News Bulldogs coach Dean Pay the man to help Canterbury recover from scandal

TalDog

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Dean Pay was a no nonsense players who was as tough as they come. Now the Canterbury Bulldogs coach must be tough on his players.
Paul Kent, The Daily Telegraph
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March 13, 2020 9:00pm

There was never any quit in him when he played and now that he is coaching Dean Pay sees no reason there ever should be a change.

All anybody needs to do to know anything about Pay is to go back to a rainy night in Newcastle when he was a young man with a little talent and he was playing for Country against City and the headlines heading into the game were all about others.

Pay went out that night and started creasing the City forwards. It was one of those uncomfortable nights for football when the rain came down and made the ground just wet enough to take the subtly out of play, meaning players had to run a little more square that night, which was a kind of music for Dean Pay.


Bulldogs coach Dean Pay was as tough as they came when he played. Now he must be tough on his players. Picture: AAP.
Bulldogs coach Dean Pay was as tough as they came when he played. Now he must be tough on his players. Picture: AAP.
He kept lining up the City forwards and kept hitting them up under the ribs and it soon became apparent the more tender they got the more they wanted no part of him, which didn’t really matter to Pay because he kept on hitting them anyway.

He gave NSW coach Phil Gould no choice but to pick him for the Blues.

And then he did it again, in the Origin series, where they talk a lot about character and what it shows of a man. He found the Queensland forwards early and made it kind of personal against them and by the end of the series they all knew who Dean Pay was as well.

Gould rewrote the narrative for Origin. He borrowed a quote from an American basketball coach, John Wooden, when he said State of Origin football was not character making, as they liked to say, but character revealing.

It was a template that has worked for the Blues ever since.



Pay came through that Origin series and, such was the character revealed, he gave Australian coach Bob Fulton also no choice but to pick him for the Kangaroo tour at the end of the season.

So what option does Pay have now when he takes over as head coach of a football club trying to fight its way out of the unfamiliar position of being easybeats and two young men do everything that goes again him as a man.

Forget about strict definitions of law, as some have tried to argue, that Corey Harawira-Naera and Jayden Okunbor did nothing wrong when they had sex with two schoolgirls because the girls were of legal age.

Everyone within a football club, within a good football club anyway, knows it was wrong.

And Pay, who knows that everything about the way back for Canterbury begins with character, knows it was wrong.

Much will happen this week at Canterbury.

It has already been said that Okunbor will be sacked but Harawira-Naera will just survive, which some suggested with a wink might be because he is the better of the two players. He is close to the Bulldogs’ best forward.

But Harawira-Naera is gone too. He will be sacked this week, along with Okunbor.

What remains beyond that is formalities.

The two players have until Tuesday to respond to show cause notices.

The Bulldogs and the NRL will then consider their response. Then there will be legal threats and argument. The club is hoping it can be finalised by Thursday’s game against North Queensland.

Bulldogs CEO Andrew Hill must back Dean Pay as the club deals with this scandal.
Bulldogs CEO Andrew Hill must back Dean Pay as the club deals with this scandal.
Chief executive Andrew Hill has then got to back Pay’s decision publicly.

And then the Bulldogs board, chaired by Lynne Anderson, must back Hill and Pay. The NRL has already indicated it will support the Bulldogs and neither player will be registered at another club.

This is a crucial time for Canterbury.

They can hardly afford to lose two quality players, in terms of talent. But if the Bulldogs are ever to get where they want to be then they must be sacked.

In that way they are lucky to have a man like Pay as head coach. Pay’s moral compass is strong. His character, revealed so many years ago, is tough and honest and committed.

Nowadays they call character culture.

Every club in the NRL claims to have good culture. Some clubs are always talking about it, which could suggest they are still looking for it.

Culture is the most overused and misunderstood word in sport.

The best it can be defined is that culture is simply the standards of behaviour you are willing to accept.

How then, can Canterbury get strong as a club if it is prepared to accept players seemingly using school visits as pick up joints?

