News location:

Canberra Today 15°/16° | Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Sporting Confidential: Young buck at authority

IS it just me, or do some of the emerging generation of professional sportsmen have an issue with authority?

Josh Dugan’s problems at the Canberra Raiders have been well documented. It had become obvious that he had an issue with the discipline required at the Raiders. Then there was the Collingwood player fined for parking in the chief executive’s car space, some of the Australian cricket team having trouble conforming with coach Micky Arthur, Quade Cooper’s public falling out with coach Robbie Deans… the list of examples goes on.

Situations as we saw at the Raiders appear to be more prevalent with athletes needing constant attention to remain focused. There are so many distractions, so much money at that age, so much spare time and so many people offering advice.

Player managers have become baby-sitters for professional sportspeople and, if something goes wrong, they have to sort it out. If the player gets dropped, the manager is on the phone to the coach and the chief executive. It has become ludicrous and it is breeding a generation of sportspeople unwilling to take responsibility for their actions.

If something goes wrong, it’s not their fault; if the player manager can’t resolve it, the club has to step in. What other form of employment has these safety nets?

By building them up as super humans, we in the media need also to take some responsibility for the current breed of sports behaviour. But what sort of person are we moulding? Is it one who believes he doesn’t have to adhere to authority? Let the manager deal with issues that people in everyday life have to deal with; leak a story to the media to gain public support.

I think the Raiders’ board had no option but to sack Dugan. Hopefully, he will go on to become a great player at another club; I don’t begrudge him that. Like Todd Carney, I hate seeing talent go to waste.

Fraught tale of two tracks

The ACT Government made an election promise of $4.5 million to build a new synthetic running track and facility on the southside for use by Little Athletics and other athletes. Clubs on the northside are able to use the AIS, but it’s grass on the southside.

Little Athletics identified Stromlo Forest Park as the preferred location, given the space and the cross-country circuit nearby.

However, the Government preferred Woden, on the site of the existing track-and-field facility.

Little Athletics has pointed out that there is no room to build a decent facility for championship competition use on the Woden site and there is a major problem with parking, but has been told that to build a new synthetic track and facility for field events at Stromlo would cost more than $20 million, well outside the budget.

Something needs to be resolved here. The last thing we need is a facility that can’t be used for competition because it is too small.

We have only to look at what has happened to swimming in the ACT to understand why we should avoid building a facility that isn’t capable of staging competition events.

Extend the course

JUST on facilities, watching the Independent Schools’ Rowing Regatta and the ACT Championships over the past month, it is obvious that we need to look at extending the rowing course on Yarramundi Reach.

The course is 1800 metres, 200 metres shorter than the Olympic distance of 2000 metres. The sight of crews having trouble stopping before hitting the (physical) wall after races is evidence enough that it needs to be looked at.

Who can be trusted?

In a world of spin and confusion, there’s never been a more important time to support independent journalism in Canberra.

If you trust our work online and want to enforce the power of independent voices, I invite you to make a small contribution.

Every dollar of support is invested back into our journalism to help keep citynews.com.au strong and free.

Become a supporter

Thank you,

Ian Meikle, editor

Tim Gavel

Tim Gavel

Share this

Leave a Reply

Related Posts

Follow us on Instagram @canberracitynews