The NRL Season of 2016

NTA

Its more than some of the players have received for actual crimes like domestic abuse and such.

Sneakdefreak

If you're a NSW fan you want Mitchy banned for life.
 
My prediction is he will sign with a Super League club like Catalans in the coming weeks while he is suspended by the NRL for 2-3 months.

rotated

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Rancid Schnitzel" data-cid="554816" data-time="1453978716">
<div>
I get that young men will do silly shit while on the lash, but I don't accept that taking your shirt off, trying to kiss your host, pissing on her couch and dry humping her dog is "normal" behaviour.
 
How would you react if Richie McCaw acted like that? I can tell you how sponsors and fans would react.
</div>
</blockquote>
 
Is this appreciably worse than Mils urinating in a bar or Howlett jumping on top of cars? That is without getting into the value judgements of whether that "display" is worse than drinking twice over the limit or domestic assault.
 
The dog element obviously takes it to Todd Carney level-weird - but I don't think Pearce is an isolated case. I bet at least 30% of NRL/NPC/Cricketers players are thinking about now "thank god a camera wasn't there for that time..."
 
Remember when Tana got videoed back in the late 90s giving lip to some well wishers in Christchurch? In this media environment that becomes a much bigger deal.

Bovidae

It's not the first time that Pearce has been involved in alcohol-induced stupidity so that will count against him.
 
Forgetting about the public humiliation for a minute, fronting up to his old man would be even worse.

Mick Gold Coast QLD

One can splutter all day long either sanctimoniously or dismissively however ... mobile phone videos and media houses prepared to pay a little or a lot and strangers or mates filming just everything are not new phenomena. Users, the media, strangers and mates clamour for news of real life by the millisecond. The younger generation lives minute by minute on FaceBoof and Twit-for-Brains and regard that mindset as normal - they instinctively take photos of themselves to distribute to the world and snapping someone else doing something ... anything ... caught on camera is almost as interesting to them as their very own face grinning back like the village idiot.
 
What Wayne Pearce and his contemporaries got up to is irrelevant. That was then, last century, this is now in today's environment which is nothing like the 80s and 90s. The game only had about two sponsors back then, closely reflecting its prime market - Tooheys, Winfield, Penthouse and Wheels magazine. It was certainly a less complicated time. There were no reporter-ettes filing match reports focused on sobbing about "workplace harassment", noting in the last sentence that Souths 10 beat Newtown 3. Back then spectators got through an entire reserve grade and first grade display without sending a single text.
 
About the victimless crime arguments: you can bet your life that, early this week, the advertising managers of Steggles, Peugeot, Easts Community Clubs, Crinitis, QBE, Solo, Four nâ€™ Twenty, ISC, Brydens Lawyers, VB, Gatorade, BSC and GSA were busy explaining to their CEOs why their companyâ€™s money might not be more profitably used to sponsor ventures presenting a more attractive image to their customers. That's not high minded moral judgement, it's simply business being more protective of its profits than Mitchell Pearce Pty Ltd is inclined to be.
 
If the sponsors think this bloke is going to cost them money and customers and they decide to pull the pin then everyone at Easts suffers. I remember Msss Li'l Quadie Cooper - the Olympic swimmer - twit-for-brainsing after a Wallaby win that the Springboks were a bundle of sticks. She had a promotional contract with Jaguar. The very next morning they came to collect the complimentary car and found someone else to flog their product.
 
A couple of years ago the Titans were on the ropes with no major sponsor. CEO Graham Annesley was striving manfully to court a major Asian corporation and doing well when that cheeky li'l funster Our Toddie Bird (captain) got pinged piddling on a police car a day after his wedding in Byron Bay - that sponsor disappeared instantly. I imagine the Asian businessmen might have wondered about the preoccupation of your average League champion with evacuating his bladder and bowels in public - Julian Oâ€™Neill, Nate Myles, Craig Gower set the early pace, Willie Mason, that drongo who captains NSW, our Toddie Bubbles and Our Toddie Bird - oink, burp, grunt - maintain the tradition.
 
