Footy Gods

Yet another NRL scandal has broken out in the last few days with the Melbourne Storm found to be breaching salary caps. Recently also, Matthew Johns, the central figure of last year’s group sex scandal, has made a television comeback with his new show The Matty Johns Show. The culture of Australian football seems to eternally consist of foul play, alcohol abuse, violent behaviour and sexual indiscretions. Still, they are the gods of the football fields; tall, athletic and strong, they are the objects of desire for women and the icons of rugged, Australian heroism for men. With this, there is no doubt that they are also the beacon of masculinity at its worst, and it appears that even the darkest qualities of the Australian rugby player are celebrated as something brutally glorious. Gang rapes and group sex is allegedly “ingrained” in rugby league culture, and rather than acknowledging the unhealthy, homoerotic relationship between team-mates, many men salute the practice as a macho “joke” shared between close friends. An amusing bid to the golden Aussie virtue of “mateship,” perhaps?