Integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. The greatest test of integrity in any sport is equal opportunity for all.
Over the first five rounds I have watched a Parra player get broken ribs due to a sliding knees tackle, players hit in the head with swinging arms, including another last Saturday night, players being the victims of a chicken wing tackle, players taken out dangerously while kicking the ball, and not one opposition player has been sent to the sin bin.
If not for Teig Wilton’s one week suspension, it would have been a clean sheet from the MRC for all of the perpetrators.
That shot (Courtesy of Channel 9)
Yet the NRL and MRC expect me to accept Junior Paulo’s tackle being assessed as a Grade 2 by the same independent group of men that gave Nelson Asofa Solomona a Grade 1.
I have to be guarded and probably can’t say what I want to say about the men in suits who administer our game. However, on the face of this year’s evidence, there have been decisions made which appear to be inherently unfair.
I value integrity above any other quality, so I will no longer support the NRL organisation.
After Junior’s charge came through I decided that enough is enough. I will not watch Origin or any game Parra is not involved in.
I will no longer sit by and spend my hard earned money enabling people to be paid very well to continually reside over an organisation that I regard as unfair.
I choose to say that the NRL is unfair because the alternative reason for the grossly inconsistent application of rules and standards is beyond what I ever thought this working class game would become.
The money my family and I spend on Rugby League from this point on will be solely in the support of my club. Parra will never lose my support but the NRL has lost it completely. I will not watch another game not involving Parra until the men in suits who preside over our game are held accountable and replaced.
This coming week our club celebrates its 75th birthday.
“It’s my shoulder!”
Junior Paulo is a local junior and in so many ways he is the heartbeat of our current team and the club. Yet he will miss this game because the NRL is trying to save face and cover up its inadequacies.
We have all heard the quote that winning starts in the front office. The front office of the NRL is certainly not winning any supporters as the bunker and MRC lurch from one outrageous decision to the next without being held accountable.
But I will take BA’s advice and celebrate our victory because that is something I can feel proud of. I will celebrate the resilience and determination our boys displayed to deal with adversity and come out victorious.
I will also celebrate the fact that over the last few years we have developed a forward pack that is equally fierce and talented. I will further celebrate the fact that in 2019 we decided to go with and subsequently stick by the then youngest spine in the competition and are now being rewarded for the patience we showed as these players become elite.
I will celebrate the pride that I felt when I heard the Parra chant come through on the coverage last Saturday night. How good is the Blue and Gold Army!
Finally, I will celebrate the fact that our players have owned mistakes both individually and as a team and become better. I no longer question if our team will turn up or put in an effort.
Brad Arthur
That demand for effort and accountability for on field decision making has been a consistent expectation from BA and it is this leadership that has turned our team from being wooden spooners in 2018 to being genuine contenders in 2022.
Everyone knows my continual support of BA over the years and this is largely due to his integrity.
Between 2016-2018 our club hit rock bottom. Our club has turned around because we have people in charge who exhibit integrity. The ARLC and Mr Vlandy’s could learn much from our club because like us the NRL will not improve until those making the decisions or who appoint others to make decisions are held accountable.
Jack Gibson was so right. Winning starts in the front office and I celebrate that we have ours in order and am really angry that the organisation that oversees the running of the game has some way to go.
The NRL lost much on Saturday night and on Sunday. Forget about my family’s support, as I know that will not make any difference to the billion dollar organisation.
Those leading the NRL have lost the most important asset of all – the respect and trust of fans.
Ultimately a sport that competes for the ever shrinking entertainment dollar of fans has nothing if it does not have that.
It won’t happen overnight but there is a path that the NRL has chosen. I fear that the NRL will destroy itself because once fans have had enough, as my family has, it will be almost impossible to get them back.
Ultimately that will cost the NRL, as the major stakeholders in this game are the fans. And we are being treated like fools.
Shelley
Nailed it.
Thank you.
Thank you. The fact that Graham Annesley admitted today that he needed to make sure the on field referee and bunker officials understood when the ref challenge could and could not be used says it all. The management of our sport is laughable and embarrassing.
The NRL is the highest level of club football in this sport and despite the players knowing, as Gutho explained in the post match press conference, the commentators, the fans watching and reacting on social all knew instantly that those decisions could not be challenged the referee and bunker officials did not, just as they did not last week or the week before that. In fact Cameron Munster did it in a trial and the NRL did nothing.
If people like Mr Annesley and the referees coaches did not address this with the referees last week or more specifically after it happened in the trial after his big speech at his weekly briefing why not and why is he not accountable?
I work in upper management and I appoint many middle managers, if I don’t do my job and that includes selecting competent managers and overseeing that my managers are doing there job, then I will not have a job for long.
