There are a lot of things about the Rugby League media that I simply hate.
I hate it when they are lazy and call player managers to get a cheap “Player XYZ Is Leaving!” headline. I hate it when they come out with “Exclusives” and then you find out they are just quoting widely available stats. I hate it when they go for cheap headline grabbing and saying that every other sport it out to get Rugby League.
I really hate it when they write something misleading.
Roy Masters has done that today in the Sydney Morning Herald. His headline reads Knights ban a possibility if drugs charges proved .
By reading that you’d think the Knights are in pretty big trouble.
Reading the article itself, and the first paragraph in particular, it gets even worse for Newcastle!
The Knights could be expelled from the NRL if charges of drug trafficking against two of their players are proved, according to sanctions set out by the World Anti-Doping Agency, whose rules league is obliged to follow.
Wow, they pretty much are gone you would think! Then as you read on it becomes very fuzzy!
It turns out that if you apply certain rules to this case, and then bend them and stretch them, they could, maybe, possibly look similar to what is happening in Newcastle, except they aren’t.
Then when one of WADA’s more specific rules are applied to the Newcastle Knights case, it turns out that the banning of a club is completely left to the digression of the governing body of the sport in general, namely the NRL.
So the chances of Newcastle being kicked out of the competition because two of its players are up against charges of drug distribution are zero!
If that is the case, why would Roy Masters even contemplate writing this rubbish?
I like Roy Masters, he is an old school coach, he is out of the loop a bit these days but he still has his foot in the door with some of the old administrators of the game.
Sometimes he writes dribble, but he also writes some very thought provoking stuff which I really admire. So to see him come out with something that is just rubbish, space filling crap, its very disappointing.
You know if you asked Roy Masters right now, what are the chances the NRL would kick the Newcastle Knights out of the competition, he would tell you there was absolutely no chance of it happening.
So why do the write up Roy?
As the Knights scramble to try and keep sponsors, as they try to sooth the fears of their fans, and as they try to piece together what is now left of their team, they don’t need their stakeholders to pick up the paper today and read that they club could be kicked out of the competition, when in fact that will never happen!
Even if the Knights players had hit the mark on these WADA rules (And they have yet to do that), what type of shit storm do you think the NRL would find itself in if it decided to ban the Knights for a year and effectively kill the club!
Its just misleading and not needed.
So fear not Knights fans, your club is safe. Just hope they can get all the rotten apples out of the place before the season starts. You lot deserve a good club you can be proud of!
