In a lifetime of watching rugby league I cannot recall a more catastrophic lead in to the start of a premiership season.
The media coverage the NRL, and especially the reigning premiers, the Manly Sea Eagles, have received in recent days simply could not have been any worse. It has been a public relations disaster for the club, the NRL, and the game.
While the focus should be on Friday night’s two opening games, the Queensland derby with the Broncos playing the Cowboys, and the now Wayne Bennett coached St George Dragons against last season’s runners-up, the Melbourne Storm, the coverage has been all about the Sea Eagles’ season launch that turned into a PR disaster.
It appears the launch, at a Manly hotel, featured lashings of grog and very little food. One of the club’s star players, Brett Stewart, left the function apparently drunk, and after a police investigation, he was charged by police overnight with the s-xual assault of a 17-year-old girl near his residence.
Regardless of his guilt or innocence, the incident has severely embarrassed the NRL. Stewart featured in its million dollar television advertising campaign launched just 48 hours before the Manly season launch debacle. As a result, the whole campaign has been pulled, and will have to be remade taking Stewart out of it.
Manly are insisting on playing Stewart in the opening match this weekend. Doubts exist whether the NRL can intervene and prevent him from doing so. If he plays, the score line will be irrelevant, the total focus will be on the star fullback!
But it got even worse back at the season launch. Another high profile player, Anthony Watmough, who represented Australia last year, is alleged to have punched, yes punched, one of the Manly sponsors!
Even though he made a telephone apology the day, the sponsor is now considering lodging a complaint with the police. That leaves Manly officials highly embarrassed as their claims that the matter was minor, and had been settled, now look dodgy indeed.
The Manly Sea Eagles have been in disarray for weeks. The two owners, Max Delmege and Scott Penn, have been at war, officials have been taking sides with one part owner or the other, and the club’s finances are in poor shape.
To make matters worse, the morning after the Manly season launch debacle, the NRL/ARL took part in a media event in which the game undertook to take a strong stand against domestic violence. How about non-domestic violence?
Today the ARL/NRL will “launch” the State of Origin series in Melbourne. If they hope this will draw media attention away from the Manly debacle, they are even worse “crisis management” strategists than even I had believed.
The economic downturn, and higher poker machine taxes, is starting to hit NRL clubs. The Parramatta Eels’ licensed club last week reported a $7 million loss — and the club underpins the football team’s survival. Others are in not much less dire straits.
The NRL desperately needs a positive start to what will be a challenging season revenue wise. The reigning premiers have ensured it could not possibly be more negative!
Rugby league is a dreadful, boring, unskilled, neanderthal sport that has always been marketed and directed to attract the white trash of Sydney’s and Brisbane’s fringe, so why be surprised by the antics of the players? The rest of Australia (and many in Sydney and Brisbane too) enthuse over Aussie Rules, a spectacular, exciting, complex game that manages to attract a broad cross section of society and both genders, who generally conduct themselves without the misogynist, aggressive, dumb-is-good crap that is the essence of rubgy league. Some AFL players misbehave too, but with NRL players boorish, violent conduct is almost a given rather than an exception. Jeff, you really should ditch league for something a lot better. And if you can’t manage the switch to AFL, try rugby union and discover that rugby can actually be quite a good game.
They own a licensed club – why hold their launch at another venue? Also where were the club officials? Oh and when is the hotel going to be done for non-compliance with RSA?
Men get drunk. Young men with encouragement can get very drunk and in such a state any one of us would need a nurse maid to keep us and everyone we come in contact with out of trouble or it can all be left to chance. A bunch of people, or even one, pissed is far more dangerous than the same whacked with heroin. It’s the nature of the drug.
Society has serious rules like ‘don’t drink and drive’ with serious consequences for the breaking, so society knows.
The nicest guy in the world whom everyone loves can get drunk (drunk enough not to realize he shouldn’t drive home, wake up in hospital unable to remember that he drove through a ‘red’ light and killed a whole family).
He’s actually no less nice but the victim of a most predictable ugly accident but will have to pay a heavy price because of the consequences.
An organization of adults who will intoxicate its young and then let whatever happens happen needs to go back to Adult Kindergarten and rethink all the issues here without the “ ooh we’re OK mate, we’re good guys mate” Neanderthal delusion.
as a former country pub operator, I have had the misfortune of watching first hand the loutish and aggressive behaviour of rugby league players and officials in some of the country towns I have operated hotels in, the standover tactics attempted to force sponsorship payments, like, your pub will be off limits to players and officials, or the end of season trashing of public property, the abuse when prevented from entering the hotel because of extreme drunkeness, the physical assaults of owners or other patrons,which usually occur at the end of season, week long alcohol binges, like defecating in containers and putting it in one publicans private frig, admittedly ,this was some years ago, I am well and truly retired now, but I am sure , judging by recent headlines, these acts are still common behaviour, instead of making hotels responsible, make these idiots responsible for their own behaviour, lock them up, and hit them with big fines.