Of course they (the sponsors) are all a bit sensitive - after Tiger Woods was revealed as a world class rooter immediately his face disappeared from all television advertising in the US, an extraordinary thing. Within the first few weeks his "top five sponsors (Accenture, Nike, Gillette, Electronic Arts and Gatorade) lost 2-3 percent of their aggregate market value ... and his core sports-related sponsors EA, Nike and PepsiCo (Gatorade) lost over four percent ... Overall, they say the losses ranged between $US5 billion and $US12 billion."
 
There is, of course, the adverse impact on the easily influenced - not on potential 8 year old junior player Rupert Tiger Lily but on his mummy. If she thinks League is icky people doing icky things she'll quick smart steer young Rupert into badminton, chess, AFL or soccer. One less new player, one less young bloke at the highly profitable game merchandise counter.
 
On privacy: this bloke accepts the fabulous good fortune of a top end player contract and the position as team captain. The corollary is "behave like a top end player and team captain rather than as a primitive just down from the trees, getting about on all fours." It's a reasonable expectation of a business offering a young man such grand opportunity. If that is too much responsibility to bear then he really ought to try and get his brickies labourer's ticket and stick with A grade for Blacktown Workers Club, training one night a week and off to the pub.
 
You'd reckon he would have worked it out by now - 7 or 8 years experience in the job; the benefit of growing up around the top level of the business he is in; and several previous "poor life decisions" (got to love the modern parlance, eh?) bringing forth the opportunity to reflect and understand how civilised humans behave.

Paekakboyz

Quality post Mick, well said.

Siam

Good post Mick. 
 
Observations that I can't disagree with, you paint a clear picture of an aspect of the world we live in. 
 
That a person can stand to lose 50,000 dollars, must front up and fake an apology on TV all due to actions that were not committed publicly and are in no way illegal is a fundamentally flawed concept
 
The sole deciding factor of "severity" of these cases is "is there video footage of this story?". "Can we run this on TV?"
 
Not legality. Not "actual" damage to sponsors. Not was there physical or real emotional harm?
 
Just "can we tag breaking news and use words like lewd, disgraceful, drunken" or "rapey" - (Jegga give yourself an uppercut for trivializing a life destroying assault with what Pearce did on camera - shame mate, genuine rape victims deserve more respect)
 
I hate this shit. I know I have to accept it in some way but to say "that's what you signed up for with your big salary" is a cop out IMO. There are plenty of high salaried workers who don't get this catch-all explanation.
 
I'm extremely sceptical of these sponsors being "forced" to withdraw sponsorship. I know it happens and Mick described it very well, but I wonder if the companies don't enjoy doing this for extra exposure. I think the swimmer was Riley. I can't quite remember what she said. I do remember thinking "wow she was sponsored by Jaguar?". So, 5 years (?) on I remember the brand above all other details. Similarly all of Tiger's sponsors got more coverage when he turned bad.
 
Finding big sponsors for the NRL will never be a problem.
 
As for this: "You'd reckon he would have worked it out by now - 7 or 8 years experience in the job; the benefit of growing up around the top level of the business he is in; and several previous "poor life decisions" (got to love the modern parlance, eh?) bringing forth the opportunity to reflect and understand how civilised humans behave."
 
I wonder if the same would apply to the club owners or execs if they were filmed at a strip joint or in a similarly trivial drunken exchange. Oh they don't do that behaviour? - yeah right
<div> </div>
Villified purely on the presence of video coverage doesn't sit well with me. (Russell Packer got fined less for nearly killing an innocent man)
 
 
 
This Pearce story lives and dies on one person's decision to push "record" then sell it to TV.
 
It's just brain pollution - it benefits nobody except TV companies and the little twat that got paid for his "vitally enlightening" video

Donsteppa

There are plenty of people who have things in their contract that limit aspects of what they can or can't do in their private time. It's far from a cop out, and It's not restricted just to sportsmen. 
If they don't like or want to abide by a contract, then don't sign it. They can still play touch rugby down at the local park and run rings around the rest of us.

rotated

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Siam" data-cid="555009" data-time="1454041538">
<div> The sole deciding factor of "severity" of these cases is "is there video footage of this story?". "Can we run this on TV?"
 
