Leave them alone to play footy

Latrell Mitchell will line up against his former club the Sydney Roosters on Friday night Picture: AAP

Funny old game, sports journalism. You start in your early 20s. The athletes you’re dealing with are mostly older and more worldly. You talk to a Steve Waugh, for instance, grilling him with hard questions like, waddya reckon you’ll do if you win the toss? You’re overawed, to a degree, by the accomplishments and maturity of these blokes. This cub reporter was too young and timid to poke a bear like Waugh.

(When I did feel assured enough to have a crack, I began by taking the piss out of Glenn McGrath’s batting. Bunny, et cetera.

This came back to bite me. On a tour of the Caribbean, the Australians were short of net bowlers. The journalists chimed in. I unfurled some mercurial leg-spin. I expected one delivery to bite like a python and destroy his off stump. It was belted back over my head.

Before I went to fetch it, McGrath gave me a withering look and said, “Don’t ever write about me being a bunny again.” Opinionated pieces were put on the backburner for a while. “Capable number 11 Glenn McGrath …”

Flash forward a few decades. Now most athletes are young enough to be my children. I used to think NRL players could do no wrong, even when they did, because I was twentysomething and as flawed as them. Such-and-such spotted in Kings Cross! How did I know? I was there.

In recent years, it’s been tempting to think they could do no right. I’ve aged, NRL players have not.

They’re the same twentysomethings with different names. Ninety-nine per cent of them don’t want to be role models. They have never asked to be role models, they are not equipped to be role models.

I used to think they were wasting an opportunity to save the world. If I put myself in their fluoro boots, I’d want to use my station to inspire a sick kid or two. But it’s just not who most of them are.

I’ve given this a bit of thought during the plague. When the season resumes on Thursday night, I’m going to completely ditch my expectations. I’m going to accept the fact they want to play footy, and that’s more or less it. They want to hit blokes in a legalised environment. They want to hang out with their mates. They want to get on the drink whenever they can. Basically, they want to be left alone when they’re not playing or training.

Most of them are wheeled in front of cameras like they’re being taken to major dental surgery. They hate interviews. They’re bloody terrible at it. That’s OK.

I’m going to expect them to do nothing more than prepare diligently for their next match, go out and play, have a crack, rip in, do their job, and do not much in between. I’m going to stop looking for the meaning of life in matches such as the Rabbitohs and Roosters. It is what it is. The Rabbitohs versus the Roosters.

The NRL isn’t where the leaders of society are. It’s where the wild things are. So be it.

One is reminded of a story about the peril in meeting one’s heroes.

A mate of mine was a huge fan of the Parramatta teams of he 1980s. A couple of decades later, he saw one of those players at a casino. He wanted to say something. Something heartfelt. Something deep and meaningful. Something that expressed his gratitude for the entertainment and joy.

He went up to the player as if he knew him. We all get an exaggerated sense of familiarity. Said my mate: “Hello.”

Said the player: “F … off and leave me alone.”

I used to think my mate was in the right and the player was in the wrong. Now I’m not so sure. Now I think an NRL player should be allowed to go for a beer and a bet without being interrupted. Who says a great player has to be a top bloke? Off-field, if he’s not breaking the law, who cares?

Recently I read Bob Dylan’s autobiographical Chronicles Volume 1. He hated being told he should be the moral voice of America.

Everyone wanted him to lead protests against the Vietnam War because his songs were anti-conflict. He refused to do it. The message was in his songs. Leave it at that. I might be drawing a low bow, but the message in an NRL player is in his performance.

“The press?” Dylan wrote in his Chronicles, “I figured you lie to it. For the public eye, I went into the bucolic and mundane as far as possible.”

The NRL has some terrific statesmen – Cam Smith, Boyd Cordner, Dally Cherry Evans, Benji Marshall – but the rest of them, forget it. They just want to train and play. Have a good time. Get up to a bit of mischief.

We’re not excusing the criminal acts. The domestic violence and assault issues – they’re cowardly thugs and should be shown the door.

But the rest of them, when you look around society, they are making a decent living. They’re not shonky salesmen ripping off customers with inflated prices. They’re not selling fake products or coercing money from the vulnerable.

They are working hard at their jobs. They are entertaining us. They are striving for excellence in their chosen fields. That’s enough.

I no longer expect them to be especially upstanding citizens when they are not playing footy. I will no longer be dispirited by interviews that are as boring as bat droppings.

Post-COVID, I expect them to be exactly what they are, twentysomething ratbags, by and large. They say nothing because they have nothing to say. Again, that’s OK.

Game days will be great. The weekday stuff will be mostly bucolic and mundane. Some players are better than this. Some are worse. Such is life, the funniest of games, when it returns on Thursday night.