Bah bah sacked and De Belin charged

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OK. If this is the bar set by the NRL then there are going to be a lot of suspended players.
Or is this punishment just for cases involving women?
What about drink-drive, fraud, stealing, assault against men etc?
I fear that this punishment is due to media pressure and such future punishments won't be sustained.
Of course, it means that Walker will be suspended regardless of the court findings.
It's opened a real can of worms.

Yep .... the one law that GreenTurd should really be studying is the " Law of unintended Consequences " ...... that is the one that comes back and bites you on the arsse .....
 
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The next nonsense I am waiting for is the NRL being called racist because of the unusually high % of indiginous players banned ....
 
I completely agree with you there on De Belin not voluntarily stepping down. He would have been so stupid to. But the NRL standing someone down, do you think this will impact people’s genuinely held opinions any more than having his face being splashed across the front and back page following him being charged? I don’t know the answer to this question - as a former court reporter and media man you would have more insight than me.
I think the damage to de Belin has already been done. That's the price of 'celebrity'. But I don't think the NRL should interfere, yet.
Does anyone remember the name of the co-accused? I'd wager most people don't. Will he also be stood down from playing rugby league? Does the NRL actually care about bringing the sport into disrepute, or just bringing the NRL into disrepute?
For de Belin this court case can't come soon enough. Imagine the mindset of any accused person who has received such negative publicity and could now possibly be forced to lose the one thing that could keep him relatively sane? Of course, if he is found guilty there should be no sympathy for him and he must be severely punished.
I feel sorry for the female accuser but at least she hasn't been identified publicly. Her life is on hold also, and the trial will be harrowing for her and her friends and family.
 
These debate is happening because the NRL has failed miserably in its governance of our once great game. An absence of transparent rules, an absence of consistency and allowing players who have been released from prison after serving a goal sentences back to the game are stupid decisions that the NRL own. I still can't believe that they allowed the Broncos to play Lodge. The message the NRL have sent out to players in the past is that its going to take a **** load of offences and misbehavior to see you out of the game. The NRL are now only being reactive in response to public outrage and sponsors jumping ship. This off season is just the straw that is breaking the camel's back. Our game has lost credibility on a number of fronts over the years. Poor match officiating, Greenberg giving referees an edict to impose more penalties slowing the game to a grinding halt, inconsistent treatment of clubs subject of salary cap breaches, inconsistent and difficult to understand decisions by the judiciary and the bunker debacle. How difficult is it to watch a replay from numerous angles and get the decision right? Why on earth isn't the bunker permitted to rule on forward passes and so it goes on. Poor poor decision making by a mob at the mercy of the broadcasters and the financial power brokers of the game. Having former players on the judiciary isn't very smart either. We need a swift change of leadership and a clean out of the NRL because in my view they have dropped the ball. The NRL can't fix this retrospectively in view of the way they have handed other similar problems previously. I doubt they could withstand legal challenge if they did. Barba is different because he was not charged but was caught out on CCTV so after the NRL viewed the CCTV he was fair game. But if he had of been charged by the Police he would have been entitled to the presumption of innocence. The only fix is to have a clause incorporated in the player contracts that if charged with a serious offence (with a clear and transparent definition of what types of criminal offences) the player cant play but remains on the salary cap and on full pay until the court case has been completed. It might drive down the price of signing bad boys because of the risk of paying someone who is suspended.
 
I think the damage to de Belin has already been done. That's the price of 'celebrity'. But I don't think the NRL should interfere, yet.
Does anyone remember the name of the co-accused? I'd wager most people don't. Will he also be stood down from playing rugby league? Does the NRL actually care about bringing the sport into disrepute, or just bringing the NRL into disrepute?
For de Belin this court case can't come soon enough. Imagine the mindset of any accused person who has received such negative publicity and could now possibly be forced to lose the one thing that could keep him relatively sane? Of course, if he is found guilty there should be no sympathy for him and he must be severely punished.
I feel sorry for the female accuser but at least she hasn't been identified publicly. Her life is on hold also, and the trial will be harrowing for her and her friends and family.

Callum Sinclair. Funny you should mention, he was in the (local) news a few days ago, back in court requesting to vary his bail conditions, so he didn’t have to report to police as often (which they already approved for JDB a few weeks ago), and also asking for permission to travel overseas to play for Norway in a World Cup qualifier. He was approved on varying the reporting conditions (his lawyer basically pointed out that it wasn’t fair he had more stringent bail conditions than his co-accused), but knocked back for overseas travel.

I don’t know if he’s been approved to play for Shellharbour, but I’ll keep an eye on it - it may depend on what happens with de Belin, TBH. Plus you’d reckon for his own safety...it’s a bit harder to protect players from say, beer cans being chucked at them, at small country grounds.
 
The NRL need to pull their head in a bit here.

If a player is found guilty by a court then judge them as guilty at such point.