Not legality. Not "actual" damage to sponsors. Not was there physical or real emotional harm?
</div>
</blockquote>
 
I disagree. The reason these specific stories become public is because there needs to be significant evidence substantiating them - this either needs to be essentially a video, text messages (in the case of Mark Gasnier) or police charges. You just can't go around slandering people even if you are on the right track without solid evidence.
 
As an example having several buddies who studied in Newcastle during the Johns era and having spent a couple of shambolic evenings there myself - the recreational drug use with the early 00's Knights was pretty much known fact in the city. Everyone seemed to have a Joey story. That is a pretty big news story both on a professional and personal level - but you can't go printing that without evidence and it took him getting pinged for a pinger a couple years later in London before it all came out.
 
In some ways it is luck of the draw as to what is captured on film and what is not - but if you do more stupid stuff in more stupid places you certainly increase your chances.

Siam

Ummm rotated you do realise your disagreement totally supports what I'm saying. 
No video, no story. 
So Pearce is a story why? 
Broke no laws. No police complaint. 
Must have broken social laws I guess. 
Thanks tv channel 7, you've greatly enriched all our lives

mariner4life

And the bit i hate the most has inevitably happened. 
Pierce admits he has a problem with alcohol and skips the country for rehab. PR step 1. Call it a mental illness to absorb a portion of the blame, then get out of the spotlight by saying you are getting "help". 
Fuck. Off. 
Getting caught rooting on the side doesn't mean you have a sex addiction. Getting bent up and making a cock of yourself doesn't make you an alcoholic. It means you've been a dumb fluffybunny. 
Blaming it on a problem is just a way to take responsibility by not actually taking any responsibility at all. 
You can't be treated for being a fuckwit

Siam

I think that's the root of my despair Mariner
 
The whole thing is artificial
 
The whole thing is an exaggeration of something "bad"
 
 
I hate that this shit becomes part of our consciousness - it serves no purpose except the media outlets and the filmer get money.
 
Nothing else is achieved except fake outrage -- arrrrgghhh :ireful:

taniwharugby

apparently there is more to it the NRL are investigating...
 
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote">
 
The alleged text message exchange reads as follows:
- Jack has to send you a video of Mitchell Pearce humping Bella 
Thinking about selling it to the daily mail to end his career
- I had to google Mitchell Pearce! Haha. Wait, humping the dog?
- yep so f---ed and pissed on her lounge 
he was whaled
- Sounds like an absolute pig 
Is Cyn friends with him?
- No none of us were - they were with us at the oak and they were pretty normal - giving out liney lineys and then they jumped a cab with me back to hers and went f---ing ape shit! Jack just sat there filming it all
</blockquote>
 
<a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/league-news/mitchell-pearce-nrl-investigating-alleged-text-messages-relating-to-video-20160129-gmh8w1.html'>http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/league-news/mitchell-pearce-nrl-investigating-alleged-text-messages-relating-to-video-20160129-gmh8w1.html</a>

barbarian

And now everyone turns on the bloke that apparently shot the video. I've seen a picture, a name and even a phone number of this bloke on Facebook. Fuckwits encouraging people to call him up. How fucked up is that??
 
Say what you want about this whole saga, but nothing good is going to come of getting stuck into this guy.
 
If I was the bloke I'd use my 60k to get to a beach in Hawaii as quick as possible...

barbarian

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="taniwharugby" data-cid="555228" data-time="1454125963">
<div>
apparently there is more to it the NRL are investigating...
 
 
<a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/league-news/mitchell-pearce-nrl-investigating-alleged-text-messages-relating-to-video-20160129-gmh8w1.html'>http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/league-news/mitchell-pearce-nrl-investigating-alleged-text-messages-relating-to-video-20160129-gmh8w1.html</a>
</div>
</blockquote>
 
The Roosters were out at the Oak in the Eastern Suburbs. I'd be AMAZED if they weren't coked up. God knows everyone else in there would have been.
 
