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David Codey (61)
There were 15 of them!
2 or 3 staying out late might be a case of bad attitude.
When there are 15 of them come home after "curfew",it strongly suggests there was no curfew.
Ben Mowen survives alleged mutiny plot.........
- Thread starter Slim 293
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2 or 3 staying out late might be a case of bad attitude.
When there are 15 of them come home after "curfew",it strongly suggests there was no curfew.
Scoey
Tony Shaw (54)
Yep in the context of the argument, yes they are the equivalent. I was trying to establish whether you thought that a 'day off' was a free for all, or whether you felt that some standards of behaviour still applied. I can see from your response that you agree with the latter, as you should.
Which leads to my next point, that they didn't need someone to sit them down and tell them that they weren't allowed to go out and start trouble, they knew that this was a standard of behaviour that was expected of them, so clearly, the suggestion that they weren't told that they shouldn't be out past midnight is not approval to be out past midnight. They should have held their position in the team in a higher regard and been focussed on the job that they were there to do - and that is to win Rugby Tests.
And what I would choose to do on my day off if I were a Wallaby is completely relevant to the argument because we are talking about whether a group of players should or should not have been expected to know whether it was acceptable behaviour to be out drinking past midnight in the week before a Test. How is it that I know what is expected behaviour, without ever having had any exposure to the organisation and yet these guys need to be told what time they should be in bed?
As Slim said, it's not that they didn't know, it's that they didn't care. And that is precisely why they should have been dropped.
Some of the points Georgina Robinson raised on Rugby HQ last night regarding the punishment were pretty important in regards to the whole situation in my opinion.
The fact that the ARU decided that none of the punishments could ever be used against those players in the future and the fact that they gave one of the players stood down a top up contract even though he was then one game short of the requirement says a lot.
The fact that the ARU decided that none of the punishments could ever be used against those players in the future and the fact that they gave one of the players stood down a top up contract even though he was then one game short of the requirement says a lot.
Scoey
Tony Shaw (54)
It says to me that they weren't 'punishments'. They weren't upholding the level of commitment that they were expected to and were dropped.
T
Tip
Guest
From all the bits and pieces conveyed through the media, here is a timeline of events.
Tuesday Night: Players go out and have a good time. A very good time.
Wednesday: Mowen Tattles - Sits on his cloud of judgement passing down life lessons to all who can listen. "I'm married with a kid and am 28 and haven't had a drink in a year. Ya'll get on my wagon already."yadeyadeyada
Thursday: Team meeting held. McKenzie asks the team to decide on what an appropriate time to be back in the hotel would be. The players agree that Midnight would be an appropriate time to be back in the hotel by.
McKenzie asks the players to raise their hands if they weren't back in the hotel by midnight on Tuesday. 15 players raised their hands. That's half the fucking squad.
Tuesday week: Shit hits the fan.
Punishments are dealt with despite there being no curfew in place.
6 Players are hung out to dry, their reputations severely damaged. A further 9 are shamed, however less so. (they didn't have their pictures plastered on every newspaper and website being branded as Alcoholics)
Of course RUPA has a problem with this. As @fatprop alluded to earlier, these guys aren't Jedi knights. If McKenzie was so keen about changing the culture of the team, surely he should have outlined these changes, protocols, expectations and rules to the players.
My biggest problem is that players were punished for breaking a rule that was made after the incident in question.
Tuesday Night: Players go out and have a good time. A very good time.
Wednesday: Mowen Tattles - Sits on his cloud of judgement passing down life lessons to all who can listen. "I'm married with a kid and am 28 and haven't had a drink in a year. Ya'll get on my wagon already."yadeyadeyada
Thursday: Team meeting held. McKenzie asks the team to decide on what an appropriate time to be back in the hotel would be. The players agree that Midnight would be an appropriate time to be back in the hotel by.
McKenzie asks the players to raise their hands if they weren't back in the hotel by midnight on Tuesday. 15 players raised their hands. That's half the fucking squad.
