By MICHAEL BYRNES
THE round 14 grand final rematch between Cronulla and Melbourne revealed many home truths – but most emphatically it exhibited how much festering animosity continues to cross-infect these teams and how ineffective NRL referees have become at controlling foul play on the field.
The rugby league media talks incessantly and breathlessly about character reformations. My all-time favourite in this genre is Adrian Proszenko’s 20 April 2016 story espousing the maturation of Corey Norman, about how he as was ready to fill the Origin breach, and how he’d let opportunity pass him by at the Broncos. “I guess that’s just a part of maturing. I was probably too laid back. I probably wasn’t hard enough on myself. It’s a bit disappointing looking back. I am definitely a lot harder on myself these days.” Less than three months later, Norman pleaded guilty to drug possession in Downing Centre Local Court. Oh well, at least it was a good story for a few months. Onward and upward! That’s rugby league journalism for you in one paragraph.
There were plenty of so-called reformed characters on display in the Sharks-Storm game on Thursday night and plenty of cheap shots to go with them. At times, it was difficult to work out which team you were hoping karma would visit most, such was the level of disrespect shown by the two teams for the fans and the game itself. There almost needs to be a new category of double unhappy result where both teams get docked two points for playing the game in a deplorable, cynical and unsportsmanlike manner. Both teams were above that threshold tonight. I don’t need to call out the incidents or individuals involved. They’re the same usual suspects most casual fans would instinctively identify anyway.
From the wikipedia page on unsportsmanlike conduct:
Unsportsmanlike conduct is a foul or offence in many sports that violates the sport’s generally accepted rules of sportsmanship and participant conduct. Examples include verbal abuse or taunting of an opponent, an excessive celebration following a scoring play, or feigning injury. The official rules of many sports include a catch-all provision whereby participants or an entire team may be penalised or otherwise sanctioned for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Imagine if that was our sport! (continued below)
The Storm were in some ways magnificent in repelling a Sharks team that was tenacious to the very end in seeking to overcome an early 12-0 deficit. Phil Gould had franked the Sharks’ comeback as good as delivered by the 50th minute. With the scores locked at 12-apiece on 69 minutes, Gould mocked a missed Cameron Munster field-goal as an admission that the Storm couldn’t score again, yet praised a successful attempt two minutes later by James Maloney as final proof of the Sharks ascendancy. How convenient! It seems karma wasn’t done with for the night.
The Storm regathered the kickoff after Maloney’s field-goal, and barrelled towards the uprights for a shot to level the scores. Enter Billy Slater, whom those same vocal judges had written off with a broken ankle just minutes before. Slater took the ball at full speed, one pass wide and at 45 degrees to the defensive line and caught the defenders off-guard and short-handed, expertly putting Felise Kaufusi into a gaping hole with a twenty metre untouched run to the line. Phil Gould’s banked, franked, and assured comeback was dead and buried and the Storm ultimately prevailed 18-13.
Yet, as Phil Gould might say, the rugby league Gods would not have been happy. The game had been played in abysmal spirit, the officiating was erratic and substandard, and many mums and dads watching at home consoled themselves in the knowledge that their kids were playing soccer on Saturday morning.