Mate told me today that Pearce's trip overseas was part an attempt to dodge the spotlight, and part an attempt to dodge the drug testers...

NTA

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="barbarian" data-cid="555287" data-time="1454143313">
<div>
Mate told me today that Pearce's trip overseas was part an attempt to dodge the spotlight, and part an attempt to dodge the drug testers...
</div>
</blockquote>
 
Fuck yeah - a sportsman making an apology over stupid behaviour is the mating call of the WADA employee.

Mick Gold Coast QLD

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="barbarian" data-cid="555287" data-time="1454143313">
<div>
The Roosters were out at the Oak in the Eastern Suburbs. I'd be AMAZED if they weren't coked up. God knows everyone else in there would have been.
 
Mate told me today that Pearce's trip overseas was part an attempt to dodge the spotlight, and part an attempt to dodge the drug testers...
</div>
</blockquote>
 
Oooh aaah Glen McGrath! The penny drops.
 
I wondered why a bloke who has been diagnosed with problems needing close family support was suddenly en route to Flushing Meadows or Monterey, thousands of miles away, for a month and a half; when there would be a perfectly adequate clinic run by the Salvation Army at Fassifern on Lake Macquarie, just a relaxing country train trip away. I had concluded it was public relations guru inspired, to shift him well away from the spotlight, and had moved on to pondering who was paying the weighty bill.
 
(I recall Ben Cousins being sent off to California to dry out and slipping under the wire after three days or something, to spend quality time with visiting friends far from TV cameras and passers by who might recognise him.)
 
From what I heard of the Royal Oak going back to the peak of Willie Mason's fame the smart young things meet there for a reason. It'd be 35 years since I had a schooner of New there and I'd need a young interpreter with me to translate the very different scene now. It will be so disappointing, but unsurprising, if this latest thing has legs - all the more so if people with responsibility, power and influence are even now applying an undercoat for the whitewash.
 
What a mighty bloody mess.

kiwiinmelb

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="barbarian" data-cid="555287" data-time="1454143313">
<div>
The Roosters were out at the Oak in the Eastern Suburbs. I'd be AMAZED if they weren't coked up. God knows everyone else in there would have been.
 
Mate told me today that Pearce's trip overseas was part an attempt to dodge the spotlight, and part an attempt to dodge the drug testers...
</div>
</blockquote>
 
When I see behaviour like that , I think it looks like a bloke who has been on a long drug bender , with alcohol on top

Virgil

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote">
 
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the Mitchell Pearce simulated-sex-with-a-dog incident is that, as a teenager, he was present when his sister was molested in a drunken episode involving then Panthers captain Craig Gower.
Pearce's sister Tatum, then 18, said in a report done for the Panthers board that Gower grabbed her crotch at a charity golf event in 2005.
Mitchell and Tatum are children of Australian rugby league royalty Wayne Pearce, the best-and-fairest force behind the success of Balmain and the New South Wales Origin side in the 1980s. Swimming legend Dawn Fraser has said she comforted an upset Pearce after his daughter was manhandled.
Gower was never charged, though he was fined A$100,000 ($109,000) by the NRL; the board cleared him of other allegations, including throwing a knife, the pursuit of Mitchell with a beer bottle, running round naked and crashing a golf cart.
<div> </div>
Mitchell Pearce had approached a group of people with Gower, telling them to control him. Gower then allegedly behaved menacingly while holding a beer bottle.
</blockquote>

rotated

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="barbarian" data-cid="555287" data-time="1454143313">
The Roosters were out at the Oak in the Eastern Suburbs. I'd be AMAZED if they weren't coked up. God knows everyone else in there would have been. 
Mate told me today that Pearce's trip overseas was part an attempt to dodge the spotlight, and part an attempt to dodge the drug testers...</blockquote>
 
Highly unlikely cocaine, ecstasy and similar stimulants won't show up in a WADA drug test after 24 hours - often sooner.

The Silver Fern

The NRL Season of 2016