Comments on: Carey and Cousins may be buffoons but don’t be too quick to judge

By: meski

meski — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:56:49 +0000

@Wild, tend to agree, and the converse, lots of people had perfect childhoods, yet are bast*rds. Get over blaming your parents for your life.

By: wildbandicoote

wildbandicoote — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:07:33 +0000

Carey has no excuse. Lots of people have worst childhoods and are still nice people. I think he idolizes and approves of the ways his dad taught him.

By: meski

meski — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:23:21 +0000

The trainers and psychologists aren’t there for that sort of thin - they are focussed on getting the players to win games.

By: Mark Presland

Mark Presland — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 02:33:17 +0000

They are both just footballers, rich footballers

By: jossy

jossy — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:19:35 +0000

Meski, I don’t think statistics are the issue. Sure you’re always going to get these types of morons in society but the difference is that these guys are professional footballers surrounded and coddled by an entire organisation of trainers and medical staff (including psychologists) whose sole employment purpose is to protect and treat these players.
You can’t compare them and their behaviour to other people in the community who don’t have the same support structures or financial incentive to behave.

The problem lies not so much in the individual as in the sports organisations. They allow talented, high profile players to get away with bad behaviour again and again all so that they can win.
If the clubs and the AFL had a zero tolerance, no strikes policy you’d be amazed how few of their players would be getting drunk, getting into fights and taking drugs. And the ones that did would no longer be in a position to be considered role models because they’d no longer be associated with the sport.

By: Neil Walker

Neil Walker — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:06:26 +0000

I have sympathy for Carey the boy but none for Carey the man. Rather than make the effort to not turn out like his abusive, alcoholic father, he followed that same path. Having said that, hopefully Carey has finally turned his life around and he’s not just talking more self serving bullshit.

I felt sorry for Carey when the Herald Sun disgracefully gave his dropkick father a front page forum to have another dig at his son….until Carey decided to sell extracts from his book ‘exclusively’ to the Herald Sun.

By: Heathdon McGregor

Heathdon McGregor — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 06:22:31 +0000

These men are also victims of their own choices first and foremost although I didn’t see that bit in the article. Ben Cousins didn’t just fall onto a bong at age 15 nor Carey into a pile of cocaine at 35.

They also share a manager with Gary Ablett who was not mentioned in this article for some reason. Mr Happel apparently couldn’t think up an excuse for him.

If anybody has any doubts about football culture ask this question. Is there any behaviour that these men take part in that they wouldn’t be if they were not involved in footy at any level?(club players can make league players look like angels.)

While we may all have occassion to get silly and do dumb things in our youth we may not do them in public places. If footballers kept their bad behaviour private then not as many would care. Unfortunately it is the public arena that they perform their bad acts in.

By: rmacfarl

rmacfarl — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:17:00 +0000

“The increasingly bad behaviour of sportsmen over the past few years”? I’d say it’s the increasingly reported bad behaviour - surely this kind of behaviour always went on; at least the drinking and domestic violence. And I agree with Meski - there’s nothing unusual or abnormal about this, sadly. I suggest it’s much the same kinds of bad behaviour at the same relative frequencies as go on in all walks of life in all socio-economic groups and in all parts of the world.

As to a rotten AFL culture, no, I disagree. While far from faultless the AFL has been at pains in the past 20+ years to stamp out gratuitous violence on the field, promote the status of women and especially (and very successfully) indigenous footballers, with their stance on racism. It also has an active drug-testing outside of the sport as well as in - criticised by some because of the 3-strikes policy, but something no other sport has.

NRL I suspect is not as bad as it is portrayed in the media any more than the AFL is as good, but it could sure learn a lot from the AFL’s efforts to improve its profile and standing with women.

By: Greg Hill

Greg Hill — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:58:00 +0000

Charles rights …

“As though there’s one reason why they have turned out the way they have, and one simple remedy to get them to change their ways.”

Well, yeah: they were both professional AFL footballers. That’s the one thing that links them.

Surely the fact that these two had very different backgrounds but shared a common destiny points to the perverse and rotten AFL culture as the cause?

By: meski

meski — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:53:40 +0000

Statistically, is there a higher percentage of d*ckheads like Carey / Cousins than you’d find in the general population? I think not, and yet we fixate on the ones that are considered to be ‘celebrities’

By: Nadia David

Nadia David — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:19:00 +0000

Who cares what the reasons for their bad behaviour are? “Not making excuses”? Sure sounds like it. Not every guy who has a terrible childhood or is a spoilt brat grows up to beat his girlfriend or snort a tonne of coke, so, while I’m sure it allows people to understand why these two are such wankers, it’s not really relevant to their behaviour. Just sounds like another “don’t pick on these guys, you don’t know what they’ve been through” line. And a handy plug for your book Mr Happell.

By: Fowls

Fowls — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 03:47:14 +0000

Carey and Cousins don’t have “a special talent for kicking a pigskin around.” Australian rules footballs are made from leather (from cattle), it’s American footballs that are made of pigskin.