If Mr Annesley and co can not oversee something as simple as when the ref challenge can and cannot be used, despite very clear guidelines, how on earth can they oversee and manage complicated rules or MRC consistency issues. They can’t, but the NRL is a good old fashioned old boys club and so they keep the jobs they have and the game is the poorer for it.
Spot on Shelley, I feel the same as you.
Well written and argued.
Time to circle the wagons and withdraw, ready to defend and attack.
The NRL and the MRC may just have given our Eels the motivation and determination to stick it to the man.
The feeling like you are being mistreated and disadvantaged is a great bonder and intrinsic motivator for any organised group. Our Eels are that.
Time for the Eels to rise up.
Shit….I sound like I’m back living in the 70s and marching in the streets.
I only watch Parra and have done so since 1963. Other teams hold no interest.
I gave up on Origin when that one eyed clown from Queensland, Gomersell, refereed. To me it is a terminally tarnished money making exercise which serves no real purpose.
I only watch International games if an Eel is playing.
I must have been an early adopter.
This has the possibility to be the greatest Eels season ever.
Preaching to the converted won’t change anything. You need to get your message air time and demonstrate mass support
Eloquently and passionately put Shelley. Agree 100%.
Well done Shelley, But I believe you seriously need to post this to the NRL, as well as the Parramatta Head Office. We need to voice our opinion as well as fight ludicrous charges
Shelley you have written what we many loyal Parra fans/supporters think. Hats off to you for a thoughtful & brilliant article. I also won’t watch Origin or anything else that involves RL. I have already boycotted all RL shows on tv. I just don’t want to be a part of a competition that targets my club in every way possible to bring it down. How gutsy is our club to be able to overcome adversity in the way we have. My brother left us just recently & he bled BLUE & GOLD. I will go the same way, loving the Eels till I die.
Please, please Shelley forward your brilliant article onto the administration of Parramatta RL & to the administration of the NRL itself. I don’t ever remember reading an article as sincere, accurate & full of passion such as yours. You have written what every Parramatta supporter feels in their hearts. I’m just so proud of our club & our team. I’m also so proud to be associated with people such as yourself. Thank you for so eloquently expressing what we feel & what we think. Kindest regards Michael
Thank you but the truth is there for all to see. There are signs everywhere that people are turning away. Look at the crowds for teams like the Tigers, St George, bulldogs etc. These are clubs with huge fan bases and have had times in the past when the have struggled to win games. Despite this in the past they have had good crowds but at most of there games now you would be lucky to crack 10 000 fans. I watch these teams be given the work experience referees who have very little idea and if I was a fan there is no way I would drive 5 hours and spend $100’s to watch my bad team be referred by incompetence. Who is responsible for bringing through referee’s because they have failed? Do they still have a job? The fact that I don’t know this is the real problem. They hide behind all the spin and the non existent league writers who are mostly journalists in disguise simply cover it all up.
As inflation rises and interest rates go up people will have to make choices about how they spend the dollars they have and that is already happening. People develop life long passion for a sport by seeing it in person. Seeing the players up close. These people in turn grow up and become the volunteers at junior clubs and have kids who they take to the footy. The cycle repeats. The casual footy fan watching some games on TV will not sustain a sporting club for long. When stands are empty or ratings go down because fans like me turn away sponsors will pull dollars and then and only then will the ARLC be forced to face the problem that is starring them in the face.
This year I have posted two, maybe three comments on TCT, each have been to address the very issues we are talking about here. Thank you heaps Shelley for your insights but moreso your decisions as to boycotting any game that does not have the eels in it.
I have mentioned issues that have turned me off RL in a lot of areas, and at least two on TCT that I posted on one or two of Sixties blogs, & with this latest crap decision regarding Jnr, it has confirmed to me that in the most, RL is in a position, that has at least one leg in a grave. The remaining parts of the body are for me also festering as the grave opens up.
I no longer can get to games, age and health issues presents that for me and in many ways a blessing but one that is turning more into a curse than anything. For me the sin binning and charges against Jnr has really taken me to a level where I will no longer go to an NRL game, reasons as stated but also the blind and inept refs along with the bunker, which would be destroyed if it was in Ukrain, maybe same needs to be here as well.
I used to watch games on the box, last year I subscribed to Kayo, now I will watch one match a week, and that will be a game with the eels being the primary drawcard, none of the others will I watch. I have subscribed for a year until end of the eels matches and will drop out then, I will then asses next season, if I am still alive as to whether I will subscribe again, it will be my last option owing to the way the NRL is going.
Lastly, I have only noticed 2 other so called pro’s who called Jnrs tackle dangerous and should have been binned, outside of two experts, I am sure all the names that are on the various post match of the eels against Titans, all were going nuts about the stupidity or the like against the Jnr tackle, none saw it as illegal or dangerous and generally deemed a joke, I wonder if any of those experts including one who is in charge of another club, also was in the chorus shouting the tackle was not illegal.
