Media bias in favour of Rugby plumbs new depths

 

When is an ‘ex’ All Black not an ‘ex’ All Black? 

Firstly, when he goes to a different sporting code his history is wiped.  

 

Especially, when 'Mr X AB' gets into trouble. 

So rather than a headline which should read “Ex All Black star Matthew Ridge's car wash business pays up to migrant employees”   

Instead we get Lincoln Tan in the N.Z Herald telling us "Ex-league star Matthew Ridge's car wash business pays up to migrant employees”

Link HERE.

More ‘crawly’ and embarrassing journalism from the N.Z Media.   

Rugby heads in denial about drink drinking plague

The sad facts are there for all to see.

Were a brave media outlet in the mainstream media to call-out rugby’s sad and often lethal role when it comes to drink driving, they risk potentially their largest draw-card pulling their coverage in reprisal.   

 

That's why you see nothing in our largest papers.

They prefer instead to be cheer-girls for the sport.

Report on celeb weddings and a players favourite music rather than death and mayhem on our roads after clubroom piss-ups.  

All of which are down to rugby culture of entitlement, that exists from top to bottom.

Here’s but a brief recent run-down on N.Z’s rugby players love of boozing and getting behind the wheel. 

Just how many grieving parents, friends will it take for the sport to wake-up?  

2014: Auckland's ITM Cup rugby coach Wayne Pivac was banned from driving after he was caught drink-driving on Waitangi Day

 

2014:  Twenty three year old Keao players Vernon Lawrence-Samuels and Ryan Wikaira died in a head-on accident after consuming alcohol and smoking a joint following rugby training.

 

2014: Jack Henry Ballantyne and Tui Huruata Candish-Thompson died on May 11, 2012, after crashing into a power pole at high speed near Hinds, south of Ashburton. The coroner stated the deaths could have been avoided if a culture of mixing drinking with sport was not so prevalent. The two teenagers had visited the Hinds Tavern after rugby training, which was/is(?) the norm.

 

2015:   Auckland Blues rugby player Tevita Li was discharged without conviction for driving with an excess blood alcohol level. The judge said ‘a conviction against your name would have consequences in the sense that people who are involved in the recruitment of rugby players look with disdain on people with convictions, regardless of what they're for’.

 

2016: Troy Favell pleads guilty to a count of driving with excess breath alcohol. The 2nd time he’s been done.   

 

2016: Tragedy strikes the small South Island town of Kurow when Jarrad Blackler (23) dies from his injuries, the victim of a drunk driver. All passengers of the vehicle had been pissing-up at the local rugby club.

 

2016: Rene Ranger convicted of drink driving.

 

2017: Two words ‘Dan’ and ‘Carter’.  

 

2017: Two men lucky to be alive after a serious car crash involving two vehicles, had been celebrating after a long-running social rugby clash in South Canterbury. Police describe ‘beer bottles scattered all over the paddock’.

 

If Kiwi visitors to France acted like professional rugby players we’d all be banned!

As if two cases in less than a month in France involving ex All Blacks wasn’t enough for the French judiciary to deal with – there’s a third.  

And this offender, Byron Kelleher, is a serial offender in the truest sense of the term. 

Kelleher is no stranger to how the French courts work. 

The latest is domestic violence related.   

And it goes without saying he was liquored to the eyeballs.   

French Judiciary will surely be contemplating building a special court just for cases involving ex All Blacks?  

These rugby buffoons are trashing our country’s reputation in France. 

All the N.Z Rugby Union can say is “we are disappointed” and constantly allude to the fictional line ‘this is a societal issue’. 

If all Kiwi passport holders acted like professional rugby players we’d be carte blanche banned from entering France, using the same rationale as English soccer hooligans. 

 

Footnote: Seriously give me a break with this constant offending would you? Don’t you know this isn’t my full-time job, try acting like good citizens for once. It’s like a full-time job keeping this site up-dated. There’s another two articles I need to post and frankly I would prefer to be doing other stuff. 

   

 

Ali Williams suspected of possessing cocaine in France

French Rugby Club Racing 92, must be lamenting its Kiwi squad additions as news breaks Ali Williams has been arrested in Paris for allegedly possessing cocaine. 

Reports out of France suggest Williams allegedly tried to throw away several packets containing cocaine after being approached by plain clothes police officers outside a nightclub near the Arc de Triomphe.  

He was also allegedly found to be heavily intoxicated, detained by Police.  

I’ve used the term allegedly a few times here. 

My lawyer is only good at conveyance, not litigation.  

But any mainstream media running this story must have fairly good ‘oil’.  

2017 is turning into a annus horribilis for N.Z Rugby.  

 

A 'super' rugby year for me.

 

Sorry couldn't resist that.

Two big-name All Blacks collared by French gendarmerie in what a week?

 

 

Former Southland Stags Player Done in Aussie Rape of Underage- Girl

 

Former Southland Stags rugby player Craig Wells has been sentenced this week, to six years' jail for the aggravated rape of a underage girl back in his homeland, Australia. 

