Imagine this: You’re just about to finish a tough shift at work when an all-in meeting is called. You file in, exhausted, sit down with your colleagues, then your boss walks in, so furious he is shaking with rage.
As your workmates look on in shock, your boss starts screaming at you, calling you soft, weak and lazy in a verbal barrage that features every swear word under the sun. He even starts throwing office equipment around and finishes by smashing a hole in the boardroom door and storming off.
Just about any employee in Australia would be silly not to take the boss to the Fair Work Commission – but if that employee is an NRL star, it’s often just part of the job.
If you think seeing the coach or CEO of a top footy team get dragged into an employment tribunal is pure fantasy, a stunning development just a few weeks ago proves you’re wrong.
The management team behind Wests Tigers star Lachlan Galvin opened footy up to a new world of hurt when they hit the club with a legal letter alleging the 19-year-old has been bullied.
It was widely viewed by footy experts as a shot across the Tigers’ bow while Galvin tried to secure a release from the final year of his contract. The latest reports indicate he has indeed achieved his goal and will soon be signing with the Bulldogs.
The management team of departing West Tigers star Lachlan Galvin (pictured) sent the club a legal letter that would shock any NRL team that received it
The letter alleges that 19-year-old Galvin (pictured with Tigers coach Benji Marshall) has been bullied at the club – an accusation Wests deny
‘There’s been no sense of bullying at our club, and we don’t stand for bullying,’ said Tigers coach Marshall (pictured with wife Zoe on October 2, 2019)
Regardless of Galvin’s specific circumstances, the fact he made a bullying complaint at all should also be setting off alarm bells at NRL headquarters.
To the average fan, footy seems to operate under a different set of rules to the rest of society.
It’s okay to call players out for being overweight, for example.
It’s fine to tell them to try to hurt people in the course of their work by hitting them with the sort of bone-crunching tackles that would earn a player a trip in a police car if they did it outside a pub at closing time.
And if you go back about 40-odd years, people thought that players could assault rivals on the field and only have to worry about being suspended – not facing a court.
That changed in 1985 when footy legend Steve Rogers launched successful legal action against Mark Bugden for shattering his jaw with a blatantly illegal tackle.
The illusion that what happens on the field, stays on the field was shattered, much like it was in the AFL that year when Leigh Matthews was charged with assault causing grievous bodily harm for breaking a rival’s jaw with a punch during a match.
Which begs the question, does what happens in the locker room or training paddock stay there too?
The answer is a resounding no.
Pictured: The moment current Gold Coast Titans coach Des Hasler ripped a door off its hinges during a post-match outburst, nearly hitting star player Jamie Lyon (centre)
Footy clubs are subject to the 2009 Fair Work Act, just like any other business.
But unlike most other businesses, they have a tradition of treating their employees in ways most Aussies would label appalling.
I used to work covering matches for Rugby League Week magazine, and some of the things I heard from NRL coaches would curl the toes of anyone employed by the Fair Work Commission.
One footy stadium seats journalists in a box right next to the coaches, separated by a wall that’s about as soundproof as a piece of tissue paper.
Despite the fact his team was winning, a coach was screaming blue murder about one of his team’s best players and barking at the team’s runner to deliver his messages word for word.
‘Tell that soft c*** he is f***ing useless! Tell him!’ he yelled.
‘If he doesn’t pull his finger out of his a*** I’ll drop the f***ing p***k like a piece of s**t!
‘F**k me dead, he’s absolutely s***house! Tell him he’s got to lift or he’s f***ing gone!’
The player later confirmed he got the same sort of treatment in front of his teammates at halftime.
His team went on to win and when we asked the coach how he thought the star played, he grinned from ear to ear, knowing we’d heard every word, and said, ‘He was outstanding tonight.’
I overheard another coach hammering into one of his stars in front of the entire team after a loss and it was enough to make your ears bleed.
