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The rugby league disgrace
PAPUA New Guineans have achieved
much. In our short history as an independent nation, we have seen
our people excel in an almost limitless range of professions.
PNG doctors and medical specialists can be found throughout the
world. Our engineers, surveyors, architects and designers are
second to none.
We have men and women aircraft pilots and ship’s captains.
We number agronomists and agricultural specialists among our
ranks.
And our artists, musicians, writers, performers and craftspeople
have contributed significantly to our international
image and reputation.
As for our sports fraternity, we have been blessed with individual
sports achievers of international standard. Not only have they
reached the top of their chosen sporting discipline; they have
done so with grace, a commendable modesty and a will to win in the
name of our country and our people.
What then turns our team sports into a minefield of bloody and
potentially deadly confrontations?
These sports have been peppered with on and off the field battles
that can only bring disgrace to both the participants and the
nation as a whole.
As a result, many major enterprises in this country are unwilling
to sponsor teams within these codes.
Why should they pay to have their good names associated with a
bunch of uncontrollable players and sports that are regularly
transformed into bloody clashes?
We’ve frequently deplored this violence in these columns.
We’ve done so for a number of reasons.
Prime among these is the effect these brawls have had upon
supporters who turn up with their families expecting to see a
quality game on a Saturday afternoon.
How many family groups attend league, soccer and union games
today?
What responsible parent wishes to have his kids exposed to the
prostrate body of a referee bashed into insensibility on the field
by angry “fans?”
The fracas in Port Moresby last weekend, mirrored by events at
Kagamuga, has further diminished the PNG Rugby Football League’s
attempts to clean up the sport throughout the nation.
Nor does the supreme league body do itself any service by
“expressing disapproval” of an incident that saw Port Moresby
referee Richard Matthews hammered senseless into the turf in a
round of what purports to be the nation’s premier league
competition.
We’ve heard it all before.
The excuses never change – “the people involved in the incident
were spectators not associated with our club”, and the assurances
of “very harsh penalties under the PNGRFL constitution.”
And we imagine that neither the badly injured Mr Matthews nor
objective members of the public were much re-assured by the
comment from the PNG Rugby League president, who said: “I feel
sorry for him; no one has the right to attack anyone.”
The security guard allegedly involved in the brutal bashing of Mr
Matthews is to be pursued and once identified, a criminal assault
charge is to be laid against him.
That is right and proper, but what of the others who joined in the
display of blood sport at the nation’s premier league oval?
If television footage and witness evidence can pinpoint some of
those attackers as
players or members of clubs, will criminal charges also be laid
against them?
We wonder if the PNG Rugby Football League supports the statement
from the Pagini Warriors management disassociating their players
and supporters from any involvement in the invasion of the ground
or the assault on the referee.
It is stretching credibility to accept that those who took part in
this barbaric attack were in no way supporters of the aggrieved
team on the ground.
We accept that in terms of this incident, there is a long way to
travel.
But overall, the PNG RFL has to act immediately to put a stop to
this kind of blood soaked confrontation.
If we are serious about participating in international league
competitions and improving the level of our performance, these
mindless on and off field battles have to stop.
One can imagine what a player of the calibre of Marcus Bai must
think when made aware of such incidents.
He must wonder if all the blood, sweat and tears he invested in
the game in the name of PNG were worth the effort.
 
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