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Rugby League Louts

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As I said in a previous post lower moral and ethical standards can often be linked to impaired intellect or a disadvantaged background.

And, Bunyip, I do not include you among my detractors. I continue to be impressed by your rational arguments. The same goes for Prospector who has never deviated from a fair and balanced assessment.
 
cuttlefish said:
Give her another four years and she'll be nearly as mature as the bloke that lured her into the situation in the first place. (30 - 19 ... ).
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Cuttlefish, it does seem a little unclear as to who did the luring.
And this is essentially all I've ever said. i.e. that we were not in a position to know what happened. Now it seems from what the owner of the hotel has said, that she was hardly an innocent victim. Doesn't excuse one iota the behaviour of the blokes.


It's not just the financial rewards which attract women to prostitution.
A couple of years ago I read a book which was the result of a study by researchers at one of the universities into the lives of "high class call girls".
This term differentiates these women from prostitutes who work the streets or brothels.

They were on average older (25 to late 30's), and it was their sole income.
They mostly worked out of a separate apartment but a couple worked from their own home. Many of the clients were repeat business and some had become friends, the women said.

When asked by the researchers about their motives for choosing such a career (and they did regard it as a career) only a couple out of I think 20 said it was just for the money and they did not actually enjoy the encounters.

Some liked the independence, autonomy and capacity to set their own hours, and some worked while their children were in school.

However, there were several who said quite frankly that they just really liked sex and thought it was a bonus that they could be so well paid for doing what they enjoyed.

I can't remember the actual incomes now but they were all very high.

I'd have thought personal safety would have been a worry if they are working alone, often being with men they don't know, but not one of them reported any aggression or problems with clients.

So perhaps it's just quite incorrect to assume that if a woman wants to have sex with multiple men, it must be against her will.
 
Perhaps if Matthew Johns had read some Shakespeare in his youth he may not have ended up in the pickle he is now in.

This , on lust and regret.

gg



Sonnet CXXIX, by William Shakespeare

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,

Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;

Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.

All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
 
There is some kind of twisted logic being presented by the Rugby league fraternity and its supporters in condoning such gang-rape behaviour in some of its players. Explanation like "this is what men do...etc" as in the video link, or "that" 19 yo girl has been gloating for days before the incident. Whilst it seems quite unforgivable for a 19 yo girl to behave that way but it's quite okay for a group of grown men to gang up on a single woman against her will.

For those who are condoning this behaviour, they should question their standard of morality, or alternatively, question the level of hypocrisy they are showing behind their arguments.
 
I played in an Under 19 Rugby Union team for a couple of years after leaving the school where I played Rugby Union.
Our Union club had just two teams, Under 19 and open. Our open team was comprised of gun players who had all played in the First 15 at school, many of whom were currently Queensland Country representative players.
Once I reached the open age division, I knew that as someone who had just turned 19 I had little hope of forcing my way into the open team against such tough opposition from quality players who had four or five years on me in age and experience.
If I'd kept playing Union I would have spent much of my time sitting on the bench as a reserve, rather than on the field playing.
That situation was unacceptable to me, so I decided to play League for a year or two....at least the local League club had both A and a B teams that gave everyone a chance to be active players regardless of age or experience or ability.

I got one hell of a shock when I started playing League. In one season I copped more punches in the mouth, more elbows to the head, more kicks in the ribs, more head high tackles, than I'd copped in several years of playing Union.
After a game of Union it was pretty common to find ourselves at the same pub as the team we'd just played. No problem - the blokes from the two teams would intermingle freely, have a beer together, enjoy each others company.
Not so with League....bumping into the opposing team at the pub was a recipe for a fight to start.
Women....I won't even begin to describe the differences between League and Union players in their level of respect and their general attitude towards females.

All in all I was pretty disgusted with League players for their lack of sportsmanship, their dirty and cowardly play, and their grubby standards both on and off the field.
I put in just one season playing League, and even that was a struggle. I didn't enjoy the game and didn't think much of the blokes who played it, including my own team mates.
I returned to Rugby Union to be among men rather than louts.
 
bunyip said:
I got one hell of a shock when I started playing League. In one season I copped more punches in the mouth, more elbows to the head, more kicks in the ribs, more head high tackles, than I'd copped in several years of playing Union.
.
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How are the ears then Bunyip? League players always have such 'roid' bodies too. And their necks.

We only have Union in SA, and it is played amongst the Indendent schools mainly. We really only get to see the State of Origin matches, but they are pretty boring really.

Haunting, I think that most if not all people on this thread have found that what happened was extremely distasteful, regardless of how the situation unfolded. I think even those who are expressing a degree of 'support' for Johns have mostly said it was an act of stupidity and immorality on his part.