Should be great if all rolled up to NRL judicary hearing of Jnr’s tackle to defend him. But I doubt they would have the guts to do so.
RIP NRL,
Shelley thank you for your passionate article. You have managed to capture eloquently the thoughts and feelings of many Parramatta supporters. Mr Annesley’s detailed explanation, which confirmed referee errors, did little to make Parra supporters feel any better.
I don’t believe that there is an agenda against our club in particular. But unconscious bias is very much an issue. It favours particular clubs, but even more so, particular players.
If that had been one of the “golden boys” (eg Ponga, Walsh, Manu) instead of the little-known Sean Russell getting put out of action indefinitely, would it have drawn the same (lack of) action? Fans of most clubs will tell you “no”, and therein lies the rather massive problem.
I’m not having a dig at those players. They aren’t the ones granting themselves special status, and I daresay they cop abuse because of it.
But it’s a running joke amongst the people I watch games with that Ponga especially has taken over Slater’s “well he’s a brilliant player and you tackled him very effectively before he could do anything so it must have been illegal in some way” status with the referees.
The lack of consensus between the referees on the field, the ones in the bunker, the referee’s boss in the Monday briefing, the Match Review Committee, and the game’s administration (eg failure to understand and implement the captain’s challenge rules, public disagreement over grading of charges but no action on it) makes the sport appear unprofessional.
Add to that the disenfranchisement of touch judges, where they appear afraid to make a call or frequently overruled when they do, and I can only assume there is a huge cultural issue happening behind the scenes.
I do agree to a point. I don’t have faith in all people in the MRC and the fact that we don’t have the same people each week reviewing games is laughable, therefore through the process the NRL creates the perfect opportunity for inconsistency. I actually think the problems sits with something Greenberg called out a few years ago and that is the influence that the media feel they have and in 2021-2 does have. It was about the only thing I ever agreed with Greenberg on and in the end he put a target on his own back by saying it.
The fact that Annesley speaks each week in his own words about issues that have been spoken about in the media gives media types so much influence and the media 9 and Fox are dominated by people from certain clubs, such as Melbourne, Roosters, Bulldogs and Penrith and of course our Origin Stars. I actually heard Buzz Rothfield this morning say you can’t do that to AJ. It should not matter who the player is. Instead of trying to appease and shut up media personalities the NRL and Annesley at his briefings should be looking at the games and picking trends up. They simply paper over the cracks, ignore the big issues until they explode on a Friday night game and then we get the over reaction like magic round. I have no doubt these people know league they simply have very little skill in management or long term planning and I do think some cannot get past bias. I could not objectively review a Melbourne game because of the history between our clubs but it is not my job to do so.
The sad bit is this inconsistency will dominate the NRL discussion at some point this year but it will only be when one of the four clubs highly represented by media commentators etc are impacted. Until then the other 10-12 clubs have to suffer, just like Parra and the Dragons have in the last few weeks.
Your point on Ponga is case in point. Between Matty and Andrew Johns, Knights old boys and Cronk, Thurston, Slater and Cameron Smith ( Qld origin coaches) you only have to look at him the wrong way and they blow up. The same with Tedesco and Fitier, Gould etc. It is a joke and current NRL management appease it.
Hear, hear. The media do not serve the game well and there is a great reluctance to criticise anyone from V’Landys down. It is just tabloid trash and trying to find the next “stoush.” It would great to have some truly independent that covered the game with passion but no fear of offending the powers that be.
Thank you Shelley. I too have felt outrage over the unfairness that seemingly targets the Eels lately and if I was a paranoid person I’d see conspiracies coming out everywhere. Sadly it comes down to incompetence plain and simple and despite all this we keep on winning. I also commend you for taking the step to not watch any other NRL games and hope it gets their attention because I think a few more supporters will be turned off by this as well.
Absolutely spot on. I am a a rusted on Eels and Rugby League supporter and if my interest is diminishing due to all the issues you raised, others must be feeling the same. The NRL is going to suffer a downturn in support. I was livid after Saturday nights game, and we won, how sad is that? And just when I thought they couldn’t sink any lower, up pops the the MRC with a one match ban for Paulo.
Shelley, I’m with you mate. Week in week out I obviously don’t put enough money in the gambling ring to make an effect (ie, I don’t gamble at all). I just watched another non Eels game when, I can see it, the commentary can see it but the video ref either can’t see it or sees it differently. It’s boring. I grew up playing the game and if we got beaten, we got beaten. Now that is not the truth. I’ll start putting my money elsewhere and tell my children to play golf. Will always support the Eels though because for better or worse.