Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Original poster

Rugby player who beat partner, a ‘great human’

64 replies

JessicaWakefieldSVH · 07/03/2019 09:29

This case has enraged me from the beginning. There are other articles I can link to, but the comments today as he is selected to start for the best club in the world, by the head coach Scott ‘Razor’ Robertson ( likely next All Black coach ) have shocked me. Note, he did NOT have this contract or any other in NZ before he beat his partner. He had an Irish club contract, dropped when this came to light. He was rewarded with a better contract. He is also not a New Zealander, he’s Fijian and only there 4 years.

Scott Robertson refers to a man who beat his gf in the street, as ‘a great human’.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/rugby/news/article.cfm?c_id=80&objectid=12210571

OP posts:
powershowerforanhour · 08/03/2019 23:06

the man here says that if they took a zero tolerance approach, it wouldn’t be possible given the amount of men ( and women he claims ) who offend in this manner.

And there, in a nutshell, is the most telling and most fucking depressing comment on the attitide of the whole sport.
(As for the "women do it too" bit...just fuck off. What a mealy mouthed load of utter crapulence).

powershowerforanhour · 08/03/2019 23:00

Ah New Zealand. It's my favourite country in the world. Rugby is very important there. So much so that this prince among men
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Veitch
got a job as a radio sports presenter after beating his partner to the ground and repeatedly kicking her so hard that he broke her back in four places, putting her in a wheelchair. Should've been given a job scrubbing prison toilets IMO.

I can't feel too smug about my own country- lovely wee Norn Iron where posh-for-here schoolboys who can kick and carry an odd shaped ball better than the other boys get so indulged that they turn into fucking gang rapists.

I used to love rugby - I played for a few years as well and watched all the big Ulster and Ireland internationals- but I haven't even bothered to watch the Six Nations this year. It leaves me cold, wondering which of the pampered little gods are half decent people and which are rapists and wife beaters.

Original poster
JessicaWakefieldSVH · 08/03/2019 16:29

Well, my home country is pretty unbelievably sexist. The police came to our house when I called them about my Dad being violent and threatening to kill my brother- I was 12. They could see he’d hit and threatened us. They told us to ‘try and make it work because it’s Christmas Day’. I’m not kidding.

If you add in ‘ he’s a rugby player’, then you get a case like Sevu Reeve, where even actual witnesses won’t result in a conviction at the very least.

OP posts:
MoltenLasagne · 08/03/2019 16:00

She went to hospital and doctors recognised signs of assault. Why the fuck that isn’t enough to convict, is beyond me. Bastards.

God only knows - it would be the logical thing to do. By the sounds of that article the players were allowed to refuse to talk to police and even supported to do so. How is that possible?

Original poster
JessicaWakefieldSVH · 08/03/2019 15:50

She went to hospital and doctors recognised signs of assault. Why the fuck that isn’t enough to convict, is beyond me. Bastards.

OP posts:
Original poster
JessicaWakefieldSVH · 08/03/2019 15:50

Don't they have teammates with morals who say "I don't want to play with these scumbags"?

I’ve actually asked a super rugby player this directly, and he got defensive and aggressive. I just don’t understand why they want to include men like this, there are other more worthy boys and men who don’t behave this way. It’s a very good example of how men enable other men to harm women. By dismissing, downplaying or outright enabling.

I mean, did Joe Schmidt not feel fucking disgusted when Rory Best turned up at court to intimidate the victim in the Belfast trial? He still defends it as ‘believing his friend’. Your ‘friend’ laughed at her leaving crying, bleeding and ‘hysterical’ and left her with a 1cm laceration in her vagina. Who in their right mind would even think of giving a character reference to someone like that, let alone turning up to court to make that girl feel afraid? Someone who knew, someone who thinks it’s ok.

They’re gross. The lot of them. Speaking out for weeks about how unfair the new league is and yet you play week after week with violent men and rapists? Yuck.

OP posts:
MoltenLasagne · 08/03/2019 15:43

How can the men who've enabled this live with themselves?

I mean the domestic abusers and the rapists, I'm pretty sure have no sense of morality or shame, but you'd hope that the surrounding men would be embarrassed to defend such behaviour. Don't they have teammates with morals who say "I don't want to play with these scumbags"?

MoltenLasagne · 08/03/2019 15:40

Later the same day the teenager went to a hospital in Auckland where doctors treating her injuries referred her to the police.

