Foran decision and coverage shows maturity

It’s been a tough couple of weeks for rugby league fans in New Zealand.

If you are among them, you’ll have found it hard not to shake your head at the antics of some of our country’s leading players.

Shaun Kenny-dowall, Jesse Bromwich and Kevin Proctor have done their sport a big disservice with their illicit use of cocaine.

But in a perverse way, one of the worst news stories of them all – from the perspective of the footy itself, rather than the sideshow dramas that surround it – was a good news story about showing a player who is hot property making good decisions as a human being.

Be in no doubt, Kieran Foran’s decision to leave the Warriors at season’s end is heartbreaking for the long-suffering supporters of that wildly inconsistent outfit.

Here was the man who finally gave the team some sort of direction, and showed them how they could play the game and do it successfully. He seemed to immediately inspire confidence and energy in the teammates around him. And then, almost as quickly as he arrived, he will be gone. Heartbreaking.

But the one tone that has been absent from any of the commentary around his pending departure to the Bulldogs is criticism of Foran – and that’s a welcome thing.

In a country that is sports mad, and all too happy to rip into the big names when unhappy with their form, behaviour, or any aspect of their lives whenever it seems appropriate, you might expect at least couple of people to call him out for a lack of loyalty.

After all, the Warriors took Foran in when he was on his last legs after a tumultuous couple of years.

Contractual dramas, a relationship break-up, mental health problems, a friendship with a shadowy yet limelight-stealing brothel owner and punter – it’s no wonder Foran described his life as spiralling out of control.

But the fact that note has been missing from the discussion shows a little maturity.

After all, Foran’s arguments for returning to Sydney, and turning his back on the club that saved him, could not have been made for a better reason – he wanted to be closer to his young kids.

A man should choose his family over his footy club.

Foran should be applauded for the choice he made, hard as it is from a footballing perspective to see him go.

He may not have had any applause, but he hasn’t had harsh criticism.

In the fishbowl sports world that’s almost as good. And it shows that not everybody in the game is a cocaine-fuelled boofhead.

Foran’s not perfect. His past tells us that and the road he’s chosen isn’t easy.

The scrutiny he’ll be under in league-mad Sydney will make New Zealand’s media seem like The Village News.

But the man who so often makes the right call on the field has made the right one off it too.