Tele: South's star Greg Inglis's dive the NRL's real problem, not Toovey comments

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PAUL KENT - THE DAILY TELEGRAPH - AUGUST 21, 2013

Paul Kent: South Sydney star Greg Inglis's dive the NRL's real problem, not Geoff Toovey comments

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/nrl/paul-kent-south-sydney-star-greg-ingliss-dive-the-nrls-real-problem-not-geoff-toovey-comments/story-fni3fh9n-1226700942599

FORTY years from now old men are going to look back wistfully and, wiping a tear from their watery eyes, talk about the toughness of Greg Inglis.

He played an entire game with a fat lip, they’ll say.

They will then go on to tell the grandkiddies that’s how tough the game used to be in 2013, when Inglis went down from a swinging arm - “What’s a swinging arm, grandad?” - and after appropriate treatment by trained medical staff, which took just long enough for a video review, he got up and bravely played on that night against Manly.

By then the grandads will have long forgot how, later in the night, Geoff Toovey got up and told the rugby league world nine-tenths of what was wrong in the game, and how we could fix it, and yet Toovey was treated with such contempt that all that came from it was a $10,000 fine.

There is no better man to judge football toughness than Geoff Toovey.

He was a player who, even swinging right-handed, you couldn’t stop with a baseball bat.

I’m old enough to remember being there the day Adam MacDougall stomped all over his face and left star-shaped puncture wounds in his cheeks and forehead. Toovey got up and wobbled and rolled, finally got put upright in backplay, and then got on with the game.

There’s a reason he talks with that raspy voice. It’s what happens when you bust your arse in every play on every day.

Yet what respect has it earned him within the NRL?

Not even the courtesy of a raised eyebrow.

The NRL is heading down a dangerous track and, like its inaction over the wrestling techniques, which it has let become so entrenched in the game that they are now impossible to coach out, if things are not righted soon then heaven knows where the game will end up.

What happened to football sense?

Anybody at the game’s coalface knows Toovey was spot on with everything said after the game.

His complaints were valid.

Yet the response from the NRL was not an acknowledgment to get it right next time, or even a promise to take a look at it, but a lecture from the game’s new head of football, Todd Greenberg, on how he would prefer coaches using the opportunity to talk up the game’s virtues, and not its failings.

Last time I checked coaches were paid on wins and losses, not whether the marketing department met quota.

The good news is that Toovey, who has until Friday to decide whether to dispute the fine, has a clear-cut defence.

“I accept that emotion is a big part of the our game,” Greenberg told The Australian on Tuesday, “but that is not an excuse for making unwarranted attacks on match officials.”

It wasn’t unwarranted, Todd. It was emotional, but why is that a sin in the game?

The deeper question is why does the game look so dimly on Toovey’s public display but allows Jeff Lima to skip with the lightest of sanctions?

One day, this tackle will end somebody’s career and we will all agree we could have done something earlier, and this was the moment it should have started.

The day after Lima tried to twist Anthony Watmough’s leg out of its hip socket, with the knee and ankle put under similar stress, former Australian captain Gorden Tallis declared on Triple M that Lima should get “at least” four weeks.

By way of highlighting how some acts were acceptable in the game, and others were considered a dog act, Tallis recalled his Rampaging Bull days when he took to backslamming players in games.

Finally, teammate Kevin Walters fronted him and told him to stop.

“It’s a game of footy,” Tallis said in defence. In other words, you do what you’ve got to do, I’ll do what I’ve got to do.

Then Allan Langer pulled him aside.

Finally, Wayne Bennett called Tallis in and told him he could still do the tackle, he just wouldn’t be playing for the Broncos if he did.

“It wasn’t illegal, but I realised they didn’t like it,” Tallis said.

Nowadays the rules encourage players to lay down for offences barely above a slap, as in the Inglis tackle, and yet because it is too hard to police they barely treat the Lima tackle, which is at the serious end, for what it is worth.

Greg Inglis lies down after copping a swinging arm. Photo by Tony Feder/Getty Images
Why is the NRL’s value system so skewed?

Cynically, the NRL’s response is politics 101.

Address the perception, not the reality. When you lose control of the situation then control the message.

Rabbitohs coach Michael Maguire copped the tip when he defended Inglis’s lie down, saying Inglis was not fishing for a penalty but was legitimately hit, and had the fat lip to prove it.

Come on, Michael.

That might work in there at the NRL, where they can’t find the pointy end of the football, but it won’t work among real NRL fans.

Not those that know the game.

Not those like Toovey, who bled for his fame.
 
Wow, Paul Kent showing some common sense?

Glad to see Usual Manly beaters agreeing with us for once.
 
So....everyone can see it. Everyone can understand it. Everyone is affected by it. But the NRL and Toddy won't act on it. Hmmm. With the public backlash this has generated, Souths fans must be worried. This could cost them the grand final now. No more refs help on the field and all of a sudden they're just another team.
 
I see all this daily telegraph articles and I just wonder if they are not just sitting back slowly reeling us in like that migrant fisherman you see under the bridge. We hate their paper and its limited news, the readership is down so what do they do? expand.
Thanks for the article but you still suck eggs.
 
As Paul Kent once said on the Footy Show when questioned about his hatred for Manly. He said "I don't hate Manly... I hate the supporters".

In saying that though... its about time someone stood up for our club.
 
News Ltd 'journalists' are allowed to write balanced articles now that News Ltd no longer own the game. That's what happens when there are no agendas in their reporting.
 
Oneyeagle said:
As Paul Kent once said on the Footy Show when questioned about his hatred for Manly. He said "I don't hate Manly... I hate the supporters".

In saying that though... its about time someone stood up for our club.

And thats fair enough. Its the same with me. I dont hate the Telegraph, just the journalists
 
It's about time someone stood up for our club. I'm so fed up with the referees this year. We not only have to play 17 opposition players but the refs as well. It must be so discouraging for our players to see all their hard work mean nothing when
1 the refs constantly penalise them when the opposition isn't penalised for the same thing
2 tries disallowed when it is a try
3 opposition teams being awarded tries when they are not tries
4players pretend to be injured when they are not
5 players trying to injure players and not getting sufficiently punished for it.
I hope we win the comp this year just to show everyone despite all the setbacks and disappointments we are still the best team in the comp and it will take more than the refs to beat us.
 
Oneyeagle said:
As Paul Kent once said on the Footy Show when questioned about his hatred for Manly. He said "I don't hate Manly... I hate the supporters".

In saying that though... its about time someone stood up for our club.

Tell the dud fudge to come over here and say that.
 
how dare Paul Kent right such an article. Everything in the universe was in balance. The Telegraph hated us, and I hated the Telegraph. I have not bought one single paper from them since their 'reporting' of the Stewart case, with Paul Kent being my most hated of all their gutter journalists. I'd even convinced some friends and family, some who aren't even Manly fans, to boycott, reasoning that everytime you read it, you ended up just that little bit dumber.

Now, Paul Kent of all people, writes an article like this. Something that, while obviously sucking up to the Manly faithful a little, actually makes some valid points. This has thrown everything out of kilter. Do I abandon my long standing boycott of News Ltd papers? Do I, in fact, start reading Paul Kent articles once again?
 
See what happens when you give your monkey a crack at writing an article?!
 

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