Every business needs to understand its product. Des Hasler and the Manly Sea Eagles know what they are selling, the NRL doesn’t, or at least won’t admit it.
Like all professional sport, rugby league is a showcase of talent, an expression of human ability at both the individual and team level, under competitive conditions. David Gallop and the NRL have done a great job in creating a competition that delivers on this measure of performance.
While talent and skill are essential, league is also loved for its display of masculinity, strength and raw aggression. You can’t have one without the other. A good portion of any highlights reel is made up of “big hits”, some of which cause physical damage. The State of Origin is a world-class spectacle, the envy of other Australian codes, because the players are willing to do whatever it takes, to put their bodies on the line for their mates and home state. To protect the epic vibe of these clashes, the refereeing typically overlooks higher levels of violence (which of course raises the question of why the same standard is not applied to all games).
Men and boys enjoy combat, and always will. It doesn’t mean we can’t also be civilized. Males need to experience situations were “nothing matters” if they are to mature, overcome their fears and deal properly with their emotions and impulses. Sure, the notion that “boys will be boys” can and is often taken advantage of, but this doesn’t justify responses we all know won’t work. You can’t regulate for what is ulitmately a personal responsibility.
The NRL has succumb to the PC dogma that is slowly but surely eating away at Western civilization.
As a society, we’ve become ridiculously risk averse, unable to cope with the fact that life is not ordered or perfectly safe. Our modern lives are overwhelmingly shaped by the utterly flawed belief that the kind of world we want can be magically engineered by threats and more and more rules that deny who we are.
We all intuitively know that a fine or suspension is not going to fix anything. Brawls are going to happen. Two pumped up competitors take a few swings; their team-mates come charging in like good team-mates should. So what! Seriously, do we really need to make it such a drama?
It’s not the media’s fault. It pressures the NRL which then caves in to “community expectations” that the players be punished and that it confirm “there is no room for this in the game”. Punished for what? Being a man? For not conforming to the rules? For expressing something real that can’t be controlled?
What’s brining the code into disrepute is it’s two-faced treatment of players, and indirectly the public. Get out there, play with passion, bash them up but don’t step over the line, don’t remind society of our primal origins. Don’t scare them with too much animal. If you do, well, you know, we’ll have to chastise you and impose fines even though we understand it won’t change anything. It’s about being seen to be doing something. You know the score!
Des Hasler, Glenn Stewart and others sense this duplicity, are supremely frustrated by it, but don’t quite know what to do about it.
A big part of the NRL brand is the shared experience of what we are losing as a community. There’s now a risk this will be lost from the game, as delusional and disrespectful administrators attempt to control what can’t be controlled. It’s possible to modernize rugby league without giving up what was good about the “old days”. Take a stand David Gallop, back your players and stop kowtowing to political correctness.
Go Eagles
Hey Marko, I like your article and support your sentiments.
This is a hard one, because this is how we grew up and were indoctrinated as well. There still needs to be a level of “metro” or golden mean in everything we try to do good as as human beings. Learning to moderate extremes of passion while putting your soul into what you are doing is what ultimately distinguishes. I guess it depends on whether it ultimately is accepted as part of the game?
I like it of course, but I can see how it is not for everyone. Why can’t the tolerance go both ways? Sometimes I feel there is a distinctly aggressive edge to political correctness also.