Fucking hell. That poor girl choosing not to proceed with the case because of knowing the hell she'd be put through.

And look at this for the so-called punishment they received:

"Mike Brown was fined £1,000 and reprimanded for being late for a physiotherapy appointment after his all-night drinking session, and Mr Blackett said: "I warn him to be careful in future not to put himself in any compromising situations which may lead to him bringing the game into disrepute."

Ojo was reprimanded and fined £500 for staying out all night.

Mr Blackett said the RFU needed to keep a "tighter rein" on players and prohibit them from bringing women back to their hotel rooms, but added that the players should not be dropped from future England squads as a result of their "errors of judgement"."

Original poster
JessicaWakefieldSVH · 08/03/2019 15:33

Yeah, the comments, ‘ he’s taken ownership’. Wtf? Um it was IN PUBLIC, a bouncer had to save her. Imagine what he could do behind closed doors. Normally he would get deported, if convicted, so he was protected so much over this. Above and beyond. No conviction, no deportation, no loss of earnings- in fact he got a better contract with a better club! What’s the message then? Come to New Zealand, beat women & we’ll take even better care of you. Ffs. How do they sleep at night.

OP posts:
Original poster
JessicaWakefieldSVH · 08/03/2019 15:31

Yes, here is an article about it... didn’t surprise me about Mike Brown tbh

www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/international/england/2305266/England-rugby-players-named-in-New-Zealand-sex-scandal-report.html

OP posts:
MoltenLasagne · 08/03/2019 15:28

The English team toured NZ in 2008 and had a similar incident to the Belfast rape trial- except it never went to trial as they all denied it and back then it was way harder to take something like that to trial.

Seriously?! Are there any reports on this? It's appalling how time and again things get hushed up for the sake of "the boys".

And here we have a case of not even caring about criminal behaviour and people talking as though it was something that happened to him, not something he did, "He's gone through that process with the incident ... and he's come down here."

Original poster
JessicaWakefieldSVH · 08/03/2019 13:12

Thank you!

OP posts:
littlbrowndog · 08/03/2019 13:09

I just spoke to a guy on me gaming chat from nz

He asked me what I was doing for IWD.

I told him about the chief scientific advisers tweets.
Going to tell him in morning about the rugby violent abuser

Original poster
JessicaWakefieldSVH · 08/03/2019 12:57

Bumping

OP posts:
Original poster
JessicaWakefieldSVH · 07/03/2019 18:32

Some good news is that the comments underneath that article with the players association rep, are predominantly against him playing.

OP posts:
Original poster
JessicaWakefieldSVH · 07/03/2019 17:54

Yup, consequences! We teach our kids there are consequences to bad behaviour, yet when they grow up, we send a very different message.

OP posts:
Original poster
JessicaWakefieldSVH · 07/03/2019 17:53

Yes, it’s a problem everywhere. The English team toured NZ in 2008 and had a similar incident to the Belfast rape trial- except it never went to trial as they all denied it and back then it was way harder to take something like that to trial.

NZR are already losing fans, hardly anyone attends super rugby anymore. Boys registrations are in the decline too, whereas more girls are playing than ever before. I think they’re so desperate as so many guys are going overseas, over here, that actually they’re scratching around for players a lot of the time. I used to love this game. I grew up in a tiny tiny place with nothing more than a little school and a rugby club. It’s sad for me I can’t watch it anymore, but I find it a form of self abuse to keep supporting and watching knowing so many beat women. I know what that feels like so I can’t support it at all.

I wish, at the very least, if they must give second chances, that they would speak about it differently. Here’s what Scott Robertson could have said:

‘ yes we have selected Sevu and we know that he raises a concern for our community and we acknowledge that. We are also disappointed at his behaviour and are frustrated that despite our programmes and support, players still behave in this totally unacceptable way. But we have signed him and have put faith in his assurances and ability to overcome this terrible problem he has had. We will always speak out against violence, while trying to do our best to help someone in our rugby community to overcome this by focusing on something positive in his life’

It’s their stupid attitude that bothers me.

OP posts:
ILoveMaxiBondi · 07/03/2019 17:47

so when they still end up violent, you need to get rid of them.

Yes, all the education in the world is worth fuck all if there are no consequences for those who break the law. It has to come from the top down and hit them financially. Sponsors withdrawing sponsorship and head honchos having the balls to drop offending players.

