If you head down to my local McDonald’s with ten of your mates, find a Kiwi bloke and start racially abusing him, you better expect to get punched in the face.
Do me a favour though…
If that is how you get your kicks, and you do end up being punched in the mouth while your weak as piss friends stand back watching, don’t then run to the Police like you were assaulted, because matey, you deserved what you got!
There are some players in Rugby League who don’t think, that have a short fuse and who are simply, idiots. There are some players when you hear they have been involved in a fight, you are not surprised.
Benji Marshall is one of the true gentlemen of the game. You don’t hear a bad word said about him. He is fantastic with fans, kids love him, he’s great with the media, he is a fantastic player…you could not ask for a better ambassador for the game than Benji Marshall.
A caller to Sky Sports Radio this morning, who was a witness to what happened, told of the scene at 3am. Marshall had headed to McDonalds with his girlfriend and some mates to get a feed. He was mobbed….by fans.
The caller talked about Marshall posing for autographs and posing for pictures. She talked about his up beat attitude, he was fantastic with everyone there.
He left, and was about to cross the road when his attitude was changed when some low life, smart arsed prick decided to say something Marshall didn’t let. Marshall and his manager have suggested he was racially abused.
Marshall turned around, there was a confrontation, the idiot got a punch in the mouth and it was all over in seconds.
You wouldn’t have heard about Marshall spending all that time signing autographs and posing for pictures with fans at 3am unless the caller had gone out of their way to make it known. All you would have heard is, 3am, Marshall assaults someone in Sydney, what a disgrace…
There are a few points I want to make about all of this.
Firstly, it needs to be accepted that the NRL is played by men who we all expect to play one of the most brutal, confrontational sports in the world with nothing but 100% commitment. That type of commitment takes a certain type of character, a competitive person who is willing to make a living playing our sport, which is brutal at its highest level.
We can not expect these people to be one thing on the field, and the complete opposite off of it. We can’t ask for these people to throw themselves into a brutal sport, but when confronted by people looking for trouble off the field, to walk away like delicate little flowers and be tucked up in bed by 8:30pm every night.
I’m not excusing stupid behavior like what we see from Todd Carney or Anthony Watmough, far from it. If you read my web site on a regular basis, you know I’m tougher on player behavior than most people.
However, when a Rugby League player is confronted in the street and abused, we can not reel in horror that they don’t back down from the confrontation. Hell, its what we demand of them as fans on the field! There isn’t a magic switch to turn them into puppy dogs off of it.
I’m going to be interested to see how the NRL handles this situation. On one hand, they would want to make a statement against violence, and fine or even ban Marshall. On the other hand though, they can’t be seen to penalize a player who was standing up for himself after being racially abused.
If they fine and ban Marshall, are they declaring open season on players? Is it OK to cop racial abuse?
There will be those that suggest Marshall, if racially abused, should have gone through the right channels. Yeah, that’s great, walk down to your local police station, tell the police you were racially abused at a McDonalds at 3am and see how far you get.
Live in the real world for a change…
There has been some comment about why Marshall was out at 3am the weekend before the first round of the competition. Marshall had actually been attending a charity event until midnight and then left with his girlfriends and some mates.
What needs to be remembered is that, Rugby League players live on a different timetable to the rest of us. As we are tucking up in bed at 11pm after the second Friday Night Football game, the players in many cases are still at the ground, dealing with the press or attending after match functions.
They have so much adrenaline after a match, its just impossible to sleep until that has worked its way out of their system.
If you follow a few players on Twitter during the season, you’ll see many of them complaining after games at 3am that they can’t sleep. They are still coming down from the game.
Once again, we can’t expect these men to be at their physical peak for a game that ends at 10pm, and then for the other 6 days of the week expect them to be tucked up in bed by 9pm.
Benji Marshall is a good bloke. He is the very best person to be the face of the game. He is clearly the best player in the world and I’d suggest he is the most popular player in the game.
I support Benji Marshall and his actions 100%. Racism is low, especially when its some loud mouthed prick at a McDonalds at 3am trying to show off to his mates.
His friends stood back and watched him get what he deserved, and with the poor little dears lip bleeding, he had the nerve to run to the police.
Weak as piss.
Thankfully, there has been no shortage of witnesses to this altercation who have contacted the police. If Marshall gets charged with assault, so be it. However he did nothing different to what any of us would have in the same situation.
Benji Marshall didn’t accept racism, and I congratulate him for that.