But sexual assault, like all the crimes perpetrated by high profile rugby players, are stereotypical of males of this age. 

 

That's what we are told verbatim.     

I mean it’s typical for 45 year olds to engage in sex with a 14 year old against their will - right?   

It’s indicative of society as a whole, eh?

 

Never reflective of a rugby culture.     

That’s why we are in week eight of 2017 and this site is already cocker-block with Kiwi pro rugby players in the courts.  

Strangely, I never go short of articles despite contracts, external enquiries etc. 

 

No such site similar to this could exist doing exposes on Kiwi soccer players or cyclists etc.

 

Despite those sports being far more global and involving a similar a high number of top athletes.    

 

No one in the main-stream sycophantic media dares discussing the elephant in the room.

 

Least they lose their biggest source of click bait.

 

Reporting on rugby, minus the 'warts'.  

 

Just humble old me.    

 

There's no issues with N.Z Rugby, nothing worth highlighting...ahem.   

Forget the victims.

 

Let’s instead rejoice in the fact a new Super Season is almost upon us.

 

Don't you go picking-on Southland NPC rapists.  

 

Here's the vomit inducing article inclusive of his drunk driving escapades in his N.Z.   

 

Rugby God Caught Pissed behind the wheel

 

When it comes to Rugby Royalty ‘demi-Gods’ they don’t get any bigger that Dan Carter. 

World Player of the Year at one point.  

Caught pissed behind the wheel in Paris, where rugby is the sporting equivalent of say hockey in N.Z.

Twice the allowable level. 

Carrying no licence.  

The French judiciary will court no favours.   

The hits keep coming.  

What a stellar year it’s looking for this blog!

 

Tuipulotu’s alleged positive drug test will have HUGE ramifications

Sponsors hate having their names tarnished.  

For example in the case of Losi Filipo, Wellington Rugby buckled in part under threats sponsors would pull-out unless he was dumped. 

One global sponsor that takes a hard-line on its athletes taking drugs is Adidas. 

The International Association of Athletics Federation and Tyson Gay have recently had their lucrative deals put through their Bavarian shredder.   

So how will Kasper Rorsted (CEO Adidas) be feeling as he thumbs through Das Spiegel to find All Blacks lock Patrick Tuipulotu has reportedly been caught using a banned substance? 

 

Read the initial story here.   

What sort of drugs/chemical substances we don’t know at this stage.

One would presume ‘performance enhancing’ for example would be viewed in a very, very dim light. 

Were Tuipulotu to be found – these are only allegations at this stage – to be using a performance enhancing substance as opposed to getting caught-out smoking a joint whilst listening to Pink Floyd, this has the potential to develop into a major embarrassing issue for N.Z Rugby.

And they damn well know it. 

That’s why NZ Rugby and ’s local union. Auckland, have been plying the line since November that he’s simply had an "on-going personal matter".     

This from an entity which brandishes the words ‘standards’  and ‘professionalism’ like confetti from Richie McCaws wedding.  

What action will the International Rugby Board take? 

Protocols dictate they know the moment any professional player tests positive even for recreational use.

Especially one playing in the world’s top ranked team. 

The World Rugby dot org site is strangely silent? 

Perhaps they were trying to think of something more original than “on-going personal matter”? 

But now the story has broken.

 

This has legs, ten-times the size of Tuipulotu's.  

It will now run and run despite obvious attempts by N.Z Rugby to snuff-it-out and hide it in the closet.  

Steve Tew will be forced to front the media today. 

"Steve, when did you first know of this positive test?"

"Did Patrick play any games after the positive test was first reported?" 

"What sort of banned substances are we talking here Steve? Recreational or performance enhancing?"

Don't think you'll get a straight answer to any of these pertinent questions. 

Not right away.

But it will all come-out.  

This comes close after the failed Wellingtons Seven’s and my bet is Tew’s time is up.

 

Potentially this could be the most embarrassing thing to happen to N.Z Rugby in the professional era depending on what the banned substance was, when it was first discovered.  

Tarnishing the All Black name forever.

Up-Date Friday 10^th February: The B-Test for a performance enhancing drug came in negative. Apparently 1 positive + 1 negative = you are off the hook. I bet the cycling fraternity would look at this ‘benefit of the doubt’ decision and shake their heads. Sure, mistakes can occur in the testing process, but from the same sample? What are the chances? What exactly was the drug involved? Something you could innocently acquire off the Chemist shelf, or more nefarious akin to under-the-table body-building supplement? Kindly point it out to us on the World Anti-Doping Agency's 2016 Prohibited List.  Why call a positive drug test ‘personal reasons’ when the next time an All Black has to depart from a tour if say his child is sick, the public could think “that’s a smoke-screen”? Why wait so long for the B Sample to be tested? Why, when the news media askes these questions no-one can get a straight answer? One could feel they are hiding something were one was a nasty prick. Not me though.