NRL players are again proving themselves to be the game's biggest liability as well as its biggest asset.
We're speaking, of course, of a minority. But when it comes to the NRL, time and again that minority ruins it for everyone.
No sporting code can conjure a mind-bending controversy out of thin air like rugby league. No code can match the exponential scale of the madness.
We've heard for the past two months that the very existence of rugby league is at stake if the game cannot resume amid the coronavirus crackdown. Certainly the rich earnings of players are at risk; they'd already agreed to a hefty 75 per cent pay cut as the league pondered a season ravaged by the impact of COVID-19.
And then we get Latrell Mitchell and Josh Addo-Carr going camping, followed by Nathan Cleary's impromptu Anzac Day party.
These are perfectly normal activities at any other time of life. All of us would love to be doing them now.
Most of us are not, because the health of family, friends and the wider community is at stake. The same applies to NRL players ... and much more.
Mitchell and Addo-Carr were pictured camping with 10 other men. Cleary was pictured with five women.
They willingly bet that none of those people were any chance of carrying COVID-19, yet were gambling with a stake that they had no right to table: the future of a multi-billion-dollar sport, plus the health and livelihoods of their teammates.
It was naive rather than malicious, but the assumed risk was obscene. Especially when the NRL, a runaway leader in professional sport for its ambition to weave through the virus crackdowns, wants to relaunch on May 28.
The subsequent concern, of course, is how many other players have been flouting social distancing laws. They are due back at training next Monday ... can their teammates, clubs and league bosses have genuine confidence that no player is carrying COVID-19?
The short answer is no. And a single positive test will almost surely plunge the game back into shutdown.
Mitchell had been up at his NSW North Coast home for weeks, off the radar of his club South Sydney. Melbourne Storm were unaware of Addo-Carr's movements when they were alerted to the camping incident and it turned out that he's been warned by police multiple times for flaunting social distancing laws.
This has been a time for players to assume personal responsibility, rather than their usual privileged existence in the coddled environment provided by clubs.
Three players already have been found wanting. They have risked it all, thoughtlessly and recklessly.
It seems inevitable that more pictures of more foolish breaches will follow. The players have made a rod for their own backs, worsening a problem that they already loathed.
Phil Gould has predicted that thanks to the likes of Mitchell, Addo-Carr and Cleary, the public will now be engaged in a game of "spot a player". They were already burdened by excessive scrutiny in public and just found a new way to escalate the issue.
https://twitter.com/PhilGould15/status/1254973062987919360?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwThe NRL is a league of 480 young men. It is a haven for mishaps, as is any mass gathering of immature individuals.
But what many NRL players have never understood, through endless episodes of poor behaviour before this, is what is at stake.
Rich, privileged livelihoods, far beyond what they could earn in the real world.
And in this case, lives.
Gould has called for season-long bans for Mitchell, Addo-Carr and Cleary. It's a fair opinion but the NRL may fast be put in the position of sanctioning dozens of players. With the season already reduced in size and trying to maintain legitimacy, you can't ban 'em all. Perhaps a month's suspension without pay is more feasible.
Even on a purely individual level was it idiotic. Mitchell is trying to impress at a new club, the Rabbitohs, in the new position of fullback. Addo-Carr is trying to attract a new club after forcing an exit from Melbourne. Cleary had just taken control of the Panthers after James Maloney's exit and hoped to regain his NSW halfback position.
They all had huge skin in the game this season. If ARLC chairman Peter V'landys is as angry as you might imagine, perhaps their seasons are already over. Who knows what damage they have caused to their careers.
One of Gould's Twitter followers put to him after the Cleary incident that, "The NRL has to be pound for pound one of the dumbest billion dollar organisations in the world."
Gus replied: "Hard to argue. It's the game that keeps on giving."
from WWOS http://wwos.nine.com.au/nrl/nathan-cleary-latrell-mitchell-josh-addo-carr-foolish-players-crackdown/0821afc6-3561-4f45-a227-5bce7c2dd634
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