The NRL Season of 2016

Gunner

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="booboo" data-cid="554557" data-time="1453894549">
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Are these necessarily mutually exclusive?
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No, certainly not.
 
Fixed below
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Gunner" data-cid="554529" data-time="1453889142">
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NRL, same shit, different year. 
Can't really be arsed watching the video, so I'm guessing it's either one of two things, or a combination of both; 
Pearce is a seriously fucked up dude in need of a good therapist. 
Or He's a total fucking pisshead and doesn't know how to behave, but it's yet another over exaggeration from the media.
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antipodean

Gunner

Still haven't seen the video, but after reading about it, it seems he actually hasn't actually done anything wrong - apart from being a drunk fuckwit.
 
No, it's not a good look simulating sex with any animal, but it's not against the law. Yes, I understand the club and NRL will have some integrity clause in theirs contracts.... but still a bit harsh on the bloke if he loses his job over it. I've seen far far worse drunken antics than that over the years.
 
He'll want to find some better mates too. Bit of a dog act , firstly recording your mate doing that, then giving/selling it to media.

Rancid Schnitzel

My first reaction was a little closer to Siam's. If it was a private party in his own home then I would cut him some slack. But it wasn't. He was a guest in someone's home and acted like a farking pig. He's the captain of one of Sydney's top clubs ffs. 
I was amazed when I heard he was Junior's son. The teetotal fitness freak. I remember when as NSW coach he took the players horse riding instead of the usual pissup. 2 players fell off and missed the game due to injury. Maybe Bitch has overcompensated.

No Quarter

Who's to say it was a mate that made the recording? It could have been someone that, like the woman that asked him to leave, also wanted him to fuck off.
 
Bottom line is if you are a high profile sports star you then you just cannot hit the piss and act like a fuckwit. You may have gotten away with it 20 years ago before smart phones etc. But not anymore.
 
TBH I don't think that is much of a sacrifice given how fucking lucky you are to be getting paid a shit ton of money to play sport that most of us blokes pay to play in our weekends...

Gunner

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="No Quarter" data-cid="554646" data-time="1453935850">
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Who's to say it was a mate that made the recording? It could have been someone that, like the woman that asked him to leave, also wanted him to fuck off.
 
Bottom line is if you are a high profile sports star you then you just cannot hit the piss and act like a fuckwit. You may have gotten away with it 20 years ago before smart phones etc. But not anymore.
 
TBH I don't think that is much of a sacrifice given how fucking lucky you are to be getting paid a shit ton of money to play sport that most of us blokes pay to play in our weekends...
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Just speculating, like we do best on TSF... nothing to back it up
 
Agree, he shouldn't be acting like such a dick, but to potentially lose your job over it? Hmmmmm, the punishment would seem to outweigh the crime for me.
 
But then again, if it's in the contract, then he may be fucked.
 
I can almost hear him singing from here 'hi ho, hi ho, it's off to the Superleague I go'.

jegga

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Gunner" data-cid="554649" data-time="1453936231">Just speculating, like we do best on TSF... nothing to back it up 
 
Agree, he shouldn't be acting like such a dick, but to potentially lose your job over it? Hmmmmm, the punishment would seem to outweigh the crime for me. 
 
But then again, if it's in the contract, then he may be fucked. 
 
I can almost hear him singing from here 'hi ho, hi ho, it's off to the Superleague I go'.</blockquote>
 
The Nrl like to take the high road and call it bringing the game into disrepute, considering they were thinking about letting Shaun Metcalf play again it appears they only draw the line when simulated sex with animals is involved .

Paekakboyz

Sounded like it was recorded by a friend of the host/s. At the end it he (I think) was telling the blonde girl to sit down. While another girl was asking one of the guys to stay. 
 
Not quite as feral as I first thought. But he acted like a fluffybunny and unfortunately for him it was recorded and shared. Karma? I'd be fucked off if a stranger at my party gave me some unwanted loving, pissed on my couch and humped my dog. And if a mate I was with was acting like that he'd get the message pronto.
 
Don't be a dick. It's not a tough goal but so many NRL lads fall well short.

Siam

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Sounded like it was recorded by a friend of the host/s. At the end it he (I think) was telling the blonde girl to sit down. While another girl was asking one of the guys to stay. 
 
Not quite as feral as I first thought. But he acted like a fluffybunny and unfortunately for him it was recorded and shared. Karma? I'd be fucked off if a stranger at my party gave me some unwanted loving, pissed on my couch and humped my dog. And if a mate I was with was acting like that he'd get the message pronto.
 
Don't be a dick. It's not a tough goal but so many NRL lads fall well short.
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Sounded like a 50 second exchange the likes of which go on often in private environments everyday
 
No laws broken
 
Nobody hurt or out of pocket
 
But splashed all over TV with allegations that a guy should lose his job over it :idiot2:
 
 
I'll say it again - society's reaction far overrides the behaviour - all because someone wanted to film and sell.
 
And the message from holier than though ferners is don't be a dick. Why because he's on TV? Because he does a job you'll never do but would like to?
 
It's time to stop worshipping these fuckwits. They're well paid employees for our amusement, promoted to sell merchandise, not anything to be admired.
 
Why hold them to so much artificial expectations? Why take any interest in them off the field ever? 
 
Their only relevance to our lives should be how they catch, run, pass, kick and tackle
 
 
It's not "don't be a dick", it's who the fuck cares if he's a dick!
 
 
 
This whole story is no better than a Rattue wankstain

Smudge

The NRL should be grateful that this disrespect of a poodle didn't come during the Dogs Of League round. Now THAT would have been bad PR.

Chris B.

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="No Quarter" data-cid="554646" data-time="1453935850">
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Bottom line is if you are a high profile sports star you then you just cannot hit the piss and act like a fuckwit. You may have gotten away with it 20 years ago before smart phones etc. But not anymore.
 
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And that is the bottom line. If you're cool with how you've behaved, and your bosses are cool with how you've behaved, no worries about having any videos out in the media.

Rancid Schnitzel

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Siam" data-cid="554802" data-time="1453972765">
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Sounded like a 50 second exchange the likes of which go on often in private environments everyday
 
No laws broken
 
Nobody hurt or out of pocket
 
But splashed all over TV with allegations that a guy should lose his job over it :idiot2:
 
 
I'll say it again - society's reaction far overrides the behaviour - all because someone wanted to film and sell.
 
And the message from holier than though ferners is don't be a dick. Why because he's on TV? Because he does a job you'll never do but would like to?
 
It's time to stop worshipping these fuckwits. They're well paid employees for our amusement, promoted to sell merchandise, not anything to be admired.
 
Why hold them to so much artificial expectations? Why take any interest in them off the field ever? 
 
Their only relevance to our lives should be how they catch, run, pass, kick and tackle
 
 
It's not "don't be a dick", it's who the fuck cares if he's a dick!
 
 
 
This whole story is no better than a Rattue wankstain
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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. You know, the people who pay their (very high) wages. Complain as much as you like, but those high wages and that very public profile come with certain expectations about how they conduct themselves. That's the trade-off. Shit if someone was paying me 750k a year on condition that I didn't get wasted on the turps, I'd happily drink farking juice for the rest of my career.
 
I do however agree that all this talk about him being kicked out of the NRL is ridiculous. He's been utterly humiliated, stripped of his captaincy and I'm sure will cop a hefty fine. That's more than enough.

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">
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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.
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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
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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.

The Silver Fern

The NRL Season of 2016