Unfortunately the standard of maturity of the average NRL player is about 2 standard deviations below the rest of the population. Sadly at our club it's about 3 standard deviations below (see CHN, Okunbur and Barba). While 16 year old kids at Maccas and KFC have the maturity to operate dangerous equipment like deep fryers while getting paid $8 per hour some NRL players can't be trusted to drink a beer without smashing their gf or beating someone up. That's why coaches often refer to their players as "he's a good kid" despite him being an adult in his mid 20's. Bellamy has an aura that he built at Melbourne where players won't dare to behave like that but it took him years to do it. When I was at school in the 70's and 80's if the teachers THOUGHT you misbehaved you got the cane. League players then had trade qualifications and had a real job during the week. Today teachers can get charged with assault if they lay a hand on a schoolkid and most leagues players don't have a real job and spend all their free time on xbox and instagram. The sh#tty attitude of players today is a symptom of poor parenting and lack of discipline at school thanks to the political correctness in the education system and today's society.
Great post.
Agree with the general sentiment but I don't think NRL players are any different from the rest of society in terms of behavior. I just think society has a bad impression of NRL players because they are celebrities so when they get into trouble, it becomes a news story. When Joe Blow the home loan officer at ANZ gets intro trouble, nobody gives a fuck.
If you compared the percentage of NRL players who beat their gf to other professions, I dare say it would be virtually the same. A man's attitude towards woman has nothing to do with his profession.
As a non-drinker (I hate the taste of alcohol), I am privy to the shit men get up to when their drunk. Whether its a lawyer having sex with an exhaust pipe of a car (in public) or a doctor bashing his wife in front of 50 people at a party, unfortunately this shit happens.
I agree it comes down to poor parenting, lack of discipline at school thanks to the political correctness in the education system and today's society. I also think some men just cant control their anger. We should be teaching school children how to control their emotions at an early age so they don't turn into a fucking nutjob because somebody cut them off in traffic.
Unfortunately Baz had the reputation of being "one of the boys" when he was at Manly so hopefully he has learned from that and turns into a disciplinarian like Bellamy who the players respect or fear.