How did sport sink this low?
I AM a shamelessly proud rugby mum. I cheer the sprints and the tries. I wince when he falls to the hard oval and I lament the defeats even if the technicalities of the game escape me.
The aura of challenge and joy is something to behold because the clock is ticking on my son’s childhood. Last weekend his under 14 rugby team won their grand final. They played with such grit and soul that even the opposing side agreed they deserved the trophy.
After the game, these sweat and dirt-smeared teens squeezed together under a gazebo to receive their medals. Their young captain gave a brief but thoughtful speech congratulating their opponents and thanking the coach, manager and parents who supported them throughout the season.
We cheered, we clapped and then jostled for space with our iPhones to get that crucial photo in an attempt to freeze time. As I stood there, I wondered how much longer my teenage son would continue to love the game and the camaraderie of his team.
What a contrast to 24 hours later when Bulldogs second-rower Adam Elliott dropped his trousers at a popular Sydney bar and then a fellow partygoer reached out to grab his genitals, a public spectacle so casually executed they might as well have been discussing the weather.
The mellow strains of Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline wafted over the scene on Mad Monday, the day the Bulldogs footballers took leave of their senses because “they have to let their hair down”.
Second-rower Asipeli Fine also stripped down. Players almost split their sides, such was the ferocity of their laughter at the juvenile antics on display. Then there was the savage vomiting in the street which some poor sap had to clean up later.
But what struck me as I looked at the photographic evidence of their depravity was that some of these young men are less than 10 years older than my son.
And the excuses put forward that no one died/got arrested/broke up any marriages so leave them alone killjoys?
I would never look to a sports star to be a role model but yes, that is exactly what they are to some young boys, like my son and his peers.
And who gets blind drunk and struts around with it all hanging out in public? No one this week has been able to give me a reasonable answer to this question.
After the exposé in this paper of the Bulldogs behaving badly at the Harbour View Hotel, the atmosphere was thick with remorse and investigations were launched. Again.
When NRL footballer Todd Carney was photographed urinating into his own mouth four years ago, it certainly raised our bile.
Carney had two warnings about poor behaviour before he was sacked.
Then Rooster Mitchell Pearce as captain decided to simulate sex with a dog. It also raised the weary question about the repeated, appalling behaviour of professional sports stars. Again, a footballer who didn’t really care who saw him misbehave and genuinely thought he was bulletproof.
This week footage of thunderfaced NRL boss Todd Greenberg was played on loop as he eviscerated the players, especially as he had warned all chief execs in a group call that there were to be no Mad Monday incidents. The Bulldogs too, in the face of graphic images of puking passedout players, admitted it was a “bad look for the game”.
What about the mothers of these Bulldogs? They have been disrespected and shamed. So too their fathers, their sisters and brothers, wives, partners and children. And themselves.
They knew they would be under scrutiny because Mad Mondays in years gone by have been just as unsavoury. But for some footballers, it translates into a hall pass for degenerative and downright offensive behaviour.
I will defend men to the hilt in protest at society’s continual and inaccurate narrative about toxic males.
As public figures and athletes, we should not apologise for them. A person can celebrate – even let their hair down – without exposing themselves in public. And have some respect for their themselves and their families.
But then, if you ask the Bulldogs, where’s the fun in that? I am left wondering whether mothers should start steering their children into a sport less fraught with debauchery.