Thread: 'Australian athletes are not good blokes'. Discuss.

I read this article from last week on the Friday Experts site and thought it fitting for such a forum.

Flame away...all opinions welcome.

"“Australian athletes are not good blokes.”

Discuss.

Right then.

Australian opening batsman David Warner belted English cricketer Joe Root at the Walkabout Hotel in Birmingham this week. Belted him with his fist in anger that is, not with his bat for runs. Warner doesn’t make many runs these days.

And why did Warner belt him?

Well apparently Root was wearing a black wig as a beard and impersonating South African batsman Hashim Amla.

Yes, David Warner was so incensed by the sight of an English batsman mimicking a South African batsman's beard that he had no choice but to defend the South African's honour.

Either we're missing something, or David Warner is pulling furiously on our legs.

Warner's got plenty of form when it comes to anti-social behaviour, which is ironic since he hasn't got much form in his chosen place of employment, the cricket pitch.

But this latest indiscretion is symptomatic of a broader malaise in Australian sport.

Simply put, Aussie athletes are knobs.

Consider the Australian cricket team. Fifteen years ago, the occasional angry ant called MacGill was balanced out by a Taylor, Waugh, Gilchrist or Langer. None were perfect, but you'd shout the first ten rounds for the chance to have a beer with them.

Who among the lambs headed for an Ashes slaughter next month would you even enjoy sitting down for a beer with, let alone consider paying for the privilege? Warner might belt you or abuse you. Pattinson might sing love songs to you. Clarkey will be on Twitter all night. Cowan will take three hours to finish his pint. Haddin or Watson? Not even if they were buying.

And the cricketers are just the tip of the iceberg.

Swimmer Nick D'arcy broke a teammate's jaw in a pub and posted a photo of himself posing like a Tarantino gangster in a gun shop beside shotgun-wielding teammate Kenrick Monk. Monk then invented a story about being the victim of a hit and run after falling off his skateboard. Recently-omitted Wallabies Fly Half Quade Cooper was charged with robbing a house in 2010; Wallabies Fullback Kurtley Beale punched his Melbourne Rebels captain in the face on the team bus. Bernard Tomic Bernard Tomic Bernard Tomic Bernard Tomic.

And that’s before we start on the statesmen who play Rugby League and Aussie Rules.

How did this happen? Five minutes ago we had Rafter, Larkham, Klim, Tomkins and Waugh. Which vindictive Greek gods did we offend so grievously that we deserved to be punished with James Magnussen, James O’Connor, Shane Watson and Bernard freaking Tomic?

The bad apples are no longer the exception. They are too numerous, too noticeable. Adam Scott is now in the minority. Social media can take some of the blame, having given these characters a voice without throwing in a free copy of “Human Interaction for Dummies.”

But, more damningly, these misanthropes are receiving cheques their skills can’t cash. As Richard Hinds noted this week, David Warner is one example of a player who owes his salary to the successes of his predecessors. He has done nothing to deserve his six-figure contract. The same goes for the rest of them. It’s bad enough that they’re failing as human beings. But they’re even failing at the one thing they’re paid astronomical sums to succeed at.

You can be forgiven for being a second-rate person and a first-rate athlete. You can be forgiven for being a second-rate athlete and a first-rate person. But you can’t be crap at both and still get paid.
Incidentally, the guilty parties above all share one characteristic to which we alluded back at the beginning.

They’re blokes.

Ever since Jana Pittman fled the jurisdiction, Aussie girls have generally let their skills do the talking.

Sam Stosur won a US Open. Yet you won't see her belting Laura Robson for impersonating Amanda Coetzer. And if she did, you can bet she'd at least make the punch count, unlike Warner's 'glancing blow'.
Nor do you see Elyse Perry strutting around like she owns the joint even though she plays both soccer and cricket for Australia.

Two sports.

Warner, Watson and their overpaid, underachieving mates barely play one.

Next round is on us, Elyse.

And so to another week of sport...

hmmm , the only reason these "nobs" are being payed these spectacular wages is because YOU want to watch them on tv and sponsors want their name out in front of everything you see. Every time a sporting programme doesn't meet the scheduled broadcast times the tv stations are swamped with complaints and the sponsors are hard on the tv broadcasters too. The sporting clubs eek out disgusting sums of money to have corporate branding on their players, the players know this and want their share and get it, because without them out there theres no party. If 1% of all sporting sponsorship was given to the poor, there would no poverty in the world. The amount of money given to golf, tennis and soccer players is beyond comprehension....because YOU want to see the spectacle. Its simple if you want to rectify it.