I cannot believe that any person would willingly consent to having multiple partners (six) for sex, as well as gang of onlookers who were apparently looking after their own needs. Regardless of what unfolded after that. That situation was well out of her control.
 
Richard Ackland in SMH
 


The girl was apparently gloating for a week after the incident, not before it.
I don't see that anyone who makes mention of this fact is in any way condoning the behaviour of the louts involved. (note that I've called them louts, not men).
I certainly share your view that their behaviour cannot be excused or condoned.
Is anyone on this thread actually condoning their behaviour?

If some little bimbo drops her pants and invites the boys in for a bit of fun, it comes as no surprise that, drunken boys being drunken boys, and louts being louts, they're not going to pass up the opportunity.
That does not in any way excuse such grubby behaviour on their part or on the part of the girl.
They were/are clearly a bunch of sordid people who are small in character.
The worst of them all is Mathew Johns, in view of the fact that he was a married man at the time.

People can whinge all they like about how Channel 9 was unfair in dismissing Johns.
I say good on them....they're a company that's very much in the public eye and as such, would leave themselves open to considerable criticism and negative reaction if they retained the services of any employee who was embroiled in a particularly grubby public scandal.
Matt Johns was more than just an employee of Channel 9 - he was an ambassador for the company, just as he was both an employee and an ambassador in Rugby League.
Channel 9 have quite rightly decided that he's the kind of ambassador they don't need, and they've terminated his contract accordingly.

If the Rugby League organisation is serious about cleaning up its image, it should take a leaf out of Channel 9's book by terminating the contract of any player who in any way shows himself to be a poor ambassador for the game.
None of this wishy washy apology for disciplinary action where they're fined or suspended for a few games and chastised for being naughty boys.
Outline clear standards of behaviour in their contract of employment, have them sign an agreement that they will abide by these standards in their entirety, or face termination of their contract if they don't.
And then follow through on it by sacking any player who steps out of line. It's the only possible way to effectively address the behavioural problems of Rugby League players.
 

Prospector.....I'm pleased to be able to report that I survived my football career without being maimed, disfigured or severely injured.
I do have a few scars though of which I'm quite proud!


Your high moral standards possibly explain your disbelief that anyone would willingly consent to having several sex partners and a gang of onlookers.
I can only point out that some females come from very different backgrounds to what I imagine you came from, and as such, have very different standards to yours.
Sluttish girls are capable of almost anything.
Give them a skinful of booze and they're definitely capable of anything.
No situation is too embarrassing or sordid or shameful for them or for the blokes who accommodate them.
Thankfully these women are in the minority, but they definitely exist.
 
latest news reports from the girls family suggest they didnt know about it until the news people tracked them down. Meanwhile sje has married a high profile KIWI sportsman
 


Oh, just yuck. So many disgustingly vivid pictures have been painted on this thread! The worst being White_Knight's use of the word 'spitroasted'. That will certainly haunt me for many days.

Sorry, I know I've contributed absolutely nothing, but I felt a need to express my distaste : Well, here's some contribution - they're animals, all of 'em, including the girl.
 
pacestick said:
latest news reports from the girls family suggest they didnt know about it until the news people tracked them down. Meanwhile sje has married a high profile KIWI sportsman
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What a lucky bloke......he's got himself a real top notch woman there!!
 

When I first started this thread I received criticism from various posters on the grounds that...it's only boys having fun...it's a fact of life... I was a wowser...get over it etc.

One thing this episode has done is to provide a wealth of information on the sexual habits of young females in our newspapers. A few articles in the SMH today have completely re-educated me and I can understand why I attracted these criticisms.

I learned today (among other lurid details) that girls as young as year 6 are regularly giving head to boys at parties. Nobody knows why the girls would do this (what satisfaction could they get?) except for booze and sheer bravado. It is hard to believe that their parents do not accept this practice.

You say sluttish girls are in the minority...but for how long?
 
moXJO said:
I know the rumors about Thurston as well gg good player though. At least cowboys can be an exciting team to watch.
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Thurston has a bit of a shady past.
As a teenager he ran foul of the police on a number of occasions due to his involvement in petty crime and violence.
He claims that relatives helped him turn his life around by getting him involved in Rugby League.
Perhaps so, but he's still prone to running off the rails, as shown by his involvement in a couple of off-field incidents in Townsville that caused Cowboys officials to warn him to get his act together.
I have to wonder if he'll return to his old ways when the glory of being a League hero is over for him. I hope not.
At one stage there was talk of the Australian Rugby Union showing some interest in him. Nothing has come of it. I sincerely hope the ARU has abandoned the idea.
 