Tuesday week: Shit hits the fan.
Punishments are dealt with despite there being no curfew in place.
6 Players are hung out to dry, their reputations severely damaged. A further 9 are shamed, however less so. (they didn't have their pictures plastered on every newspaper and website being branded as Alcoholics)
Of course RUPA has a problem with this. As @fatprop alluded to earlier, these guys aren't Jedi knights. If McKenzie was so keen about changing the culture of the team, surely he should have outlined these changes, protocols, expectations and rules to the players.
My biggest problem is that players were punished for breaking a rule that was made after the incident in question.
They didn't go out and cause any trouble.
There was no incident or anything that caused this to become public. 15 players, nigh on half the squad, admitted they had been out past midnight at a team meeting a couple of days later.
These players were largely seasoned veterans who know what is expected of them and consistently perform well for the Wallabies. There is absolutely no indication that these players weren't ready to come to training after their day off and perform at their best and then follow that up with a strong performance on the weekend in the test match.
I think people also forget that if you're playing professional sport in the evening, you do try and change your body clock a little bit. You don't really want to be waking up at 7am each day if you're not playing until 12 hours after that or close to.
Scoey
Tony Shaw (54)
I didn't suggest that they had caused any trouble. (EDIT: I just re-read my post that you were replying to and it does read a bit like I was saying they caused trouble. To clarify, I wasn't suggesting that at all, just using that as a hypothetical scenario to demonstrate my point). There are things that players do that speak volumes about where there heart is at. Where was their focus? Is it on the job at hand? They themselves admitted that they probably shouldn't have done what they did. They shouldn't need these expectations communicated explicitly to them and the fact that they admitted that they shouldn't have been out as late, means that they didn't. They knew what was appropriate and did otherwise.
If I had to choose between players that were doing everything they could to be ready for the Test on the weekend or the ones who go our mid week for a bit of fun then the choice is a no brainer.
This quote I have to pick out specifically though. They know what is expected of them but make choices to the contrary and what have we got to show for these consistently good performances? Not a hell of a lot.
Both of these statements are incorrect.
T
Train Without a Station
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Tip,
So you see no issue with players already themselves considering midnight a reasonable time. Yet 2 days earlier, they decided they would stay past a reasonable time?
Link asked the squad what they considered reasonable. A baseline was set. When it was found out those same players decided to stay out past midnight, even though they considered that reasonable, they were dropped for a game.
This appears to be due to the fact that they've gone out, midnight has hit, they would have thought, this is a reasonable time to be home, fuck it, I'm gonna stay on the turps.
I don't give a fuck if it's only 1% difference (as a guy who trains, drinks and plays rugby, even at my level, I'd argue mid week drinking makes more of a difference), is anybody in this team in any position to say they don't need to be searching for every single fucking improvement in athletic performance that they can?
The fucking hide of Link to expect the team to meet high standards in professionalism, which includes maximising recovery and performance. What a fucking prude.
So you see no issue with players already themselves considering midnight a reasonable time. Yet 2 days earlier, they decided they would stay past a reasonable time?
Link asked the squad what they considered reasonable. A baseline was set. When it was found out those same players decided to stay out past midnight, even though they considered that reasonable, they were dropped for a game.
This appears to be due to the fact that they've gone out, midnight has hit, they would have thought, this is a reasonable time to be home, fuck it, I'm gonna stay on the turps.
I don't give a fuck if it's only 1% difference (as a guy who trains, drinks and plays rugby, even at my level, I'd argue mid week drinking makes more of a difference), is anybody in this team in any position to say they don't need to be searching for every single fucking improvement in athletic performance that they can?
The fucking hide of Link to expect the team to meet high standards in professionalism, which includes maximising recovery and performance. What a fucking prude.
The discussion about the appropriate curfew happened a couple of days after they'd stayed out late.
