Rugby League has a history of clubs messing about with some cheap and tacky stunts, but at the end of the day the vast majority are harmless, quickly forgotten and in some rare cases, even fondly remembered for their “out there” ideas.
In signing former sprinter and convicted drug cheat Dwayne Chambers, the Castleford Tigers have disgraced themselves, the game we all loved, they have cheapened Rugby League and embarrassed the majority of players, fans and administrators.
Lets set aside the fact for a moment that Chambers is 29 years old. That he has served a ban for the use of performance enhancing drugs and that he is the poster boy for disgraced athletes.
Chambers has never played any form of Rugby in his life. At the press conference held with the Tigers, he admitted he didnt even know how many players were in a Rugby League team until recently.
Castleford have used the ridiculous excuse that they don’t have enough players in their squad due to injuries and need an extra player in their side…..an embarrassing slap in the face to anyone under the age of 40 playing Rugby League in the UK who would walk into a pathetically weak Cas side as it is!
The idea that a guy who can run, and do nothing else, can walk into a professional Rugby League team is beyond ridiculous.
There are people that have played Rugby League all their life, who can run times that would qualify them for the Olympic games (Without the use of illegal drugs I might add!) who never make the grade as first grade players because the game requires so much more of a player than just being able to run fast.
Still, its good enough for Castleford and their crass stunt.
Chambers, who has done enough damage to his own sport, now has his disgusting record or cheating smeared across the game of Rugby League.
Rugby League in the UK has to fight and scrap for every shred of publicity it gets. The game has worked hard in recent years to push past ignorance and to allow the game to get the audience it deserves.
The game has had to fight hard for the right amount of TV coverage, its still is fighting for its share of newspaper coverage and ever so often Rugby League needs to take a stand against people who still feel the need to deride the game at every opportunity.
All that hard work, and it gets thrown in the garbage like a used syringe that was once full of HGH…
Chambers signing allows sensationalized headlines from editors across the country to thrash the game unmercifully, and you know what, I can blame them at all.
Quite frankly if Rugby League is willing to open its arms to this rubbish, it deserves everything it gets.
While Castleford is just disgusting for allowing this to happen, the RFL also must be called into account. They will be the ones who accept Chambers registration and they have the power to put a stop to this mess.
They have chosen to allow this to happen, and we should all remember that.
As for Castleford, they have disgusted Rugby League supporters across the world. How can anyone respect a club that doesn’t even respect itself?
The damage that Castleford has done to this game in during this cheap stunt will take years to overcome. They have selfishly damaged a game that has a proud 113 years of history behind it.
I hope they are all proud of themselves.
