One word, ten letters, and often completely unjustified, it’s a word always threatening to do rugby league undone. Comparison. Thrown around by fans daily, it’s something we as a rugby league community need to cool our jets on.

It may seem silly, to say that ‘comparison’ is changing the horizon of rugby league for the worse, but give it some thought. The first thing we do today when we read a story is compare to another, an attempt to give ourselves a moral compass of how bad something truly is.

But instead, it results in the opposite.

Take this week for example. Fans were furious when Todd Greenberg announced their would be sanctions handed down to Dylan Napa following the release of several videos of the Queensland prop undergoing in various sexual acts.

They were furious because Greenberg praised Greg Inglis late last week, days after the South Sydney captain was handed a good behaviour bond following a drink driving charge in late 2018.

Greenberg was praising Inglis following the announcement of his impending retirement. He praised him on a career of being an Indigenous role model in the local community, nothing to do with the charge laid upon the Queensland captain.

The Napa case and Inglis’ are completely different. They don’t warrant comparison by any means. Yet here we are, likening the two as a means of processing and justifying the punishments.

Suspensions are another facet often compared to one another, despite being completely different offences. The infamous ‘George Burgess water bottle throw’ is a perfect example.

Burgess, in the last round of the regular season in 2015, was slapped with a Contrary Conduct charge for throwing a water bottle at a player (and missing) following an on-field melee. Burgess was handed a two match suspension.

That case still gets brought up now, three years after it took place, in the name of comparison. Every time a player is charged we hear all-too-familiar cries of ‘Burgess missed two weeks for throwing a water bottle, why is a shoulder charge only a week’. The cases aren’t similar by any means, but we do it anyway.

Every young player coming through is ‘the next’ someone or other, we compare because it makes understanding something easier to comprehend.

But it simultaneously warps our perspective, and it’s not helping rugby league. So let’s stop comparing apples and oranges, and focus on strengthening rugby league.

10 COMMENTS

  1. There is no comparison between Napa and Inglis, I agree. One is the victim of revenge porn and one could have killed somebody with his recklessness.
    But ask yourself this. Would Greenberg be singing the same tune if Inglis was the victim of revenge porn and Napa almost killed somebody? We all know the answer to that question.

  2. The hard truth is, a persons ethnic, cultural and gender identity are directly related to the response. I wonder if the “sex tape”fiasco” happened to one of our wonderful female footballers or broadcasters, would the NRL would sanction her, condemning the behaviour, or would they leap to her defence, accusing media outlets of slutshaming etc. Major organisations including sporting codes are careful not to do or say anything that may be branded by the shrill PC Police as sexist, racist or bias in any way. They will tiptoe around any person, who is now days considered a victim of the Western cultural patriarchy.

  3. The NRL set some penalty standards but refuse to be consistent which is why people always compare the crime with another so that the NRL can hand out a decent penalty. However the NRL has no consistency on or off the field, here are a few examples that have come to mind.

    1. Dylan Napa two identical tackles one gets a suspension for knocking out a player the other is let off after breaking a jaw, we wont even mention the unfairness of Billy Slaters shoulder charge which allowed him to play in a grand final while other players have missed grand final for a lot less.
    2. Greg Inglis drunk on a PUBLIC road speeding and escapes with a very light penalty, whole Mitch Pearce drunk in a PRIVATE house and gets 8 weeks
    3. Greg Inglis Bashes his now separated wife and gets let off while Avu of Souffths bashed his wife and gets 20weeks.
    4 Sam Burgess wife knows what his tool looks like and after being displayed on his very own Facebook account the NRL let him off but his wife does not, Dylan Napa does home porn and faces half a season suspension when he did not put it on social media like Burgess willing did.

    All we ask for is some consistency from Greenburg, get your act together.🎱🎱🎱🎱🎱🎱

  4. Get the facts right woodduck, Burgess and his wife did not split up over that texting thing, their marriage was on the rocks from the very first day of the wedding where her father made some terrible comments about the Burgess family at his speech, they tried to make their marraige happen but it appears their long term future is not good, regardless that his wife does not want the marriage to end and is trying to get back togther.

    Inglis bashing his wife , if he did that and if it was that bad, even i would want him out of our club, you make things look so much more terrible than it actually is.

    Avu did the wrong thing for sure, but was out of character and he showed tremendious remorse , so much so that the female magistrate commended him and recorded no conviction.

    Pearce should never have gone through what he went through after a playful but silly thing with a dog that was in private and should have stayed private.

    Slater should never have played in the grand final, that decision was disgraceful.

    The NRL needs to be consistant with it’s penalties, but Napa should not get any penalty for something that occurred 4 years ago, the NRL needs to find out who was responseable and act from that.

    I also believe that Canterbury were hard done by in their mad monday has the telegrath staked them out and if they were not there no one would have known anything cause they did not disturb any member of the public, they thought their private fuction was just that, private, how dumb were they that they did not take into consideration photographers on five story buildings taking pictures.

    What Tommyknocker says is true and his take on this is very real when it comes to PCorrectness.

  5. I agree about the Telegraph. It is exploitation at its worst. I remember an interview many years ago. I think it was Tony Durkin (but don’t quote me) after he finished as editor of RLW. He said that when he sent reporters with the Kangaroos on tours their job was to report on games and injuries. What players did in their own time was off limits. As a result the players gave reporters even more access to their inner circle. The media were generally trusted and they drank and even stayed in the same motels together.

    How times have changed

  6. Sydney Roosters Reach 12,000 members On their 111th Birthday today 24th Jan 2019 💪😮👍🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓

  7. Their was a detailed article in the Sunday Telegragh about their history, how for instance a rugby union player on the brides side of things tried to fight Luke Keary at the wedding and that the morning after recovery function was cancelled.

    Of course as usual you make things out to be worse than what they are, you should write for the Tele, the crap you come up with is right down their alley, you put sh!t on all teams and show no humility at all, at total wanka when it comes to giving other teams respect, once again get off this site and pester the Roar or whoever.

Comments are closed.