The current state NRL and certain players - your throughts?

[katmeow]

The fines don't seem that harsh when you consider the salaries the boys are on and the fact that they were given $1000 bonus each to play with on the Tuesday night.

 

[Samadhi]

Its been going on for years...why is it such a big deal now...because ppl are starting to step foward..good on them i say!

 

[up all night]

Personally, I don't find that phone message that offensive. I'd just think 'dickhead' and erase it. However in light of the recent goings-on I'm glad there has been a huge uproar about it.

To me it just shows how arrogant, immature and beyond the law they believe themselves to be.

 

[mr_p]

"where the fuck are you? There's four toey humans in the
cab - it's 20 to four. Our cocks are fat and fucking ready to spurt sauce and
you're in bed. Fuck me - fire up, you sad c**t."


haha, i didn't know it was THAT bad .. but i guess it is an accurate representation of the "FOOTY-HEAD" cultre .. well in my experiences anyway ... its totally degrading ... treating that girl like one of those Fuck-doles ..

pfffft.. meet heads

 

[katmeow]

/\/\/\ (up all night)

One of the articles in today's paper (forget which one), had the woman saying that it wasn't the first time. I don't think it was as much the content, but the straw that broke the camel's back.

Personally, I don't understand why the managers thought drinks were a good idea for a bonding session in light of recent events.

The vast majority of elite athletes don't drink at all during their competitive season. I think it's about time these guys woke up to themselves and took a bit of responsibility for their actions. The sad thing is, it really is a small minority (Willy Mason, what a tosser) who are bringing the game into disrepute.

 

[up all night]

^ Well the only thing this whole thing has taught me is never to give my number to a football player.

 

[Macksta]

Very insightful article from todays SMH that attempts to answer this very question...


Australia's shrivelling subculture of deluded boofheads

By Paul Sheehan
24/5/04

During the last tour by the Australian rugby league team to the game's outposts in northern England, one player shamed the national colours by stealing from his team-mates.

He stole repeatedly. He lied and denied. At the end of the tour, angry players named him to their friends. His name is known to every journalist who follows rugby league and every administrator who runs the game. He will never play for Australia again. But he was not charged and prosecuted, not named and shamed - yet another episode in the game's culture of cover-up, denial and delusion.

The thief in the Australian team will not be playing representative football, so he played no role in rugby league's latest cascading disaster when almost half the NSW State of Origin squad decided to sneak around behind the backs of their coaches. Even now, the media remain too appalled to report what one player, Mark Gasnier, actually said in a message to a 27-year-old woman in the early hours of last Wednesday. The detail of what he said is important. It needs to go on the record (within the limitations of this newspaper's rules about how much it is willing to offend the sensibilities of its readers). This is what Gasnier said, in the company of three other senior players, to Hannah Toohey, who would be outraged when she played the message on her phone the next morning:

"Hannah, where the f--- are you? There's four toey humans in the cab. It's twenty to four. Our cocks are fat and f------ ready to spurt sauce and you're in bed. F--- me. Fire up, you sad c---."

This is not merely the drink talking. This is not some isolated incident. This is not an aberration. This is the other face of rugby league, the face of many league stars late at night when they think no one is listening in. Casual sex is routine. Gang-bangs are common. Two-on-one sex is common. And it is not just the players who drive this behaviour. Sexually available women are plentiful in this subculture within the game. In such a subculture, gang-rape is inevitable and everyone inside the game has to know it. Some Canterbury players on tour in Coffs Harbour may have raped a women who had earlier agreed to consensual sex, but the police were too slow to prevent the players from getting on a plane and flying back to Sydney, and too slow, or starstruck, to even interview the players, individually, within hours of the medical report which confirmed the woman's claims of sexual violence.

Mark Gasnier didn't rape anyone, he didn't even touch anyone, but his apology for the phone call was just another of league's never-ending sequence of wooden, scripted, gun-at-the-head responses. Last Thursday, the chief executive of the Australian Rugby League, Geoff Carr, dismissed the story as "a massive beat-up" before he had even talked to Gasnier.

So many indiscretions by the seven league nightcreepers were exposed that they kept the story expanding on Friday, Saturday and yesterday. So many things could be said about a player yet again at the centre of misadventure, Willy Mason, that nothing needs to be said at all. His own disgusted, giving-it-away coach, Phil Gould, said it all yesterday: "I knew the risks and unfortunately they lived up to my expectations."

Rugby league will be around for a long time, it will draw high TV ratings, big crowds and loyal fans, but the chance to break out of its blue-collar, geographically limited roots has passed. I draw this conclusion as someone who grew up with the Newtown Bluebags, who follows a league team and who will continue to do so. The game is now only one of many options, and has a culture now terminally trapped inside the bottom ranges of the socio-economic scale.