FermatsTheorem · 07/03/2019 17:43

It is definitely a problem in the NH too - for instance the Ulster rugby trial. Currently the problem is that rugby is big business, the teams want the most talented player they can afford in each position on the field (which means they're not that easy to replace) so if the player is talented enough they could probably literally get away with murder (American football and OJ Simpson, for instance... he wasn't a current player at the time, but his playing history was a large part of why the jury acquitted him in the criminal trial.)

I suspect that the only thing the rugby authorities would really listen to would be being hit in the pocket. But how you'd organise this when most of the fans don't care either. Possibly a campaign to prevent anyone with a conviction for a violent offence being legally barred from representing their country might have legs. Cut off the route to the very highest levels and hope for a trickle-down effect.

Or maybe a campaign aimed at the parents of rugby playing kids? Aimed at the firms providing the sponsorship. "Sponsor a player with a conviction, and we won't buy your products?" for instance.

Original poster
JessicaWakefieldSVH · 07/03/2019 17:42

ILoveMaxiBondi

They have actually got programmes around behaviour, they even send groups over to the orher islands as they know some of them will relocate to NZ and play, like this guy did. They’re actually doing all that kind of stuff and have for a while. So that’s why I think they should have zero tolerance. These players have been given so much support, education and advice, so when they still end up violent, you need to get rid of them. They are actually pretty pampered, even at lower levels.

OP posts:
Original poster
JessicaWakefieldSVH · 07/03/2019 17:40

Would they be the same if he had beaten the coach up or a team mate? Do they just not get what they don't see?

Just to highlight the hypocrisy. When ex welsh player Gareth Thomas was the victim of a homophobic attack last year, they all wore rainbow laces- on white ribbon day. When Israel Folau said that stupid thing about gays going to the imaginary place called hell, two kiwi players spoke out and said they ‘ couldn’t believe they had to play against him’. I contacted one of them for support over this and he was super defensive and really rude, tried to excuse it and say Israel was worse! Than hitting someone?! Then deleted his messages to me?! My point is not that they should not support the gay community, but that they so readily would, the All Blacks wearing rainbow laces is a big deal, yet they’ve never done anything remotely like it for women and DV.

OP posts:
Original poster
JessicaWakefieldSVH · 07/03/2019 17:35

They’re a global brand and rely heavily on fans in the north, so anyone in my view, has a right to complain about public statements made by professional sports organisations or their representatives.

The guys attitude regarding how many do it, is piss poor indeed. They’ve excused it for decades so of course loads are doing it, there’s no blimin deterrent! Legally or professionally. I was told by the woman I spoke to that these attitudes are rife right through the organisation and they have no idea how to fix it. She actually said that. No idea.

Another thing I got a hint of, the way he was talking about the kinds of people they have playing and their environments and backgrounds etc I know what he’s doing. He didn’t say the word ‘culture’ or pasifika specifically, but that’s what he means. I’m Māori, I know we have a problem with DV ( and child abuse ), but so do white people. It’s just rugby happens to involve a high percentage of Māori and other pacific people’s, as players. The guys at the top who set the tone, are all white and always have been. I absolutely know what he’s alluding to and it really pisses me off.

OP posts:
ILoveMaxiBondi · 07/03/2019 17:33

And the coach: "there's nothing we can do because half the squad are probably at it."

Of course there is something you can do. You end the contracts of anyone involved in violence of any kind. Whether it be drunken pub brawls or assaulting a partner. End their contracts. Have a zero tolerance policy. There are enough talented young players out there who haven’t assaulted anyone. Invest in them, invest in programmes that go into schools and youth teams to teach them what real men and real rugby players think and behave like. Show them that any violence results in them never playing pro rugby. That they would be the shame of their nation to engage in violence of any kind.

SpeakUpXXWomen · 07/03/2019 17:30

It's a bizarre situation isn't it? Would they be the same if he had beaten the coach up or a team mate? Do they just not get what they don't see?

FermatsTheorem · 07/03/2019 17:24

Horrifying. And the coach: "there's nothing we can do because half the squad are probably at it."

Bumping this for you to see if we can get you more interest. What can we this side of the world do? (Not sure, for instance, NZ rugby would put much weight on an email from a middle aged mum in England, but I can give it a go if you think it would help.)