Calliope said:
You say sluttish girls are in the minority...but for how long?
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How long indeed! They're on the increase as morality continues to decline, but hopefully they'll stay very much in the minority.
It's pretty clear that some of the silly little fools are losing their inhibitions when they're boozed up.
Maybe by next morning some of them have no recollection of their behaviour from the previous night.
 

Its not easy to admit you were wrong, so props to you Calliope. In a way, its a compliment and blessing that you haven't been exposed to the seedier side of life.

I hope you can now see why I have been so outspoken on this matter. Society's values are falling apart, but it's seen as too politically incorrect to criticize women. They are the untouchables, the helpless victims, and men are the easy target, especially among a left-wing, politically correct, feminist media. Until we face the complete truth, as unpalatable as it is, there's no hope of dealing effectively with these issues.

All I wanted was balance in the reporting. For every neanderthal thug out there, there's a loose tramp chasing him.
 
In the whole of this thread I don't recall anyone condoning the behaviour of either the players or the girl. Some of us have simply acknowledged the reality of the fact that it happens. And that young women - and young girls for that matter - are sometimes regularly engaged in very promiscuous behaviour.

And I haven't seen anyone being hypocritical at all. A couple of people have adjusted their view in the wake of evidence that has come to light.

And why do you say "it's quite OK for a group of grown men to gang up on a single woman against her will? It is now clear that it was far from being against her will.

And as far as 'standards of morality' are concerned, if individuals want to engage in group sex in private why is it any of our business, except that in this case the blokes were supposed to be setting some sort of example of appropriate behaviour as, um, ambassadors for football or something.

Earlier in the thread, some poster suggested it would all end in tears. That looks very likely indeed. Matthew Johns has been done over and has lost his job. I expect that satisfied the girl concerned in her determination that he/they 'should pay'. But given the recent public revelations of her own gloating over the incident, and the preceding sex in the toilets, she might just be having second thoughts about the wisdom of her ploy.

Well, Prospector, this is where we differ. If the situation was out of her control, why did she not immediately afterwards go to the police, tell her boss if it happened on her work premises, or right then go to the media?
Why did she instead boast and gloat about it for five or six days afterwards?
Doesn't seem like the behaviour of a victimised or traumatised person to me.

You can't believe that anyone would do this. Such behaviour is clearly unacceptable to you and to me. But that's not to say other strata of our society don't have an entirely contrary view. Promiscuity and exhibitionism are alive and well as far as I can tell.



Calliope, I don't believe this behaviour is the norm amongst young girls.
For several years I've been part of a mentoring programme in the schools here, both high schools and primary, working with children whose behaviour is far from acceptable. Invariably it occurs where parents have set no boundaries for the kids, so the children push and push with ever more outlandish behaviour in the (possibly subconscious) hope that someone will say "Stop".

There are plenty of young people who are receiving good role modelling at home and who will become top citizens as adults.

It's just that the ones we hear about are the ones that are sought out by the media. The good kids are safely within their own families doing normal teenage stuff.
 
My brother is a very senior manager of an AFL club.

His job includes protecting the younger players from the girls and some of the older players. He gets country boys and puts them in stable families of good repuation.

In AFL, due to their behaviour and they are closely watched. There have been quite a few players removed from his team due to bad behaviour. It doesn't take much to ruin a club, look at St Kilda 15 years ago and West Coast more recently.

Rugby League is learning to do the same and all these things happening is not surprising as it is a very male sport with male spectators unlike AFL which has a 50% woman audience.

I don't think there is any excuse for what took place and the accounts say junior management were in the room! Some of the defence in this forum is this is how some girls perform is no excuse. I have no pity for Johns, none at all and I agree with what his wife said and I think he is very lucky to still have her.

I am with Prospector that the situation got out of control. People don't act rationally when they are betrayed by their heros.

Julia, you say why didn't she go to the police straight away? You could ask this of many abused children and adults. I think John's admitted it was out of control by apologising to the girl afterwards. Don't think everyone is as sure of themselves as some of us may be. I was in a sitiation once as an 18 year old and still feel awful thinking about it but as a youngster some of us don't have the social skills to get out of it.

Everyone seems to be basing their defence on the girl who was paid to come forward that Channel 9found to try to defend Johns. She was not a very credible witness. She hardly knew her and she is in a country in which rugby was a religion. The girl might have tried to talk to her about the incident and she laughed it off. I would like 4 corners to interview her.

Johns said he was always scared of someone like 4 corners looking into this and obviously seriously regrets the incident. With all the evidence it is a bit much too say she was a slut and deserved what she got as some insinuate.