The player who became the centre of the whole situation, Adam Ashley-Cooper is also the equal most capped current Wallaby and is surely one of the Wallabies most consistently good players. I'd struggle to pick out another player who consistently performs so close to his best.
Now he's being called unprofessional and not giving his best for the team. I think his consistency over almost a decade is testament to the fact that he knows what he needs to do to perform on the field.
terry j
Ron Walden (29)
can you not see the contradiction?
In other words, if that was the order of events, half the squad fessed to doing something all the squad agrees was not appropriate. (and at least SOME of those would have to agreed midnight was appropriate, else it would not have been 'the players' agreeing, ie a majority at least)
And nothing should occur? 'Yep, I admit I did something inappropriate, but the mere fact I confessed means I should get away with it'.
This might be where the point is being missed. It became a rule when it was clear that 'half the squad' were not able to stay in line with what turned out to be 'the expected norm'. They were asked 'what is appropriate?', they answered what the expected behaviour would be, then admitted that they knowingly did NOT maintain those standards??
Well, if you act like children (doing something you know is not acceptable) don't squeal if you get treated like children.
And only children would need to have a known standard formalised into a rule.
T
Train Without a Station
Guest
BH,
It's irrelevant when it was discussed. The group was allegedly asked point blank when they considered appropriate and amongst themselves the answer was midnight.
That just means that the Tuesday prior, those players, who between themselves came to the conclusion that midnight was reasonable, thought it's probably a bit late here, bit fuck it, I haven't been given an exact night so I'm going to head it like I'm some fucking apprentice chippy on a Saturday night, not an elite athlete.
It's irrelevant when it was discussed. The group was allegedly asked point blank when they considered appropriate and amongst themselves the answer was midnight.
That just means that the Tuesday prior, those players, who between themselves came to the conclusion that midnight was reasonable, thought it's probably a bit late here, bit fuck it, I haven't been given an exact night so I'm going to head it like I'm some fucking apprentice chippy on a Saturday night, not an elite athlete.
So if at that team meeting, the first person to pipe up when they were asked what time would be an appropriate curfew said 2am and the rest of the team agreed then maybe that would have become the curfew time going forward.
Of course the timing mattered.
Scoey
Tony Shaw (54)
Yeah you're right. Adam has been around for ages and is a damn good player so we should probably let him get away with a bit more than some of the other players.
The group knew what was appropriate and went and did something else. The previous approach of letting things slide, turning a blind eye had bred disunity within the group and the results on the field over the recent years are plain to see. So while Adam's consistency over almost a decade is probably a testament to the fact that he knows what he needs to do to perform on the field, Rugby is not an individual sport; performing as part of a team is what is important. The team does not think that was appropriate behaviour, so they he and the others were dropped.
T
Tip
Guest
I'm a cynic by nature. Word is that they are shielding the current wallaby captain from the reputation of a dog&tattletale.
Then it's a mere coincidence that McKenzie banned contact at training for the rest of the tour, isn't it?
I'm siding with Adam Ashley-Cooper on this one. He says there was no curfew, and it turns out there was no curfew. It's pretty clear-cut, none of this would hold up in court and the ARU has had to backtrack and state that this incident will not be kept on any of the Players records.... which is them acknowledging that they have no leg to stand on.
I should state: yes they were out too late. But the punishment does NOT suit the crime (because there was NO rules broken, and no crime even taking place).
THAT is the problem. You don't go public with these misdemeanours, you go public when players have done something wrong (i.e. break team rules), which in this case - they didn't.
T
Train Without a Station
Guest
The thing is, technically the team wasn't "punished" anyway. Link just chose to select players who upheld the professionalism he wanted.
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David Codey (61)
Except,he called a press conference to announce the penalties.
The fact that his employer is not endorsing his actions,by not noting these events on players files,and granting top ups to a player suspended from the Test match,indicate they believe Link did not act correctly.
BPC
Phil Hardcastle (33)
I think it's either Radio or the Wizard.
Slim 293
Stirling Mortlock (74)
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