Has the NRL lost its sense - or just its sense of humour?

Outrage over Fatty Vautin’s attempted humour at the Indigenous All Stars match was a storm in a PC teacup, argues Mike Colman.

Latrell Mitchell during the Indigenous All Stars war-cry. Picture: AAP

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As the risk of upsetting someone – and these days that’s pretty well guaranteed – it seems to me the NRL needs a name change to the PCL.

Forget being the National Rugby League. It should be the Politically Correct League.

First we had the league acquiesce to demands that the Australian national anthem shouldn’t be played before the Indigenous All Stars versus Maori game, with calls for it to be removed from Origin as well.

Now we have the outrage junkies blowing up about an off-the-cuff remark from TV commentator Paul ‘Fatty’ Vautin after the teams performed their pre-match war-cries.

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Paul Vautin (right) with former Origin team-mate Wally Lewis, has based a long and successful TV career on his rough-hewn off-the-cuff humour. Picture: Steve Polmer/AAP

Apparently Vautin’s lighthearted comment, “who won the dancing contest?” was, according to a number of keyboard warriors who chose to hide their identity behind aliases, as “disrespectful” and “appalling”.

I’ll tell you what’s appalling: the fact that we have become so consumed with political correctness that we cannot see the wood for the trees.

When Vautin’s so-called “howler” was the topic of discussion in my office this morning I showed my age by recalling a similar comment made by the original supercoach Jack Gibson about 30 years ago.

Like Fatty, Jack was commentating a Test match between Australia and New Zealand.

When the New Zealanders lined up to perform their haka Jack said, “Now it’s time for their little dance.”

As I said to my colleagues, “No-one said a word. It was just Jack being Jack.”

“Come on,” said one. “The world has changed a lot since Jack Gibson was around.”

True. More’s the pity.

Jack Gibson, the original “supercoach” looked forward to the Kiwis performing “their little dance”.

Look, I get it that rugby league – like all sports – had to move with the times. I understand that it had to wipe out the violence, improve the facilities and wake up to the risks of head injuries.

But did it really have to lose its sense of humour; its honesty, its humanity?

What Fatty said was just Fatty being Fatty. It wasn’t meant to be disrespectful (which is twitterspeak for “racist”).

Any more than it is racist for two football teams to be chosen purely on racial lines, or for a player in one of those teams to point to his skin to celebrate his heritage.

Josh Addo-Carr points to his skin during “the dancing contest” prior to Saturday night’s match between the Indigenous All-Stars and the New Zealand Maori Kiwis All-Stars at Cbus Super Stadium. Picture: Jason McCawley/Getty Images

Or any more than I was when I was reporting a Rugby World Cup match between the All Blacks and Tonga at Suncorp Stadium in 2003.

One of the highlights of the entire tournament was the two teams going through their pre-game routines: first the All Blacks doing the haka and then Tonga, before the Kiwis had finished, launching into their version.

The two sides kept stepping forward, closer and closer until they were almost touching. The Kiwis poking out their tongues and slapping their thighs; the Tongans waving imaginary spears.

The crowd went wild.

In my report I described it as “duelling hakas”.

Latrell Mitchell during the Indigenous All Stars war-cry. Picture: AAP

No doubt these days someone would have been offended and accused me of being culturally offensive, just as they did Fatty.

Not that “who won the dancing contest?” was the only comment that Fatty made about the pre-game entertainment. In fact it wasn’t even the major part of his interaction with co-host Andrew “Joey” Johns.

The entirety of what he said was:

“I really enjoyed that, as I imagine everyone did at home. I saw a healthy respect for both cultures out there and that’s very important and the boys loved it. I loved the dancing, who won the dancing contest, Joey?’

The Maori Kiwis perform the haka. Picture: AAP

Needless to say the rest of his words didn’t get an airing in the online protests. They didn’t fit the narrative.

After all, why sit back and enjoy a game of sport and the rough-hewn humour of one of the last of the non-PC mass-produced personalities left on television when you can find something to be outraged about?

That would be un-Australian, circa 2020.