People are basically good but can make poor decisions. She was gang banged. She went to the police but the club closed around itself as clubs do so she couldn't get justice. She hid her identity and spoke to 4 corners after they chased her for no personal gain.

I can't believe the attitude of many people here. Those men have a lot to answer for.
 
This article is well written and I agree with it.


Sad, sorry affair opens up some bigger issuesversion
Baum
May 16, 2009

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NO ONE or nothing has emerged with dignity from the Matthew Johns affair.

Not the now infamous former rugby league star, not his cowardly and still anonymous collaborators on that fateful night in Christchurch seven years ago, not "Fatty" ”” henceforth "Fathead" ”” Vautin, not "Clare", not the game, not any game, not commentators who have rushed to shrill and summary judgement ”” some on him, some on her ”” and not much of the media.

As tawdry as any other twist was Tracy Grimshaw's interview with Johns on A Current Affair on the night he was sacked by Channel Nine.

This, typically, was the network having its cake and eating it, too; righteously dispensing with Johns because of his suddenly intolerable poor image, yet exploiting the moment for a ratings bonanza. By writing of it now, I am legitimising it. Sadly, the power of electronic media leaves no choice.

One moment caught my ear. Johns' wife Trish sat with him throughout the tense interview. Asked by Grimshaw what she thought of Clare, she replied, not immediately: "I certainly wouldn't like it to be my daughter."

This was ambiguous. Did she mean: "I wouldn't like it to be my daughter (who behaved like that)?" Or did she mean: "I wouldn't like it to be my daughter (who was caught in such a terrible position)?"

I couldn't tell. To me, this encapsulated the vortex of undercurrents, crossed wires, prejudices, blind spots, misapprehensions and misconstructions that have characterised this case and made it so fraught and so problematic. But that might be a male sensibility; it might be that after all these years, men are still from Mars, women from Venus.

Clearly, it was a night on which no one can reflect proudly. The issue of consent has been well ventilated elsewhere (and its definition sharpened since that night). So has the morality of so-called group sex. So has the certainty that alcohol obviates all considerations except the immediate.

But plainly, something was awry. Whether too drunk, powerless or embarrassed, Clare made no protest on the night.

But she did go to the police five days later; no one goes to the police frivolously.

Johns maintains he was guilty only of infidelity, which he and his wife had thrashed out. The law bears him out. But he also said he had been fearing the Four Corners reporter's phone call for seven years. If innocent, what did he fear? Perhaps, reasonably, the notoriety which now is his. But his tone suggested something more elemental.
 
And from an expert in the area.:

Trying to see beyond murk of sport sex debate
May 16, 2009


SPORTSMEN understand rules. So when sexual assault expert Dr Angela Williams talks to them about sex, she's explicit about what's out of bounds.
It's not just "no" that means no, she tells them. Under Victorian law, not saying "no" does not mean yes. Not resisting does not mean yes. A woman too drunk or too asleep to object to sex is not consenting. Saying yes to one act, or one partner, does not imply consent for more acts, for more partners.

"You must reasonably believe someone is consenting," Dr Williams, a consultant to the Australian Football League and other codes, tells the players. "The best way to do this is to ask. Never, ever assume." Whether you met her five minutes ago, she says, or you are already lovers, sex demands enough respect to pay attention ”” is she/he in a position, and a condition, to consent? "Those people who truly pay attention get it right."

Whatever happened involving Clare, Johns, and his cronies in a Christchurch hotel, it has stirred discussion on the murkiest questions of sex, power and consent. Dr Williams, a forensic physician with the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, finds herself torn between applause for the debate and dismay at some of the assumptions underpinning it. Much of what's wrong she blames on rape mythologies peddled by television crime shows.

The women and girls Dr Williams deals with, brought to her by police investigating whether they are the victims of sex crimes, bear little resemblance to TV victims. Most of the women she examines haven't physically fought back against their attackers. They haven't clawed the skin of their assailant, and they don't have a black eye to support their claims.

It's not what they wore ”” they could be covered top to toe or dressed for a nightclub, the men who target them are looking for vulnerability, not ranking them out of 10, she says.

Many of them have not cried out or screamed, because they were frightened, or embarrassed, or powerless. Fearing resistance is futile, some position themselves so it won't hurt so much. They shut their eyes and wish it to be over, and they berate themselves: Is this my fault?

"People have stereotypes of what a victim should look like, how they should behave." Women who don't fit the picture risk their stories being doubted ”” by their families, by the community, by themselves. Nor do their attackers fit stereotypes. "I've met a lot of offenders, and I couldn't pick them out in a crowd," says Dr Williams.
 
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