SO THIS morning, I bought The Daily Telegraph – I normally buy The Sydney Morning Herald – but my football team, the Canterbury Bulldogs, made the front page of the former.
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But, not in a good way – though it kinda was.
A picture of a naked footballer – on Mad Monday of all occasions. Who would have thunk it?
Reading, I learned of ‘atrocities’:
A rugby league forward got down to his birthday suit.
Someone observed same – well, at least the Telegraph camerman assigned to the job.
There was some swearing apparently, and players were drinking beer.
Oh, and it was a private function, but hideously, things got so out of hand that a rope – I’d imagine like the ones that they have in banks to control queues – got knocked over.
Yep, bad, bad, boys.
The Tele’s commentary was shrill. One commentator ‘at large’ was at loose in calling it the new ‘low’ for the NRL.
Really?
In a sport where nudie runs are demanded – from country footy to national – at season’s end if you don’t score, you have to drop your daks and go like the clappers and hope you aren’t playing for Armidale in Group 19 where it’s … cold (but at least you have an excuse).
Ironically, in the back pages of the same Tele, they had a picture of Bowraville’s Greg Inglis – appearing in nothing but his skin and the premiers’ trophy. A photo which rightly won awards, minus the outrage.
So back to the Bulldogs – my team. Should I feel concerned by the Mad Monday antics?
The atrocities according to the Tele included a young player being helped into an uber taxi at the end of the night.
That might have been kind of responsible.
The writer at large at the Tele did give the Doggies passing credit for the season they had. But there was scant mention of his own club.
No naked men. Just a salary cap investigation. And still coming off a finding of endemic performance drug findings that led to multiple player suspensions. He also mentioned the infamous ‘bubbler’ – just failed to note that it happened at his own club.
Oh, and the writer also ran out of space to include the ill-thought comments from a couple of players from his club who slammed him on social media.
The writer is better than that. So too are the Bulldogs.