloved Parramatta Eels.
But despite all that, at the moment it’s feeling a little bit difficult to be a female footy fan.
I’ve been away on my honeymoon for the last month, so missed a lot of these stories when they landed, but as I heard about each of them it felt like weight was being added onto me.
It’s exhausting and sometimes it feels like we take a couple of steps forward and then a couple of steps back.
Here’s a recap in case you missed some of these headlines.
A couple of days ago, Taylan May was charged in relation to a domestic violence incident where he allegedly punched a woman in the face. It’s not the first time that a member of the May family has been in the headlines for the wrong reason.
There was also an article written where the Roosters praised his brother for how well he had handled the last couple of days. Perhaps that’s not where the focus should be?
Then on the eve of Magic Round, Andrew Abdo fronted media because the NRL had been made aware of sexual assault allegations levelled against a Queensland-based NRL players. No further details have been released since.
Two weeks ago for the game against the Broncos, the Eels decided to name Dylan Brown as co-captain. This is less than a year after Brown pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual touching without consent.
Taylan May. (Photo by Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images)
I go to a lot of Eels games. I know Brown continues to be one of the most popular players among the fan base.
Irrespective of that, to me it shows a real void in leadership to be making this type of decision. It speaks to poor judgement and in my view, Brown was the wrong choice.
This doesn’t mean that Brown shouldn’t be considered for leadership positions in the future. But I would like to see more about how his behaviour has changed since this incident or any community work he may have done.
A couple of weeks ago it was announced that Caitlan Johnston was moving from the Newcastle Knights to the Sharks for the 2024 NRLW season. Johnston was shocked to some of the comments she received in response to this news where people on social media decided to body-shame her.
I guess Johnston had the last laugh, being one of the key players for NSW in their win 22-12 over Queensland finding herself in open space to set up Emma Tonegato in the first half and then scoring a try of her own to seal the victory for NSW.
She did this in front of a record crowd of 25,492 people at the game and 1.983 million viewers on Channel 9.
I was also really saddened to hear about the comments made about Kasey Badger following one of her refereeing performances a couple of weeks ago. While Graham Annesley may have thought that it wasn’t a ‘gender issue’, you only need to look at the type of comments that were directed at Badger.
Aidan Sezer is placed on report by referee Kasey Badger. (Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)
All referees deserve respect and of course, fair criticism is part of any profession, but the misogynistic and sexist comments are very specifically directed to our female referees.
It needs to stop.
The issues that I have touched on above are not rugby league specific issues.
The country is finally beginning to come to grips with the fact that domestic violence is a national emergency in this country.
Despite the frightening statistics, it’s devastating that it took the death of Molly Ticehurst for some people to become fully aware of just how significant this issue is.
But sport is extremely powerful and can help drive change on social issues. My question is, where do we even start?