Integrity in tatters
ONCE again the NRL School of Modern Management embarrasses the game. This style employed by head office is like hippies trying to parent children; no boundaries, adjustable standards, which ultimately ends in no understanding of good or bad.
Can you assault anyone or not in the game nowadays? The answer, you will see, depends on the timing.
Taylan May was found guilty on August 31 of assault occasioning bodily harm on an 18-year-old man last October.
The NRL integrity unit finalised its investigation on Tuesday and announced, with some chest beating, that May had been suspended for two games and fined $7500.
But all is not what it seems in this modern NRL world.
The fine print reveals May can play the finals and then serve the two matches next season, although the fine is expected soon.
It is one of the most embarrassing decisions the game has ever made. What sort of world is this we live in?
In an absurd turn, the NRL tried to explain the delayed sentence was the court’s fault, the conviction coming right on the eve of the finals, of which it had no choice.
Imagine the temerity of the court, waiting 10 months for a decision right before the finals. Maybe, privately, it suspects the magistrate was a rascally Parramatta fan.
Given the late verdict, the NRL then thoughtfully considered that finals games were to be valued under a higher threshold than your garden variety home-and-away games, so the delayed suspension was allowed.
Anywhere else, that’s called bad luck. Not in the modern NRL world.
Even if this argument was accepted as feasible, which should be argued is irrelevant, why not one finals game now, instead of two delayed next year?
Privately, several inside the NRL accepted this as a rational option, unable to explain the decision. Instead, the NRL operates from some kind of moral high ground that has little consistency with the real world.
Rival clubs were angered at first yesterday but, once they calmed down, rightfully began worrying about the game’s long-term future.
Strong, solid sports management is sorely missing at headquarters.
Too many decisions are made according to how the wind blows. Andrew Abdo and his men sticking their head out a window and feeling the vibe, man.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, the Sydney Roosters’ Lindsay Collins is sitting out four games for a hipdrop tackle. The NRL will argue it happened on the field, whereas May’s was an off-field incident.
The Roosters could rightly argue, using the NRL’s logic, that Collins is sitting out his games, including as many as three finals, weighted the same as the four home-and-away games that Pat Carrigan (referred) missed for a hip-drop tackle.
You could argue neither tackle carried the malice of a pub assault.
Yet May’s games were weighted differently, apparently, because his assault happened off the field, so he is allowed to play in the finals.
The Dragons could argue that Jack de Belin missed as much as six Origin games, and two full seasons of club games, while waiting for a trial at which, ultimately, no verdict was able to be found and the charges against him were dropped. The one verdict from the six charges that was found was not guilty.
After May was charged last year, the Panthers quickly got it out early that some kid, a South Sydney supporter, was harassing the players, taunting them a week after Penrith beat the Rabbitohs in the grand final.
In the video, the kid, short and chubby, 18 years old, is outside a bar talking to two young men while behind him was May, sucking on a vape.
Down the stairs and out the door comes Nathan Cleary who points at the chubby kid, which attracts May’s interest, as the kid turns to talk to Cleary and May’s brother Tyrone.
Taylan May, after pleading not guilty, testified that what happened next was because the kid earlier took a video of him and he wanted it deleted, which the kid refused, which is not what Penrith said had happened. Regardless, May feels appropriately offended, enough to walk up behind the kid and, from behind, violently throw him to the ground.
It was an old-fashioned dog shot. The Magistrate called it “cowardly”. But in this new NRL the bosses say play the finals, have a shot at a premiership, and serve the time next year when the stakes aren’t as high.
It is the ultimate buy now, pay later scheme. All it costs is your integrity.