Being from a non rugby state I'd love to be able to smugly say it's the lowbrow's that play the game. However the reality is the NRL blokes are mirrors of us all. Whenever males get together with mind altering drugs (yes alcohol is a drug) then this is how many of us behave. If you want to solve the problem look at society as a whole not just rugby.

I think Kenny's right. Boys, together, away from home and drunk is usually a recipe for very bad behaviour, whether a rugby league club, a group of friends or whatever. Maybe some intensive education in relation to alcohol and self respect would help.

You could say a lot - education, sensitivity training ..... but lets start with the basics. Going out and getting pissed doesnt exactly fit the mould of young men trying out for a place in an elite football squadron. Imposing a three am curfew on a bunch of 20 something year olds also seems to lack a bit of common sense.
Why didnt the team managers, leaders, mentors, advisors, spin doctors simply tell their little bundles of muscle and testosterone -- No grog and Home by ten.
What did they expect? that the little charmers would stay out until three and then shuffle back in an orderly fashion? The libraries arent open until three am - so one would have assumed they would drink.
It is not rocket science.

It's unfair to single out sportsmen because they have the highest profile and seem to be the right target for tackling at this time.
Before them,we had stories from the armed services reporting deplorable behaviour by men towards women. Not long before that, universities.
It's not sport. or men. it's Australian culture, and this binge drinking has a lot to do with it, of course. But what it does do most effectively, it unmasks deep-held beliefs and attitudes towards women.
I disagree with the statement that these men need to feel better about themselves. I think it's clear they think rather too much of themselves and their right to do what they want, to whomever they want.

I can understand the decision by the young woman to withdraw her allegation. It stands testamount to our failing as a society that someone who is so obviously 'innocent' of encouraging such behavior (she was in her room, right, and they all entered the dorms?) would not wish to sit in court and be victim to a barrage of indecent questioning on the part of these men's defence counsel.

What amazes me most about the latest episode of tawdry behaviour by "thugby" players is that anybody's particularly surprised by it. In my youth I always found rugby league, its players and supporters at best boring and uncultured, at worst boorish and downright ugly. This has only been exacerbated by the professionalisation of the game.

Very little about the game, from its ingrained glorification of violence to its inherent boofheaded misogyny, has any positive or desirable function to speak of. Of course, it's not just thugby league - it seems to me that thugby is the ridiculous extreme of a spectrum of 'games' played largely by groups of men, which would include football (soccer) at one end and the other codes in between.

Yes, thugby's ugliness is in part because it encapsulates many of the negatives of Australian male culture, but that doesn't explain their expression through such practices as 'gang bangs' that have until recent exposure been regarded as integral to team 'bonding'. I mean, neither I nor any other bloke of my acquaintance has ever found it necessary to engage in such practices.

But then again, I've always been quite comfortable in my heterosexuality :)

Morgan

morganzola are you suggesting that pommyball has not got similar problems?