sidelined

If you live in Sydney and follow league, you wouldn’t have been able to escape the story of Parramatta star Jarryd Hayne having a shot fired at him in the wee hours of Monday.

And if you read the Daily Telecrap you be forgiven for thinking Hayne was doing all the fighting and the shooting himself. Especially the awful piece by Michelle Cazzulino which ignores the fact that Hayne wasn’t the instigator of any violence and implies ‘ugly behaviour’ on his behalf. Yes there have been way too many NRL bad boys over the years but the media have really done a great job of crucifying the victim in this instance.

If Hayne is guilty of anything it is poor judgment being out so late in the Cross. The incident that lead up to the attempted shooting was simply to intervene on Mark Gasnier’s behalf (though Gasnier apparently wasn’t there and subsequently was fined by the Dragons for being where he wasn’t) when he was hassled by some passerbys.

There are good questions to be raised about the nocturnal habits of sports stars. And some sort of curfew may be required. But as sports stars, the unfortunate trend is to attract trouble even without going looking for it. A curfew won’t stop the insecure, pathetic, drunk punter who feels if he takes down an NRL star then he is da man.