Unlike all the major team sports - and rugby league, geographically and socially limited, is not one of them - league is almost invisible in institutions where a modicum of intellectual rigour is required, such as universities. This is unhealthy for the game, but there is no solution. Even league's flagship bit of fun and prime-time glamour, The Footy Show, is intrinsically bound into the game's culture of insularity, completely lacking any irony about its own limited ambition, which is to personify and glorify the culture of the boofhead.

This is rugby league's enduring, defining, self-perpetuating problem: while Australia evolves from a blue-collar nation to white-collar one, rugby league has proven it cannot make the same evolution. What was once the dominant football code in two large Australian states is evolving towards becoming the game for boofheads in two large states. The game that produced Reg Gasnier has become the business that produced Mark Gasnier.

 

[preacha]

face it, all these people do is run forward until someone stops them from running forward. sad to say it, but it doesn't take much brains to do that.

 

[katmeow]

/\/\/\

Most concise explanation of football ever

 

[MazDan]

^^^ errr right. So going back to someone's house means they have to have sex with someone yeah? And god forbid they may not want to, the man in question has the right to act like a two year old who isn't getting his own way and force himself on her.

No matter what the situation, forcing yourself on someone is not acceptable. I don't care what the woman is wearing, how much she has had to drink, how naive she is, whether she is in some guy's bedroom, or how drunk the guy is, none of these things condone rape.

"people reckon blondes are dumb" Is that right? You can't even spell or use correct grammar so I would refrain from making comments like that if I were you (and yes, I am blonde).

Bottom line; these 'men' (I use the term loosely) are acting like children - they deserve to be punished like children. They should, regardless of how drunk they get on occasion or how much they go out clubbing and pubbing, treat people with basic respect (considering the lifestyle that we, as fans, give them).

And yes Mazdan, I imagine if you act like a yobbo (in relation to your comments regarding being drunk and doing similar things) then there's no doubt in my mind that you can relate to them.

For the record, I've gone out and gotten drunk with male and female friends more times than I care to remember and no-one has acted the way those dickheads behaved and we all act pretty stupid sometimes.

p.s. LOL at preacha.

Hey Im not here to start a fight OK. And in no way shape or form do I agree with what these guys have done or what has been suggested that they did...........however some of your statements I think are a little unfair.

If a woman goes out and gets herself drunk and then heads back to some footy players room then sderiously what does she think she is going back for............Tea and Bickies??? Is all the onus of reponsibility on the footy player???

At no stage did I suggest rape was acceptable as you suggest..........please re-read my original post and you will see that I actually said exactly the opposite.

I did not say that blondes were dumb............please dont try to put words into my posts.............I very carefully chose my words saying that "people" say that blondes are dumb...............While I dont happen to agree with this generalisation, the fact is that people do...............and anyways it was hardly the point of my sentence as you well know..........the point was suggesting that many footballers are not exactly einstein.

I could go on but I get the impression that no matter what i say..........you are gunna go against it just for the hell of it.

My main point was that i do not feel that the footballer is solely to blame here and that they are in many cases being taken advantage of and are to siilly to realise it.

They are morons for putting themselves in a position where they can leave themselves open to start with.............particularly in the current climate.

 

[*sunflower*]

Footballers are being taken advantage of - riiight. Personally, I think there are easier ways of making money than accusing someone of rape. A pretty confrontational, stressful, humiliating way to make some money yeah? But ok, poor little iddy-biddy football players, lets all feel sorry for them.

And yes Mazdan, I suppose you did say, "people say blondes are dumb" but who are these people? Your footy mates?

"I could go on but I get the impression that no matter what i say..........you are gunna go against it just for the hell of it."

So I can't disagree with you now. Because I'm just an irrational, dumb blonde right? I didn't say anything for the 'hell' of it. I put a lot of thought into that post, I felt quite strongly about it. I felt your post was offensive - perhaps you should re-read your own post instead of trying to justify it.

Cheers.

 

[MazDan]

Footballers are being taken advantage of - riiight. Personally, I think there are easier ways of making money than accusing someone of rape. A pretty confrontational, stressful, humiliating way to make some money yeah? But ok, poor little iddy-biddy football players, lets all feel sorry for them.

And yes Mazdan, I suppose you did say, "people say blondes are dumb" but who are these people? Your footy mates?

"I could go on but I get the impression that no matter what i say..........you are gunna go against it just for the hell of it."

