The rumours being made up in Rugby League at the moment are beyond ridiculous.
Being on Twitter, you see them every day. You have to wonder where they come from becomes 95% of them make no sense at all to anyone involved in the rumour!
One of my personal favorites was that Darren Lockyer was going to head over to England play play for the Widnes Vikings in their first season back in Super League.
Why would Darren Lockyer go through what is turning into a brilliant season to retire on, leave Brisbane and leave the Australian lifestyle to take less money to play in a terrible team and live in Widnes. Can anyone tell me why Darren Lockyer would even contemplate that?
When Penrith finally brought the axe down on the disastrous Matthew Elliott era, they were basically the only job going in the NRL for anyone to be looking to coach the team.
The Panthers were linked to Brad Fittler, Tim Sheens, Ricky Stuart, Brian Noble, Justin Morgan, Jason Taylor, Tony Rea, Mal Meninga…and funnily enough, they were never linked to Ivan Cleary until about two weeks before they signed him!
Another funny one was talk over in England that NRL clubs were chasing Hull FC hooker Danny Houghton. To Danny’s credit, he had a bit of a laugh about it when asked, but who came up with this rubbish! There are so many “NRL clubs are chasing…” rumours in England right now about players who aren’t even that good in Super League!
So, who do you blame for all of this stupidity?
Well, fans have to take some of the blame. Let me make it clear people, there is a big difference between saying “I wonder is Brian Noble would be interested in the Castleford job” than saying “Noble to Castleford….thats what I’ve heard”.
There are some Rugby League web sites out there who also make a rotten job of rumours. They’ll have who sections dedicated to them, which is bloody stupid. I know what its like to establish a web site and ALWAYS will go out of my way to help a site get people heading they way. However, making up rumours is not the way to go.
Last but not least, we have the biggest culprits, the professional journalists and newspapers. Some of them just toss up shit and hope when it all falls back to earth they nail something.
The funniest part is when one of the thousand things they have tossed up actually happens, they will boast “You heard it here first!”. Its bloody hilarious!
So listen, if you are reading this, do everyone a favour. If you hear a rumour, don’t pass it on. You’ll get to a point where you realize, rumours are worth nothing anyway, and its not until something actually happens that a player move or a coaching move has any value anyway!
