Loss of innocence
Loss of innocenceMelbourne Herald Sun, AustraliaThe National
Rugby League will no doubt ensure the club sees the season out. But the fan base in the vast
Cronulla Shire should be on notice to start looking for a new club to follow. Sarah is in for more disappointment. Not only will she find out soon
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Source: http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/sport/nrl/story/0,26799,25523151-5016307,00.html
Loss of innocence
By Rebecca Wilson
May 23, 2009 12:00am
SARAH is 10 years old. She was given a Cronulla Sharks jersey as a newborn.
The moment she could talk, she wanted to play for the Sharks. Her parents told her gently that the chances of that happening were remote. Cheerleading could be a possibility, they said.
Bugger that was her answer.
The Sharks could do with a Sarah this week. Cronulla has always been great at including women and girls. They have a stand at their home ground dedicated to families, where no alcohol can be consumed and parents are encouraged to bring their kids to the footy.
The Sharks junior competition is the envy of Sydney - people actually move to the Shire to put their kids into the local league.
Although, the rot has set in. Reni Maitua's downfall this week follows a dismal period for the Sharks, during which major sponsors and fans have run like the devil from the badness enveloping the club.
Sarah will be shattered at the end of this season when she is told her team is pretty much dead in the water. She and thousands of others who love their footy club are in for a rude awakening when they realise this crisis won't just be a passing thing.
The Sharks have made sure their state of affairs is defining. On current predictions, it will also be brutally final.
The Cronulla Sharks were a fairytale waiting to happen. They entered the competition in 1967 but their potential never equalled achievement and they are yet to win their first Grand Final 42 years later.
They have had great players and coaches, but the Sharks have never cut the mustard when it mattered. Their old coach, Jack Gibson, said that waiting for the Sharks to win a Grand Final was like leaving the porch light on for Harold Holt. Sharks fans are resilient, though, and have always put up with a raft of excuses, bad management, ordinary players, indiscretions and appalling decision-making.
This week, however, the whole lot has fallen in a screaming heap and there is very little hope left for a club that should really encapsulate all that is good about rugby league.
The Matthew Johns saga did not help. We are still waiting for his old Sharks buddies to come forward to wear some of the badness that befell him last week.
The list goes on - Greg Bird glassing his girlfriend, former Bulldog Reni Maitua (who they should never have signed in the first place) and the cloud hanging over a chief executive who can inflict a black eye on a female employee. It reads like a cheap Sicilian crime story.
Sharks chairman Barry Pierce has issued a statement through his lawyers that he won't make a comment. Even though he is mostly to blame for the mess, he won't speak now the going is tough. Pierce is seen as an endearing grandfather, a bloke who is as honest as the day is long who would never do wrong. How, then, did he read those police reports from the Matthew Johns incident and not feel moved to act?
How could he have overseen the hiring of league bad boy Reni Maitua? Why did he stand by while his beloved club went belly up? His lack of accountability has been shameful.
Reni Maitua is obviously a bad egg. He was one of those kids from school who was always the naughty one. Embattled Sharks coach Ricky Stuart signed him as a star player upon whom he would rely to build a club.
It is apparent from that decision, and the one to release Brett Kimmorley to the Bulldogs, that the Sharks have lost the plot. Stuart has made some unusually rash judgments that have cost the Sharks more than just a couple of games of football. Anyone who can read a newspaper knows Maitua was no team builder.
The amateurs among us knew the Sharks' season would end in tears even before we were halfway to September.
The National Rugby League will no doubt ensure the club sees the season out. But the fan base in the vast Cronulla Shire should be on notice to start looking for a new club to follow.
Sarah is in for more disappointment. Not only will she find out soon that women don't play first-grade rugby league. Her father will have to tell her why Maitua is out of the team for good.
She will grow up knowing that the blue, black and whites of her short childhood disappeared too early. She and her dad won't have a date every second week at Shark Park and their lives will be all the poorer for the loss of something that is really, really important to the fabric of her world and other innocents like her.
http://rwilson@dmgradio.com.au
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