I don’t you know about you but I tend to watch Rugby League because I enjoy it.
Last night I watched my Penrith Panthers put up a decent effort in the first half only to get blown away by the Melbourne Storm in the end.
To be honest, from very early on in the match the Panthers looked outmatched. The Panthers were grinding away but the Storm didn’t fold like other teams have this season.
I think the game showed what I expect to happen in the finals. The Panthers will try hard but in the end it will be the star players in the opposition teams they face who win the games that matter. The Panthers won’t have enough firepower and they will be left to look towards next season.
Hopefully I’m wrong!
One interesting thing I found during the game was the way people turned on the referees. I started taking the piss on Twitter by saying that the NRL is obviously out to stop the Panthers from winning the title and I also calling the Storm a bunch of cheats. I was basically making fun of people who are in a race to the bottom to spew the most stupid shit possible any time their team doesn’t win by 40 points.
The weird thing was, a lot of people on Twitter started to agree with me! They started to say the referees were terrible, that they cost the Panthers the game, and that there is a refereeing crisis in the NRL.
I didn’t think much off it once the game was over. Then I see today that people attending the match last night at Penrith Football Stadium abused the game officials as they left the field, with allegations that one fan threw something at an official at full time.
It made me think about the mentality of some sports fans…
I watch sport to be entertained. I enjoy it. I like cheering for my own teams and players, I like cheering against other teams and players, I like that there are good guys, bad guys, that there are mistakes, great moments, weird occurrences, and yes, refereeing stuff ups!
All of it adds to the entertainment. Even when my team loses, it’s not as much fun, but I still enjoy watching it all play out.
The weird thing is there are people that invest too much into sport. They seem to put too much on the line. When their team loses, they don’t just cop the loss. They feel a need to lash out at the world. They need to find someone to blame, someone to attack, someone who they can spew stupidity at for their team losing the match.
It doesn’t matter that their best players didn’t fire. It doesn’t matter that their team just had an off night. Glaring mistakes by their own side are completely forgotten because the referee gave a 50/50 penalty against their team two minutes into the match.
If you are one of those people, you are a fucking idiot!
I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you. I really am! Finding out you are a fucking idiot isn’t what anyone wants to hear.
If you are getting angry enough to hang around after a game has ended so you can yell abuse at a referee, find something else to do. Watching sport isn’t for you. You have not got the self control to be in a crowd of people. So go home and watch reruns of The Golden Girls or something, because Rugby League doesn’t need fucking idiots like you at football matches.
Arthur Beetson use to tell people to enjoy the game. I do that every single day!
I want more people to enjoy Rugby League. I want them to see the sport and want to be a part of it! I want parents to be enthusiastic about getting their kids into Rugby League, I want sponsors to be climbing over one enough to plasters their names across our jerseys, I want others to get as much enjoyment out of this sport as I do.
All of that, everything that I hope to see this great game achieve, it becomes just that little bit harder when people see idiots carrying on at the footy.
Referees love this sport just as much as you or I do. They love it so much that they do a thankless job that sees them receive not congratulations for a job well done, no accolades for their highest achievements, and yet the worst, most negative things this sport has to offer and heaped upon them when they have a bad out in the middle. Our games stars can have an off day and we all just look towards next week. When a referee has an off day, we want them sacked, banished from the sport all together. They cop a wave of negativity, and yet they come back next week and do it all over again because they love Rugby League.
So what type of Rugby League supporter are you? Think about it for a little bit. Do you enjoy the game, or are you one of these idiots that makes Rugby League harder for people to love? Can you handle success as well as failure, because your team is going to fail more often than not. If you can’t handle failure, go and find another entertainment option.
In a lifetime of watching Rugby League there are only a few times I have really seen a referee smash a team to the point where they cost them the game. If you team isn’t good enough to overcome a few bad decisions, it isn’t good enough! That is sport.
So the next time you’re at a Rugby League match and you’re angry, the next time you want to yell and scream at another person because the result isn’t going your way, the next time you think about how fucked up this sport is that your team can’t even win the damn game….go home. Rugby League doesn’t want people like you.
Leave the sport to people who actually enjoy it. League it to those that take the bad with the good. Leave Rugby League to people that just want to enjoy the game.
