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| League must use Ben Flower case to prove the freak show has no future | League must use Ben Flower case to prove the freak show has no future |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| Ben Flower could, and should, have done rugby league a huge favour. All the evidence is that it needed something spectacularly brutal to ram home to the sport it is time for a change in emphasis if it is to have much of a future in the health-and-safety 21st century. | |
| Slapping a lengthy ban on Wigan’s Flower was the easy bit. It is now that the Rugby Football League needs to show some leadership, and every other constituency of the game the discipline and intelligence to follow. | |
| It is an exaggeration, but not a wild one, to observe that much of the reaction to Flower’s attack on Lance Hohaia in the Super League Grand Final against St Helens has confirmed rugby league’s reputation, to much of this country, as a game for thick northern thugs (Flower is from south Wales, and the other two words in that description are equally inaccurate, but we’re dealing with perception here, not reality). | It is an exaggeration, but not a wild one, to observe that much of the reaction to Flower’s attack on Lance Hohaia in the Super League Grand Final against St Helens has confirmed rugby league’s reputation, to much of this country, as a game for thick northern thugs (Flower is from south Wales, and the other two words in that description are equally inaccurate, but we’re dealing with perception here, not reality). |
| It is not so different even in Australia, where league matches have been four of the five most watched television programmes of the year – reflecting the fact that it remains the most popular football code in the two most populous states – but the game is still stubbornly, sometimes defiantly, blue-collar and horribly unfashionable with the chattering classes. | |
| That does not make it wholly unalluring. I remember a Welsh, union-loving teacher of mine at junior school in Cheshire at some point in the early 1980s saying he used to like making the odd Friday night trip to Salford “to watch the bones crunch”. The media reaction to the Flower outrage – and the success of click-baiting articles comparing it to other sporting atrocities – shows that violence sometimes sells. Sky’s viewing figures have been good throughout the Super League season, and they will surely have made a major impact on Saturday night. | That does not make it wholly unalluring. I remember a Welsh, union-loving teacher of mine at junior school in Cheshire at some point in the early 1980s saying he used to like making the odd Friday night trip to Salford “to watch the bones crunch”. The media reaction to the Flower outrage – and the success of click-baiting articles comparing it to other sporting atrocities – shows that violence sometimes sells. Sky’s viewing figures have been good throughout the Super League season, and they will surely have made a major impact on Saturday night. |
| But there isn’t much of a future as a freak show. | But there isn’t much of a future as a freak show. |
| Obviously, toughness must remain part of league’s appeal. The courage shown uncomplainingly by players in all positions on a weekly basis is a large part of their draw, when combined with the range of other qualities required by this gladiatorial game – skill, speed and, yes, even intelligence. | Obviously, toughness must remain part of league’s appeal. The courage shown uncomplainingly by players in all positions on a weekly basis is a large part of their draw, when combined with the range of other qualities required by this gladiatorial game – skill, speed and, yes, even intelligence. |
| But Sam Burgess’s phenomenal effort in playing for the whole of the Australian Grand Final earlier this month after having his cheekbone and eye socket shattered in the first tackle of the match was really not a good look for the game – not much better than Flower’s punches. | But Sam Burgess’s phenomenal effort in playing for the whole of the Australian Grand Final earlier this month after having his cheekbone and eye socket shattered in the first tackle of the match was really not a good look for the game – not much better than Flower’s punches. |
| What parent would want to set their son – or daughter – on a course where that sort of masochistic performance represents the crowning glory? | What parent would want to set their son – or daughter – on a course where that sort of masochistic performance represents the crowning glory? |
| Similarly, how many sponsors would be keen to associate themselves with a sport in which Flower could take the field so pumped up that he would react so outrageously to Hohaia? | Similarly, how many sponsors would be keen to associate themselves with a sport in which Flower could take the field so pumped up that he would react so outrageously to Hohaia? |
