What have the Canberra Raiders been up to over the years?

JohnBoy – if practically any worker is injured due to his employment, he or she can get workers’ compensation on some basis. Just about everyone has to have compulsory superannuation, which provides some coverage for those forced to retire. A number of statutory superannuation systems have recognised that some occupations (eg the military) are likely to be engaged in for a shorter time.

It should not be beyond the wit of sport administrators to design a scheme where players who take a battering that either stops them from working or means that they cannot work for a full wage in a long-term occupation are not disadvantaged.

(As an aside, watch the Sydney club rugby on the ABC on Satuday afternoon. There will be some highly paid Wallabies/Waratahs running around, along with some people on modest contracts, some paid training expenses or scholarships and some paid nothing. The representative players are obviously good at what they do, even if they only play a few matches for the club, but so are many of the others. At the levels below, people pay to play).

But when they disappoint as role models they’re not letting me down, they’re letting down the club which tries to market them as role models to sell tickets and merchandise.

It isn’t about whether they should be role models. They already are.

They are widely known, and promoted even more via footy cards and public appearances etc.

They are role models, they are paid well for what they do, and they should all understand that their public behaviour will be reported on.

Disagree,

They take a fearful physical battering for a few short years with horrendous long term health effects just so we can be entertained.

They deserve every penny and more.

But now that we’re paying them as entertainers their off-field antics are part of the package. Up to the clubs to decide what image they’re trying to present.

Growling Ferret – You have made one of the most important points in this debate. Footballers are not role models – they are young men who have a talent for doing difficult things with a football. They get paid amounts that dwarf what is paid to those who do far more useful things (like nurses and teachers) and whose skill levels in their field may be comparable.

There is nothing to stop a footballer from being an academic genius, a respected humanitarian or a gifted writer. But nor is there anything to stop them from being recalcitrants whose would-be teenage years far beyond their 20th birthdays, binge drinkers, or aggressive, arrogant, culturally bereft, manipulative, greedy yobs. Is it not an answer to pay them what they’re really worth, for the skills they display in a limited field of activity, rather than providing them with a lifestyle of idle intoxication? Time was when they were not paid at all, and then they were paid enough to supplement the reasonable wages they were expected to earn from more useful activity. They had to comply with some standards of behaviour because their employers (the ones who engaged them Monday to Friday) would not have tolerated drunken, criminal behaviour.

This is probably unrealistic if we want to retain the best quality players. But, seriously, what standards allow a drunken 21 year old who trains some of the time and works intensely for an hour or so once a week for half a year to be paid ten times as much a nurse or teacher? If people want to go overseas for the money, they will – lawyers and doctors do it, and no-one has suggested salary caps and third party sponsors for legal practices or hospitals.

As a rule: unless you personally saw it happen, or you can point to a news source of it, we’d rather not have it.

b) I’m not entirely sure what the site’s coverage for defamation is?

Just to put your mind at ease Simbo, this would be hearsay at the best.

Footballers should not be role models. They are athletes that make their money due to their physical prowess. Its other people such as Religious heads, Politicians, Judges, Lawyers who should be perfect examples of ‘role models’

Shall we expose them to the same level of scrutiny?

Such as the kiddie fiddlers at Marist and hundreds of other religions schools and churches across Australia over the years.
What about a former Chief Minister rolling her car after a big day at a winery?
Or a current ACT Minister going DUI
Or former MLA’s living in their offices?
Or MLA’s rorting the system by living in Government housing?

Footballers are easy fodder for headlines… nothing more, nothing less…

I went to a local footy team presentation for a club the company I work for sponsors a while ago. Gary Belcher was the guest speaker, they had flown him down from QLD where he now lives I believe.

He could have told many a story on great games etc to a room full of youngish (18-30 year old) amateur footy players, some of them just below NRL level, for inspiration sake etc. But no, in front of the whole room of 100 or so of sponsors, parents and players, every story was about getting on the piss and getting up to mischeif.

And we wonder why football has alcohol problems, even supposed legends of the game encourage it…….

the Ricky Stuart accident that caused the death of a lady is interesting….

But yea current day Raiders are cocks, all the ones I’ve served. Especially Scott Logan and Todd Carney.

Was Mullins from the same hick town as Carney? Seems neither of them can/could conduct themselves well after a few….

simbo said :

Hmm, I’m sure I’ve heard a couple of decent Laurie Daley rumours, but:

a) some of them smacked of wish-fulfilment rather than accuracy,
b) I’m not entirely sure what the site’s coverage for defamation is?

Is it true they used his nose as inspiration for the successful Americas Cup challenge?

Laurie Daley was a dick when he played for the Raiders, and continues to be one.

I remember with fond memories the story of Laurie arriving at Pizza Hut enquiring about a table, only to be informed that they had none available. This was met with the line recently made famous by those reprobates from round Gosford way: do you know who I am!

Yes, but we still can’t magic a table out of thin air.

Does it really matter?

These guys were not under the same scrutiny as players now. I wonder what politicians got up to in the 80’s/90’s? Malcolm Frasers’ pants for instance…

Hmm, I’m sure I’ve heard a couple of decent Laurie Daley rumours, but:

a) some of them smacked of wish-fulfilment rather than accuracy,
b) I’m not entirely sure what the site’s coverage for defamation is?

The Noa Nadruku incident (his defence on an assault was that he was so drunk he could not have formed the intention to do anything) was a high point. There were rumours about a buck’s night that got way out of hand, but I did not hear any details.

astrojax said :

“back in the day” the club was also very good at persuading prospective complainants to withdraw or not make such complaints, including regarding sexual and other physical assaults. and the stakes (ie wages) weren’t as high, so the media profiles were similarly low key enough for such instances to go under a radar which today would likely see it a gleaming blip…

because we were all out doing the same thing.

exactly who are ‘we’ here, hippy?

but i agree, i have no desire for blokes who might have a talent to kick a ball becoming society’s role models. i blame society.

astrojax, I think what you’re saying is true, but being a Nation that is very sports oriented and damn good at it, it’s hard to keep the limelight away from these people. You don’t really hear kids in the play ground wanting to grow up and be just like Wayne Berry or Kate Carnell?? Probably not the greatest of role models, but I think you know where I’m coming from. Is there really anyone around these days that the younger generation especially would conspire to be like? Not a dig, but I’ve kind of been out of the loop for a bit.

Sam Backo and the late Peter Jackson got into a spot of bother at the Blind Beggars in Belco. I figure it happened before they went to the Broncos, so probably ’88, maybe ’89. If you are dopey enough to get on the wrong side of a first grade footballer then you probably deserve what you get.

On the other hand, Gary Belcher and Big Mal (both wearing dark glasses) visited my school fete and signed plenty of autographs for the kids. That never made the news, it just made a lot of youngsters and their parents happy.

“back in the day” the club was also very good at persuading prospective complainants to withdraw or not make such complaints, including regarding sexual and other physical assaults. and the stakes (ie wages) weren’t as high, so the media profiles were similarly low key enough for such instances to go under a radar which today would likely see it a gleaming blip…

because we were all out doing the same thing. exactly who are ‘we’ here, hippy?

but i agree, i have no desire for blokes who might have a talent to kick a ball becoming society’s role models. i blame society.

back in the day, when the raiders were good, you used to see the players out all the time. Laurie Daley, Ricky Stewart, Big Mal etc could go out, get plastered and no one would care because we were all out doing the same thing. I think the days like that are long gone with all the talk of ‘binge drinking’ and how these everyday blokes who happen to play football are now ‘role models’.