It is a question Pay and his coaching staff will have to address at some point, and then sometime after the Bulldogs will have to ask as well.

What made the players think it was okay? They either didn’t have the smarts, or the strength of character, to knock back what was a bad decision.

In an odd way, though, it is not a bad thing right now for the club.

It merely shows the Bulldogs are still on the road to excellence. Pay knows that not every player at the club now will be there if he eventually coaches them to a premiership and two more have just been weeded out.

It is important the Bulldogs understand that as well.

You might have all the talent but true success, the kind of success that endures, begins with the right leaders finding the right people.

Poor characters simply can’t drive long term success.

The Bulldogs have revealed a little of their character this week.

The club could have ignored what happened and it would have never got out.

It has cost them more than $2 million in sponsorship and caused short term damage to its reputation.

But again, it is a long term positive for the club.

If Pay and Hill had ignored what happened, dismissing it as nothing but an inconvenient moment, the club would have slowly festered from the inside. The players would have a new standard they could now behave to.

How could the club be honest about its ambitions if it was prepared to settle on its standards?

The Bulldogs have benefited by having men of character in key roles.

Nobody saw Pay last week when he first learned of what happened.

He was so angry and so disappointed, so let down, he began to physically shake.

“It’s wrong,” he said. “As weak as piss.”

This, remember, for a coach under pressure.

To lift the Bulldogs from the bottom of the competition he needs all the talent he can assemble. As a coach early in his career, any failings could be career ending. He has much at stake.

But he is the father of three girls.

A man first.
 

NPC83

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I don’t think CHN has a better chance of not getting sacked cause he is the better player.. my understanding is he met the girl off tinder and didn’t know she was from the school... I think he’ll get a decent suspension for breaking team protocol but if it is true he didn’t know she was a school girl... how harsh is it to sack him...
 

SPEARTAKVIDREFS

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Not even going to read it. Over the whole thing. Us turning up and having a crack last night brought me out of a mental funk leading up to the game all brought on by this bullshit. Just looking forward to our next game, hopefully there will be one lol.
 

c-b-b

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In the game of NRL being the benchmark of integrity (in any way) isn't valued.

One of the lines in the article especially is a laugh. Paul Kent needs to look harder - the NRL is littered with poor characters and people turn a blind eye.

Overall a really bad situation we find ourselves in which has cost us in so many ways.
 

no1bulldog

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Next time don’t fuck em just bash em.... NRL will let you play and the media won’t care eg Sivo & Scott
 

CrittaMagic69

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Was it also wrong when he kicked back laughing at Elliott playing with his dick? Just wondering aye.
 

no1bulldog

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So bash school girls ? You sick fuck lol
not me mate, seems to be the NRL’s attitude.... bash women, assault cops etc is fine.... do something not illegal and get hammered
 

Howard Moon

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Never seen anything to remotely suggest that. Okunbor definitely has a girlfirned tho.
well that's good then. I saw it mentioned on here a few times that he had a wife and kids is all. if Oko has a gf then I will be happy to see him go
 

bullanth

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I don't give a rats what the telecrap say, dean pay was a good player for our club,the jury is still out on his coaching ability,but I do agree with him on this one both players need to be sacked,the club need to show some balls and get rid of both of them
 

Tassie Devil

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Was it also wrong when he kicked back laughing at Elliott playing with his dick? Just wondering aye.
Just to check .. .you're comparing Pay's 'inaction' on Elliot's Mad Monday episode to CHN + Okunbor's sexual exploits at Coffs?
 

CanterburybankstownBD

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well that's good then. I saw it mentioned on here a few times that he had a wife and kids is all. if Oko has a gf then I will be happy to see him go
He would be in a bad place mentally right now, his mum was his biggest supporter and was over the moon when he got a first grade spot. Now he's going to be sacked, in what was supposed to be the breakout year. His gf may leave him or if she doesn't its done a lot of damge to the relationship and all of nsw and qld knows about this, it affects reputations. They've both had a few losses each over this incident.
Big mistake, but hopefully it will all blow over soon and they can make amends in their own ways
 
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