Current Broncos boss Michael Maguire lost control and kicked a chair (pictured) as he tore strips off the Wests Tigers in 2020
Would you just sit back and take it if your boss called you ‘f***ing s**t’ in front of all your colleagues? NRL players are expected to because of the illusion that clubs operate under a different set of rules to the rest of the business world (stock image)
‘What the f*** was that? You’ve got no heart! You’ve let everyone in this room down!’ he yelled at a player who’d missed a tackle that let in a late try.
‘Seriously, if that’s the s*** you want to trot out here, pack your f***ing bag and get out! You’re a f***ing embarrassment!
‘Go get a job in the f***ing mines!’
You don’t have to have inside access to see just how unhinged some coaches get when they give their staff a ‘performance review’.
In 2010, then-Manly boss Des Hasler smashed a door to smithereens at Parramatta Stadium when he read the riot act after a loss to the Eels.
The door almost hit the team’s biggest star, Jamie Lyon, and Parra sent Manly a bill after discovering Hasler had ripped the hinges out of the frame.
A leaked recording caught another famously fiery NRL coach tearing strips off his troops at halftime in 2023.
‘In this room there’s 22 players and I reckon 10 of youse are the dumbest c***s I’ve ever coached in 16 years,’ he said.
‘I don’t give a f**k if you don’t like me for saying that, but you’re f***ing dumb.
‘You must be s**t! You mustn’t like winning!
‘You c***s don’t get it!
‘Every f***ing week you keep doing what doesn’t work for you! That’s why you’re f***ing dumb! You’re f***ing s**t!’
The coach then singled out one player and screamed, ‘What’s going on, brother? You’re f***ing s**t! Sit on the bench!
‘You’re playing on a f***ing spud [bad player]. He’s under-12 level. Under-12 level! And you’re standing there, in the middle of f***ing nowhere, doing f***-all!
‘You might as well be the under-12s spud!
‘If there’s any more of that s*** … get over the fence, get in your car and go home!’
For the last 20 years it’s been hard to watch a round of footy without seeing footage of Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy losing his mind during a match.
His furious, F-bomb sprays are so infamous he even had to have a special coach’s box added to a grandstand at Coffs Harbour when he coached the NSW Country side in 2007 so the crowd wouldn’t have to listen to him swearing.
Bellamy’s star five-eighth Cameron Munster revealed that he copped it from his coach when he was injured and joined him in the box with the job of counting the tackles in each set.
When he got the count wrong, ‘Bellyache’ yelled, ‘Are you f***ing serious? You f***ing dumb ****!’
Broncos coach Michael Maguire is also renowned for losing it at his players.
In 2020 he was caught on video kicking a chair in the sheds at halftime despite the fact his Tigers team was winning.
More leaked audio captured him blasting his Wests players in the sheds after a loss.
‘The game against St George – they’re f***ing down the bottom of the ladder too!’ he said.
Craig ‘Bellyache’ Bellamy is famous for losing it during matches – so much so that he once had a makeshift coach’s box built especially for him to protect the crowd from his language
‘I’ve got a whole pack of reserve graders tapping on your door.
‘How about you turn up and just do what you f***ing need to?
‘Turn up knowing that they’re going to shift off a f***ing kickoff. Mate, that’s under f***ing sixes!’
However, today’s bosses pale in comparison to how things were as recently as the 1990s.
Late footy legend Tommy Raudonikis was a bottomless pit of HR problems as a coach.
He once got his players to eat an ox’s heart before a match and sent them onto the field with blood running down their jerseys.
‘Tom Terrific’ also ordered his NSW team to punch the nearest Queenslander as soon as they heard the code words ‘cattle dog’ during Origin matches in 1997 and 1998 – which, as any good lawyer will tell you, amounts to him inciting his stars to commit assault.
When that call backfired and footy icon Andrew Johns got knocked out cold and had to be stitched up, he woke up to Tommy telling him, ‘You let me down, you weak ****! Get back out there!’
Today you won’t find any players who will risk breaking ranks and smashing team morale by publicly calling their coach out for outbursts like the above.
But today is the operative word there. A few decades ago, nobody thought a player could be taken to court for smashing a rival’s face in. Who knows where the game will be a few decades from now?