| Now that the Flower ban has been confirmed, the RFL must take the lead in demanding, and trumpeting, the very highest standards of discipline and behaviour in junior and amateur rugby. Parents must be reassured that the level of toughness and occasional foolhardiness they see every Friday night on Sky will not be required on a Saturday or Sunday morning in the parks of Wigan, Halifax, Hull or Hemel Hempstead. Much of the spadework has already been done, with the development of mini- and mod-league. But there is no harm in a high-profile reminder. | Now that the Flower ban has been confirmed, the RFL must take the lead in demanding, and trumpeting, the very highest standards of discipline and behaviour in junior and amateur rugby. Parents must be reassured that the level of toughness and occasional foolhardiness they see every Friday night on Sky will not be required on a Saturday or Sunday morning in the parks of Wigan, Halifax, Hull or Hemel Hempstead. Much of the spadework has already been done, with the development of mini- and mod-league. But there is no harm in a high-profile reminder. |
| At the same time current and future sponsors must be reassured that the game will tackle its reputation for violence. It is no accident that the administrator who recognised this as a priority was Richard Lewis, a tennis lover from Surrey who spent a successful decade as chairman of the Rugby Football League, and insisted on an end to a culture of sweeping things under the carpet. | |
| Now Lewis is back at Wimbledon and, whether coincidentally or not, brutality seems to have been given the benefit of the doubt. This is not a Wigan thing, although the club have still not acknowledged that branding opponents as “Road Kill” in Michael Maguire’s years as coach, or his successor Shaun Wane’s instruction to his players to “create mayhem” before a game in New Zealand earlier this year, was unacceptable. | Now Lewis is back at Wimbledon and, whether coincidentally or not, brutality seems to have been given the benefit of the doubt. This is not a Wigan thing, although the club have still not acknowledged that branding opponents as “Road Kill” in Michael Maguire’s years as coach, or his successor Shaun Wane’s instruction to his players to “create mayhem” before a game in New Zealand earlier this year, was unacceptable. |
| The incident that set the tone for this season was a shuddering high tackle by Sia Soliola, of St Helens, that could easily have broken the jaw of the Warrington hooker Michael Monaghan in Sky’s first televised match. It went unpunished, by the match officials and the disciplinary authorities, and there have been numerous other such incidents in the subsequent seven months leading up to the Grand Final. The Saints coach, Nathan Brown, has argued more often than anyone that skilful ball-players such as Monaghan are not being given enough protection. | |
| Perhaps it is the quality of the legal advice being taken by clubs in defending their players that has prevented the RFL dealing appropriately with dangerous play. To their credit, they have taken one significant step in endorsing Australia’s ban of the shoulder charge, a decision that remains unpopular with the large constituency who share Reg Reagan’s desire to Bring Back the Biff. | Perhaps it is the quality of the legal advice being taken by clubs in defending their players that has prevented the RFL dealing appropriately with dangerous play. To their credit, they have taken one significant step in endorsing Australia’s ban of the shoulder charge, a decision that remains unpopular with the large constituency who share Reg Reagan’s desire to Bring Back the Biff. |
| We in the media must also take our share of responsibility. It can be a lonely place, on Backchat, Twitter or below the line, if you’ve offered a view on foul play – I suspect that may well be proved in the responses to this piece. Sky’s team of regular pundits includes two of the most notorious players of the last two decades of the last century, who are now eloquent and amusing analysts of the game but whose previous misdemeanours are the subject of joshing rather than embarrassment. | We in the media must also take our share of responsibility. It can be a lonely place, on Backchat, Twitter or below the line, if you’ve offered a view on foul play – I suspect that may well be proved in the responses to this piece. Sky’s team of regular pundits includes two of the most notorious players of the last two decades of the last century, who are now eloquent and amusing analysts of the game but whose previous misdemeanours are the subject of joshing rather than embarrassment. |
| Flower’s offence provides the perfect opportunity for the RFL – and for that matter the game’s International Federation, if only it existed in any meaningful form – to get on the front foot. With more people listening than ever, this is a rare chance to beat the drum for the unique appeal of the toughest team sport on the planet – whether in the character-building effect of front-on, one-on-one defence for students on a Wednesday afternoon, or the gladiatorial spectacle of Super League or the NRL – but acknowledge that it might be time to tone it down a tiny bit. League has plenty of room for manoeuvre before anyone could accuse it of going soft. | Flower’s offence provides the perfect opportunity for the RFL – and for that matter the game’s International Federation, if only it existed in any meaningful form – to get on the front foot. With more people listening than ever, this is a rare chance to beat the drum for the unique appeal of the toughest team sport on the planet – whether in the character-building effect of front-on, one-on-one defence for students on a Wednesday afternoon, or the gladiatorial spectacle of Super League or the NRL – but acknowledge that it might be time to tone it down a tiny bit. League has plenty of room for manoeuvre before anyone could accuse it of going soft. |