IF the Roosters genuinely care about Mitchell Pearce’s long-term welfare they should tear up his current contract.
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His family should stick by him, his friends should stick by him, his actions should be kept in perspective when judging Mitchell Pearce the person, but it has to be the end of the line for him at Bondi.
It was not hard to believe in the sincerity of Pearce’s public apology on Friday or to be moved by it.
It was certainly a more genuine showing of remorse than we’ve seen from other players in the past but the game can’t afford to let yet another player avoid real consequences of their actions because of a tearful apology.
He’s bravely admitted he has a problem with alcohol and, if the Roosters and the NRL are serious about Pearce’s welfare, the worst thing either can do is remove the real consequences of of that problem.
Losing his NSW Origin jumper and being fined for the infamous ‘girl in he yellow dress’ incident was clearly not a hard enough lesson, particularly as re-gained the blue jersey and was named Roosters captain a year later. Should this incident be handled the same, history says more will follow.
It wouldn’t, and shouldn’t, amount to a life-sentence. Rugby league very rarely hands them down.
Our’s is a game not averse to second, third or sometimes fourth chances. So many great league yarns are written that way but, in the truly redemptive cases, only after players have been made to stare life without rugby league square in the face.
Parramatta forward Danny Wicks spent 18 months in prison, Russell Packer also ended up behind bars while Pearce’s Roosters teammates’ Blake Ferguson and Jake Friend also had to serve their time in rugby league purgatory.
It’s true to say that players have got away with worse but it’s also true to say players have been sacked for less.
Josh Dugan had not one but two contracts pulled off the table for social media missteps not in the same ball park as Pearce’s stuff-up before becoming another one of those great redemption stories.
Pearce’s story could be another but only if he’s faced with real consequences.
What Pearce certainly does deserve credit for is not taking the predictable path of shooting the messenger as plenty of others have done in his defence.
The sly opportunist who filmed the incident in question - which included repeated inducements for Pearce to state his name - is a grub.
The fact the person made more money than a lot of us make in a year - reportedly $60,000 - purely for being on hand with a camera phone as an NRL star made a dick of himself hardly seems right or fair but it doesn’t excuse the behaviour.
Is it an indictment of Gen Y society’s voyeuristic tendencies? Perhaps, but camera phones aren’t new and for Pearce and all other NRL players it’s the state of play.
Pearce is a 200-game NRL veteran, captain of one the NRL’s highest profile clubs and he simply shouldn’t have put himself in that position.
Sure the rest of us regular 20-something men can simulate sex acts with dogs to our hearts’ content - after all that’s living - but most would forgo that freedom to hold onto a lucrative NRL career.
It’s a larrikin’s game and no one wants to live in a world where footballers can’t enjoy a beer. But it’s a world players seem intent on creating for themselves.