Until then, Todd and Peter need to step back in their lane and run a game that's falling apart everywhere else.
 
Wow. I'll be interested in the response from JDB's legal team on this.

Also I don't understand how they intend on applying this criteria "Under the new policy, any player who is charged with an offence that carries a prison term of 11 years or more will be automatically stood down." - we don't have mandatory sentencing in NSW do we ?? I'm no expert but don't judges rule on the sentence once the guilty verdict is made ? @SeaEagleRock8 can you clarify ?
 
Under the new policy, any player who is charged with an offence that carries a maximum prison term of 11 years or more will be automatically stood down.
11 years? How did the NRL come to this figure?
The NRL are just making up stupid rules on the run.
So when a player accused of, say, a white collar crime that could impact thousands of people, he'll still be allowed to play because the maximum jail term is 10 years?
 
Confirms what I thought.

If the Brett Stewart 'incident' happened now, the NRL would have stood him down for 2 years, only for him to be found NOT GUILTY.

Did they not learn anything?
You are assuming the NRL are run by competent people. Don't think they have learnt from the Snake incident.
 
No decision has been formally made on walker - to be determined in the coming days. Doesn’t look like he will be allowed to play though from the high level comments by Greenberg and Beattie.

Decisions on salary cap matters to be given tomorrow.

FWIW I loved it when one of the journo’s accused Beattie of throwing the CEO under the bus with this new policy!
 
Wow. I'll be interested in the response from JDB's legal team on this.

Also I don't understand how they intend on applying this criteria "Under the new policy, any player who is charged with an offence that carries a prison term of 11 years or more will be automatically stood down." - we don't have mandatory sentencing in NSW do we ?? I'm no expert but don't judges rule on the sentence once the guilty verdict is made ? @SeaEagleRock8 can you clarify ?
Good question Also why 11 years ?why not 10 or 5 yrs ,am I missing something ?
 
Confirms what I thought.

If the Brett Stewart 'incident' happened now, the NRL would have stood him down for 2 years, only for him to be found NOT GUILTY.

Did they not learn anything?
I am concerned by a lot of the noise coming from the NRL right now. They have created yet another grey area in which to operate. But I really don't have a problem with the Barba and De Belin bans and I wouldn't have a problem with Walker also receiving some form of sanctions.

What's more, I'm so sick of these cases being compared to the Stewart case - which we all no was a complete joke:
"Mr Bellanto said Stewart did not commit the offences he is accused of.
He said Stewart came home to be with his girlfriend who was expecting him back to share a takeaway meal.
The barrister said Stewart talked to the complainant before the alleged assault.
He said the complainant's psychiatric condition will be questioned because she was once diagnosed with a thought disorder with symptoms of hearing voices and hallucinations.
Mr Bellanto told the jury that police who tested Stewart on the night of the alleged attack found no DNA evidence."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-09-15/stewart-deserves-fair-trial-jury-told/2261778
In contrast: De Belin's accuser went to hospital where she underwent a rape test and her injuries were noted. Walker's partner somehow ended up falling to the ground and then called triple 0. This doesn't mean they are guilty of the charges before them and the NRL should not penalise them in line with these charges. BUT, in both cases, it is pretty clear that some poor actions were made and I don't have a problem with the NRL acting on the UNDISPUTED facts that surround these cases.
Like it or not, in the modern game, players are now media ambassadors and if you don't know how to keep your nose clean in that job then perhaps it's best you found another one.
 
You use the word UNDISPUTED. It is far to early to know this. de Belin hasn't given his side of the story and no evidence has been given. All we have is a Police prosecutor claiming this in a bail hearing. de Belin's defence team have not been able to put any of the statements to the test in court.
Be careful. Just keep an open mind and not be convinced by speculation.
When the court case begins everything will be challenged.
 
The NRL need to pull their head in a bit here.

If a player is found guilty by a court then judge them as guilty at such point.

Until then, Todd and Peter need to step back in their lane and run a game that's falling apart everywhere else.

There's another scenario in all of this, what if this is DeBellin's final year, should the NRL have allowed DeBellin to keep on playing until his case was heard, and what if he was found to be guilty?.
There's no perfect solution to this, the thing is, if you want the BIG money that sponsorship brings into this game, you must think that any action you take could have a reaction, and if players think this is unfair, then perhaps they should go back to park football.
 
You use the word UNDISPUTED. It is far to early to know this. de Belin hasn't given his side of the story and no evidence has been given. All we have is a Police prosecutor claiming this in a bail hearing. de Belin's defence team have not been able to put any of the statements to the test in court.
Be careful. Just keep an open mind and not be convinced by speculation.
When the court case begins everything will be challenged.
Fair point on De Belin - nothing has stated that DNA evidence implicates him and he hasn'[t confirmed or denied any involvement with the woman (that we are aware of) yet. I am probably more fixated on Walker's case and am frustrated by the constant mentions of Stewart's case.
 

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