Editorial: Big stars have to get smart

OPINION: Kiwi rugby league star Benji Marshall at the weekend gave an interesting insight to sports super stardom in a new weekly column he is writing for a Waikato Times sister paper, Sunday News.

Marshall spoke of how difficult life was when you were famous.

"I can't pick my nose in public without someone telling me I'm not allowed to," Marshall wrote. "I've had blokes come up to me wanting to fight me for no reason, girls throwing themselves at me and even girls throwing their drinks at me."

Marshall, however, was not asking for sympathy. Rather, he was trying to explain how his club side, the Tigers, were trying to avoid the bad publicity that dogged so many clubs and players in the National Rugby League last season. The Tigers have adopted the slogan: fulltime to professional. "We can transplant that to what we do off the field as well. We are all fulltime footballers but if we want to be professional we have to take it one step further.

"We can all learn a lesson. I still try to live a normal life. I still go out with my mates at the weekend. I also try to be smarter about it. We all need to be."

It was sage advice that the local Super 14 rugby franchise, the Chiefs, should be taking particular interest in right now.

Not for the first time in his career, star Chief Sione Lauaki is in trouble with the law after a late-night confrontation in a city nightspot. He has not been charged and reports at the weekend had the owner of the venue, Coyote bar, saying his security staff were sure Lauaki had not been involved in a major confrontation. But it was the night before a big game and despite being suspended from playing, Lauaki should have been thinking of his team-mates. Instead, he was in a bar at 2.30 in the morning. It is the type of joint, particularly at that time in the morning, where trouble can find you easily. Lauaki had put himself in a risky situation.

The incident proves the folly of Chiefs coach Ian Foster appointing Lauaki as interim captain in Mils Muliaina's absence at the start of the season. It was a car crash waiting to happen. Unfortunately it, and a disappointing loss to the Reds, have taken the gloss off a best-ever season start.

By all accounts, Lauaki has grown substantially as a person in the last few years. This paper's deputy sports editor, Ian Anderson, found him refreshingly relaxed and personable when doing an in-depth interview recently.

But it is consistency of action that counts, and on that front Lauaki is a serial offender. In Australia, the NRL clamps down very publicly on poor behaviour. It contrasts with the situation here where disciplinary matters are generally kept secret because of strict protocols driven by the players' union. It is doing the poorly behaved no favours. Benji Marshall gets the last word: "I don't think it's that hard to get away from drugs or say no to a fight. Our reputation needs to be turned around."

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