Clubs are failing players when it comes to alcohol, writes Paul Kent
EVERY TIME a player drinks too much they risk their job and reputation. Whatever clubs are doing to deal with how players consume alcohol is not working.
Opinion
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CROWD noise is a constant distraction in the NRL. It drowns truth and clarity.
This, more than anything, is why NRL players keep stubbing their toes on empty bourbon bottles and shaking their heads clear through aching hangovers and black headlines.
Mitchell Pearce walked in to Fox Sports last night for the latest and hopefully final stop in his self-flagellation tour on NRL360.
It was his only live television interview.
Since Pearce returned to Sydney on Sunday he has done many interviews and at each and every one he has produced a remarkable dose of honesty and self-loathing.
It has been raw and effective.
As the smart ones know, when you gut yourself there is nothing left for anybody else.
Clubs must also look at their approach to alcohol as well, if only for the benefit of their players.
Unfortunately, NRL players are young men and like many young men they struggle to drink sensibly and responsibly. One beer is too many, the saying goes, and a dozen is not enough.
The difference for other young men is they don’t have nearly so much at stake in terms of finance and reputation.
And that should be the only argument players and clubs consider.
Whatever they are doing now is not working.
The game and the clubs are failing the players.
Wayne Bennett is well meaning when he says booze bans don’t work. But it seems to have the follow-on effect that nobody imposes booze bans and so the players go off on their merry way with tacit approval to drink as much and as hard as they please.
They are fit and hard and supercharged.
We don’t know if booze bans don’t work because there is no consistency when players break the ban. It all depends on the player’s ability and contract value and what must be admitted to and what can be justified in public, which players quickly understand better than any.
Truth and clarity suffer.
So Queensland’s rising Origin stars think it is a good idea to sneak out of camp against instructions and get drunk in January.
The Roosters get given cab charges after an Australia Day harbour cruise and some use it to get to the next pub instead of free fare home.
The moment you start highlighting such incidents the Defenders of the Faith rush in to defend their rights, treating each case separately.
If you are against drinking you are a wowser. If you don’t drink you’re soft or, this old one, can’t be trusted, even when it often takes more character to say no in this culture than it does to pick up a schooner glass.
The inconvenient solution is moderation. But whoever succeeded at that?
Originally published as Clubs are failing players when it comes to alcohol, writes Paul Kent
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