Quote ="Ferocious Aardvark"Allowing him to play here is not "holding ourselves to a lower standard of behaviour". If he was offered a gig by another NRL club then IMHO he would be registered by the NRL and if they refused then I am sure he would win any court challenge.'"
Then let them deal with that.
Quote The NRL was allowing him to play NRL AFTER he had done all the previous things he had done, so the sum total of those was not enough to turn him unfit in the NRL's eyes.
Then, a picture is leaked of a purely private incident, which was nothing more than a puerile grossout joke, the "joke" being a photo set up to make it look as if he was peeing into his own mouth (although he actually wasn't). It's actually I suppose mildly amusing in a grossout way, and i have seen what I would say is far worse on many grossout shows and films. In itself it is absolutely no more than a puerile gross prank, and of little consequence in the general scheme of things. I get the faux moral outrage that the Twitterati and forum warriors and media built up into an hyperbolic storm of criticism but in the cold light of day his "last straw" offence was actually something and nothing. The situation was in some ways similar to a soccer player on a yellow card de-shirting after scoring, knowing that while the act is of little consequence, he was on a final warning and the result was bound to be a red. In other ways it was different as the act was done in private and not meant for public viewing. What people do in private should be allowed to remain private. Many people I understand enjoy a golden shower (I am not one of them) and many around the world drink urine as a daily routine. So stripped down to its basics, what are we saying - that we all think the concept of Carney drinking his own urine is so bad that he cannot be allowed to play rugby? What is so bad about what he did? It is a serious question, as I don't believe that, given any intelligent thought, there was anything.
Had he pulled his todger out on the pitch and done it in front of the main stand then that would be different, but no such thing happened.
Therefore you are saying that you'd condone everything he'd done previously, but you'd ban him for this spoof private photo, doing something which isn't really objectively heinous, because you personally think people shouldn't hint at urine drinking? Even as a joke? I am not being y here btw I am trying to get you to think about what in objective reality was so bad about what HE DID if it had remained private as it should have.'"
I dont have an issue with what he did. At all. Really dont care. Dont think the NRL should have been involved at all. Personally i dont think a sports league should involve itself in anything that happens off the field. I think we have a legal judicial system and that should be where players who break the law should be dealt with. I think the sport itself is by any measure amoral. I think leagues and competitions simply tie themselves in knots and are on a hiding to nothing trying to police behaviour in a players private life. And i mean that for anything, not little things like this, but real actual serious crimes. Its for the judicial system. We are just a game.
However, if the decision is taken for a player to be, in effect, banned from one competition, ours should not be a safety net. Or if it is to be we come out and say, we are just a sport, we are entirely amoral, we do not make judgements we leave that to the legal system, and if Carney gets a visa, he plays, and that goes for our players aswell. If you arent in prison you, play.
What we shouldnt do is the situation we have now and leave it to the RFL to make a decision on each individual case because we are left then with the image that whilst the NRL do not accept such behaviour, the RFL have judged it to be ok.