So I can't disagree with you now. Because I'm just an irrational, dumb blonde right? I didn't say anything for the 'hell' of it. I put a lot of thought into that post, I felt quite strongly about it. I felt your post was offensive - perhaps you should re-read your own post instead of trying to justify it.

Cheers.

Sunflower..............I do not have to re read my original post or any other post i have ever made because I would not and will not ever and I repeat EVER post anything that might be in any way offensive to anyone.

WHY?

Because thats the way i am..........I get very upset if I think i have offended someone even if its a person on the other side of the internet such as yourself because I would hate to think that i have ever done anything other than be helpful or to bring a little smile to a persons life...........its the way I am and i cant change it.

However I accpet that unfortunately sometimes, things that are written are going to be construed in a manner they were never intended to be.

Other than not to ever post at all, I cant safeguard against that...........I wish i could.

All I can do is to apologise to you for deciphering my sentences in the way you have and to assure you that there was no offence meant to you or anyone else who may stumble across what i have written.

I dont know what else I can say other than.........My humble apologies.

 

[*sunflower*]

You don't have to apologise! You said what you said. Even though I wasn't keen on your original post Mazdan, I enjoyed the debate, so no worries.

Thanks for apologising though - I'm sorry also if I said anything that sounded a bit mean but won't apologise for my thoughts or opinions, nor should you.

:D

 

[BREAKaBEAT]

How did my post get deleted ?

 

[keystroke]

simple solution would be to just totally remove the 'high-risk' players for good and make sure they can't play again.

it would definately scare other players into never breaking the rules. Willie Mason should be the first to go, he seems like an absolute twat.

 

[star_beats]

it would definately scare other players into never breaking the rules. Willie Mason should be the first to go, he seems like an absolute twat.

although we should remember that the reason he's such a twat is due to his adhd, which led him to commit all the stupid things he was fined for, and all of the stupid things that he got away with 8(

 

[BREAKaBEAT]

^ Well the only thing this whole thing has taught me is never to give my number to a football player.

I would say that a worthy lesson

 

[Jubas]

^^^

Jubas I think you missed Sunflower's point. She's not commenting specifically on the Coffs Harbour rape allegations, she's responding to Mazdan's GENERAL personal views on what the explicit implication is if a woman goes back to a hotel room with a man.

The specific Coffs Harbour rape allegation have nothing to do with what she is talking about.

And anyway why would the voicemail have gone to the police? This isn't a police matter.The woman showed the message to the Roosters club first.

Have you ever thought that maybe the woman involved was really offended and insulted by the message and decided to release it to the media to help teach Mark Gasnier a lesson? Seems like a reasonable assumption to me.

no.. i got her point pretty well.. and what i was saying, was that the footballers from the coffs harbour incident were punished anyway... regardless of the truth of allegations.

Bottom line; these 'men' (I use the term loosely) are acting like children - they deserve to be punished like children. They should, regardless of how drunk they get on occasion or how much they go out clubbing and pubbing, treat people with basic respect (considering the lifestyle that we, as fans, give them).

that's re punishment... (from sunflower)

referring to:

Now with regard the rape allegations.............if it was genuine rape then they should be shot..........but seriousl;y.............what was she doing going back with them in the beginning.....

from mazdan
which if i'm not mistaken is about coffs harbour.
so, what i'm saying is that players are being punished for allegations regardless of truth or not. And, they're getting more of a reputation.
and re the victim's motivations..

i'm not sure why it went to the media, and i don't know if it went to the club first. It just seems to me that the actual recorded message probably didn't have to be released. Personally, i don't find the message that extreme (as up all night mentioned), but i'm not everyone. Is it worth all this fuss in my opinion? no..
and gg for nitpicking
8)

 

[eze451]

i dont see wat the problem is..... would there be this big an uproar if he had said "me and my mates are horny, will u come have sex with us"? of course not

its only coz he used "dirty" words that everyone is all upset about it.... they are just words, who cares... especially if that woman doesnt mind too much being talked to like that, i know a couple of (admittedly very open-minded towards sex) girls who would be turned on by that kind of language....

*disclaimer* i really dont know too much about this, obviously if those words were part of a pattern of harassment or rape or something, that is different, but if its a one-off thing, i would just shrug it off and ignore it.....

 

[*sunflower*]

Jubas;

Errr - yeah thanks. I don't really need anyone to tell me what I meant - I will explain for clarity:

In the first part of my post I was referring to rape in general and in the second part I was referring to the phone messages. The comments referring to rape were loosely based on Coffs Harbour but I gave no opinion on whether they were guilty or not. If you get what I mean.

Anyway. Moving along.