You have to wonder what planet Mal Meninga is living on.
Fresh off of winning a record sixth straight State Of Origin series at Queensland coach, Meninga went on a bizarre rant in his newspaper column titled Queensland’s triumph a victory over the dirty rats of Origin
It was nothing short of a tirade directed at anyone that wasn’t part of the Maroon’s set up. It was weird. It came from no where and made you wonder if Meninga realizes that he actually won the series!
It also makes you wonder what he would have said if they had actually lost!
It included quotes such as:
“What the Maroons achieved on Wednesday night was about more than a sixth straight series win, or a fitting farewell for a champion in our captain Darren Lockyer.
It was a victory against the very rats and filth that tried to poison a monumental team with lies, personal attacks, arrogance and disrespect.”
And this:
“Like that St George team of years gone by, this Queensland team has transformed mere men into immortals, and footballers into young men their community can be proud of.
But rather than be a cause for celebration, the Queensland team this year found itself the victim of a smear campaign so malicious and orchestrated that it tainted the entire code of rugby league.
And it came from the enemy within the game itself.
They are the faceless men of influence who claim their agenda is to benefit the game. Really, their only agenda is to benefit themselves.
For them, what Queensland has achieved in the past six years is detrimental to the health of the game.”
It goes on and on, and is just weird.
I live in Sydney and I read all of the Rugby League media there is to read from here, Queensland, New Zealand, England….I try and keep up with things happening in the game.
I have not read anything, anywhere that was meant to downplay Queensland’s achievements. This Queensland side have been hailed as a champion side, hell, their record speaks for itself.
If you look at the standard-bearers in the game of Rugby League right now, its easy to see why Queensland is so good.
Darren Lockyer is a living legend. As a leader, a crunch time player, for the experience, for the drive to win….he is the best in the game.
Cameron Smith, Billy Slater, Greg Inglis, Petero Civoniceva….these are the players that the history books will define this generations of the game by. All Queenslanders!
The post State Of Origin rundown by most media and fans was “New South Wales try hard, but this Queensland side is the stuff of legend”.
Then there is this idea that the ARL/NSWRL/NRL are all out to stop Queensland. Ridiculous!
If this was the case the ARL would have enforced State Of Origin rules that mean New South Wales born, bred and qualified Greg Inglis couldn’t play for Queensland. That Israel Folau, who was born and raised in Sydney, could not play for Queensland.
Petero Civoniceva, Craig Smith, Adrian Lam, Brad Thorn, Tonie Carroll, Lote Tuqiri….hell, none of them were even born in Australia! If the ARL really had something against Queensland, they could have easily done something there!
Then you have the allegations made against the NRL match review committee and judiciary members, which I would suggest are going to lead to some very serious legal action.
Jonathan Thurston was charged by the NRL match review committee for making contact with a referee and yet fought his case at the judiciary and was let off. I personally felt he probably should have served one week, but hey, Origin was coming up and sometimes things are allowed to work out for the best for the greater good of the game.
We’d seen a similar thing happens a few weeks earlier with New South Wales winger Akuila Uate not having a case to answer for a dangerous tackle. However, heading into game three, David Taylor was suspended for five weeks for a very similar tackle.
I was personally hoping Taylor would play for Queensland. He made one decent run in game two of the series and that was it!
Taylor has carry over points and previous dangerous tackle charges, and that helped ramp up how many weeks he was suspended for.
Now, the NRL basically has nothing to do with the State Of Origin series. It is an administration set up to run the 16 team NRL club competition and nothing else! To blame the NRL for anything is just ridiculous!
Making allegations of bias about the judiciary is stupid, as others have found out in the past. This is a system founded after The Super League War, it has a legal grounding to the point where players fighting cases need to be represented by legal council.
Making any sort of allegations about that environment is asking to be sued, and I think you’ll find that unless Meninga makes some very quick apologies, or some News Limited heavies calm down talk of legal action and smooth things over, Mal will end up paying a large sum of money for damages to the reputations of judiciary members.
We’re not finished yet…
Queensland head into the State Of Origin series with a siege mentality, and that’s fine. It has rubbed some people the wrong way for a long time though simply because many feel the Maroons should go out of their way to promote games and Rugby League in general.
Meninga see’s this as some sort of conspiracy!
It really isn’t. Its more a case of officials wanting this amazing team to do the pain in the arse public relations work that both teams should be doing, because they are probably the best team to promote our game!
That not too much to ask, surely. I mean, if we had every team that played a game going into a media lock down, you’d soon find the media covering other sports that do give better access and easier content to gather to them.
The fighting between the Sydney media and Brisbane media, I find boring. I don’t read it. It really just comes down to two newspapers, owned by the same company, playing good cop, bad cop, and trying to flog more newspapers.
So having a go at the media is a bit redundant.
Last but not least is the overwhelming subject behind Meninga’s rant….
Everyone is not out to get Queensland!!!
You’d think that the entire world spent ten months a year trying to play Queensland demise, and it’s simply not the case!
You’ve got to wonder where the paranoia comes from really.
Mal’s in pretty big trouble for his rant, and show he should be. Really, is the game in Australia had a all overseeing governing body, Meninga would have been fined $10,000 for bringing the game into disrepute already and someone would have knocked on the QRL’s door and say “You’re going to make him step down as coach”.
We don’t have that though.
The sooner the Independent Commission is actually up and running, the better. That way the paranoia from Queensland can end and maybe, just maybe, they can enjoy their success rather than acting like the last soldier in the jungle bunkered down for the war that no longer exists.
