This might be better off merged with the Cronulla / ASADA thread.
Anyway, I don't necessarily like Paul Kent but here he asks the questions that all fans
should be asking, and why people like myself simply can't let it go and consider the matter over.
Paul Kent: Shane Flanagan must address the elephant in the room before media can move on
SHANE Flanagan turns up the first day the Cronulla players are allowed back and seems surprised he gets asked questions about the supplements scandal.
Who ever saw that coming?
Clearly not Flanagan. He was either unprepared or ill-equipped to answer the questions which, in the fair dinkum stakes, were hardly the Nuremberg trials.
In fact, in the scheme of things, it was fairly gentle questioning.
The question that tipped Flanagan over the edge?
“Are you sorry for allowing your players to be injected with illegal substances?”
That’s it.
Flanagan turned and walked, but not before turning to give the reporter the hairy eyeball and causing him to shiver, you assume, in his shoes.
Flanagan’s justification is a claim he has answered these questions before and that now is all about moving on.
Well, he has and he hasn’t.
He has certainly answered some questions, and to some people. Not one quote he has given, though, has been open to cross examination.
I have some questions I’d like answered, which so far he has not gone near:
Why was Stephen Dank allowed in the dressing room, as captured by Fox Sports cameras, for seven weeks after Dr David Givney sent out an email on April 6, 2011 to say Dank’s involvement at the club must stop?
Why were the players told by the club the performance enhancing program was “top secret” and “not to tell anyone else”?
How was a contract extension negotiated at Cronulla during the time the NRL banned him from having “direct or indirect contact” with the club?
How was Steve Price appointed assistant coach when, again, the head coach was not allowed any direct or indirect contact in the interview process?
Did he see any tablets and creams being handed out in the dressing room before games after the injection program was stopped?
Why is Isaac Gordon suing the club over peptides when he was not one of the 17 players issued with an ASADA infraction? Or was the ASADA investigation incomplete or, dare we ask, the most likely scenario, incompetent?
What does he say to Stewart Mills’ mum, who said Flanagan should be banned for life?
These are not agendas.
These are legitimate questions. Why isn’t every fair minded NRL fan asking them?
Given the NRL’s investigation, its findings and its punishment had zero transparency, they are questions that remain.
Would you feel comfortable letting your son play at Cronulla?
Flanagan had to be interviewed three times by the NRL executive before Dave Smith, Todd Greenberg, Jim Doyle and Nick Weekes believed he was ready to come back. Just a few weeks into it, he has shown signs it might have been premature.
Before Christmas has even arrived he is carrying on like a sour tart, telling the media last week there was a ditch next to the ground he would like to put “some of my favourite journos” and, the next, storming off when he is asked if he is going to say ... sorry?
Cronulla’s credibility is in tatters. It seems they are not interested in fixing it.
And unfortunately the NRL is simply not travelling well enough at the moment to make us trust they have got it right in regard to the Sharks without credible, transparent evidence supporting them.
If Monday truly was about a fresh start for the club the smart move would have been to turn up, turn on the cameras, and let everybody ask whatever question they wanted. Put the clock on, you’ve got an hour and then after today it ends.
The questions could have been answered openly, respectfully, and if the media then did not let it go Flanagan could rightfully say sorry, you had your chance and I’m not going to keep rehashing it.
But he can’t while ever he refuses to answer them in an open forum.
The misguided notion that there is no obligation to answer any questions like the above, because the matter has been dealt with, or because it's a private matter, or it’s nobody else’s business, or however you want to justify it, is not true.
Why?
The Sharks and the NRL own the TV rights, they own the sponsorships, the memberships, the crowd receipts, all of it.
But what they do not own is the public trust.
That is loaned to them by the public and it underpins all of the above.
Without trust, the rest of it goes away.
And while ever Cronulla continues to hide behind refusals to be transparent and aggressive media conferences, how can we ever give them the benefit of the doubt and learn to trust them again?
