How many television sports broadcasters, journalists, pundits, podcasters and ex-players have ranted in the last forty-eight hours about the sin binning of Hudson Young and the subsequent penalty against Canberra? Well, let me be the one and only person in the whole world who says, “I don’t care what you all think. You’re just dead wrong.” For me, the penalty against the Raiders and the binning of Hudson is one of the few brave things Klein has done in some time. He would have known that he would be criticized for it, but he went ahead and did it anyway.
“You can’t get penalized and sin-binned for mouthing off,” has been a complaint from many.
“Surely a head butt is a greater offence than sledging”
Another common whinge on the airwaves has been “In the scheme of things, surely a head-butt is a far greater offence than sledging.”
That’s not what happened.
This is what happened.
Hudson ran up to the kid who was walking away and chest-bumped him in the back… and when the kid turned, he shoved his head in his face and mouthed off. We have no idea what Young said. Walsh then shoved his forehead against Young’s jaw (their faces were so close together that they were already almost touching anyway) effectively pushing Young away. It wasn’t a hard and sharp jab designed to injure. It was a “get out of my face” nudge. Young then chose to rocket himself towards the ground… which would have been a perfectly appropriate response if Walsh had slugged him with a baseball bat.
Some sledges are off limits… but most aren’t!
Apparently the NRL punditry think that chest-bumping, face-to-face nose rubbing and sledging are all just part of the game and should be tolerated… or even applauded.
I don’t.
No doubt certain types of sledges are generally agreed to be off limits. Homophobic slurs are a no-no. Racial vilification is also unacceptable. Casting aspersions on family members is also considered out of bounds. I guess religious intolerance would also be considered a no-go zone. But in the eyes of the experts, all other sledges are not punishable. Mouthing off is part of the game. Whatever Young said to Walsh, given that it was outside those banned parameters, is just fine.
I disagree. For me, athletes should limit their aggression to the act of playing footy. It’s not a debate. It’s not a shout fest. If you want to abuse your opposition, get a job as a politician or join a group of protesters. If you want to play football, then let you footy playing do your talking for you. I have no problem with any ref giving a ten-minute rest to any footy motor-mouth. Serial mouthy pests could be given their marching orders to watch the whole remainder of the game from the sidelines for all I care. I watch sport for the sport. I don’t like the amateur dramatics. “Gee. You called me a pussy. You’re so tough.” Gimme a break.
Let your footy do the talking
And Young’s mouthing off… whatever he said… is not the whole story. That chest in the back to a bloke who is not even looking, is pathetic. Provocative, childish and pathetic. If that wasn’t worthy of a ten-minute sit-down quite apart from the face-to face rubbish, the sledge and the outlandish dive then I don’t know what is. Klein, for me, often makes the easy choices. But, on this occasion, he figured that if players were allowed to get away with what Young did then the game would degenerate into a patty-cake, patty-cake, farce. His reaction was to direct the players attention back to playing footy. Good on him. Penalty and ten-minutes on the bench against the unsporting aggressor and a ten-minutes sit-down for the bloke who did his block and retaliated inappropriately was pretty much spot on.
I want to see more footy and less kid’s games. All referees please join in with Klein and continue this crack down on the rubbish side of the NRL.
Leave a Reply