Sharks deny Bird is flying back to Shire

[Super Freak]

Sharks deny Bird is flying back to Shire

June 15, 2018

CRONULLA coach Shane Flanagan has shot down speculation Jack Bird could return to the Sharks, imploring the fallen NSW Origin star to focus on succeeding at his new club the Broncos.

The gravity of Bird’s career freefall will be rammed home on Saturday night when the Broncos travel to Sydney to face the Sharks in a vital Round 15 clash at Southern Cross Group Stadium.

By rights, Bird should be Brisbane’s $800,000 attacking dynamo attempting to engineer the demise of a Cronulla club with whom he won a maiden premiership ring just two years ago.

Instead, Bird will be a shattered spectactor, left to digest a nightmare maiden season at Red Hill as Brisbane’s big-money import prepares to undergo a second, potentially season-ending operation on Monday.

The season of discontent has fuelled speculation Bird wants out of the Broncos, with the NSW south-coast product said to have been challenged by his move to Queensland.

But Flanagan says the Sharks are looking ahead and the Cronulla coach hopes Bird can eventually recapture his fitness and match-winning mojo at the Broncos.

“The bottom line is Jack has a contract with the Broncos and that’s pretty much it for me. I don’t see how anything else can unfold,” Flanagan said ahead of tonight’s showdown.

“Jack still has a lot of mates here at the Sharks and they do talk from time to time.

“I actually speak with Jack by text message now and then, just to make sure he’s OK more than anything else.

“I haven’t sensed that Jack is depressed or anything like that. In his chats with the boys, he sounds quite jovial.

“Jack is on good money at the Broncos and we couldn’t afford him anyway.

“He is struggling because he is injured and not playing. It’s not a problem with the Broncos as a club.

“When players aren’t playing and they are injured and living away from home, it does make it hard. But I wish Jack the best at the Broncos.”

Broncos coach Wayne Bennett confirmed Bird requires sternum surgery and admits there are no guarantees he will return this season.

“It has been a poor year by his standards,” he said. “None of it in his control.

“We probably won’t see much of Jack now, we’re talking six weeks (in recovery), but we’re not going to rush it ... we just have to get by without him.”

Flanagan is wary of an eighth-placed Broncos side desperate to bounce back from last week’s 32-16 loss to the Storm.

“We have to be very careful. (Anthony) Milford and (Kodi) Nikorima (Broncos halves) can score points,” he said.

“The Broncos are a bit like us, they have put some good wins together but then by their standards haven’t put big blocks of wins together.

“They have some quality players across the park. James Roberts and Corey Oates are dangerous so we have to be on our game.”

Source: Courier Mail

 

[Sproj]

League journalism is an absolute disgrace.

Journalist: 'So any truth to the rumours (I made up) that Jack wants back at your club?'

Flanagan: 'No, none at all, I wish him all the best.'

Journalist: 'Thanks for giving me my headline.'

 

[tommy]

What a nothing article.

 

[Super Freak]

League journalism is an absolute disgrace.

Journalist: 'So any truth to the rumours (I made up) that Jack wants back at your club?'

Flanagan: 'No, none at all, I wish him all the best.'

Journalist: 'Thanks for giving me my headline.'

It's great.

The more articles, the more clicks for the site.

 

[jarro65]

League journalism is an absolute disgrace.

Journalist: 'So any truth to the rumours (I made up) that Jack wants back at your club?'

Flanagan: 'No, none at all, I wish him all the best.'

Journalist: 'Thanks for giving me my headline.'

Agreed..

.. and that shitstain Paul Kent has the nerve to say that Rugby League needs these grubby bottomfeeding parasites to help promote the game

 

[Sproj]

Agreed..

.. and that shitstain Paul Kent has the nerve to say that Rugby League needs these grubby bottomfeeding parasites to help promote the game

It makes me so annoyed because it is almost impossible to get actual articles about league these days anywhere that aren't in actual fact gossip columns, rumours, innuendos or ideas put forward on club forums that are then recycled into rubbish journalism.

As an overseas league fan, if not for this forum, I would have no idea about what is actually happening in league circles amongst all the lies and filth produced. As a person who lived in Melbourne for a number of years as well and seeing how different the AFL is in its approach, it makes me so mad at anything outside the game itself.

On that point, recently a reporter said that Dayne Beams, one of the Brisbane Lions best players wants to leave and go to Melbourne. Long story short, all clubs implicated, the coach, player manager and player all denied it straight away and everyone was appalled this guy made this story up. Meanwhile, in league, countless 'reporters' again and again are getting called out for making up stuff and lying but just continue to have people pick up the rubbish and run with it to highlight the constant lack of professionalism that surrounds this fantastic game.

 

[animal eater]

Article should of been....

Hey Shane "How do you feel about offloading an unbelievably unhealthy athlete from your books to the Broncos books?

Flanagan " I know wasn't that a hell of a move! I can't believe a side like Brisbane didn't do their due diligence. What suckers they are.

 

[I bleed Maroon]

I came into this thread ready to post "Bye, bitch" then the article turned out to be a complete load of shit.

 

[1910]

It makes me so annoyed because it is almost impossible to get actual articles about league these days anywhere that aren't in actual fact gossip columns, rumours, innuendos or ideas put forward on club forums that are then recycled into rubbish journalism.

Who is to blame though? I don't think it's their ability to write that should be in question. It's the system that they currently work with. Once you wrote one or two pieces a week and they appeared in the paper the same day every week. You had time to research and talk to people.

Now; you need to pump out 10 stories a day because 'we' want constant 24 hour news and updates. The quality has to go down because you're writing just for the sake of writing and your aim is to meet a quota.

If someone gives you a tip or a story, it gets written and you turn it into a story, once that would have gone investigated it and made your call. The idea isn't to be accurate it's to be first now.

 

[Sproj]

Who is to blame though? I don't think it's their ability to write that should be in question. It's the system that they currently work with. Once you wrote one or two pieces a week and they appeared in the paper the same day every week. You had time to research and talk to people.

Now; you need to pump out 10 stories a day because 'we' want constant 24 hour news and updates. The quality has to go down because you're writing just for the sake of writing and your aim is to meet a quota.

If someone gives you a tip or a story, it gets written and you turn it into a story, once that would have gone investigated it and made your call. The idea isn't to be accurate it's to be first now.

I don’t doubt that at all. I guess I don’t even really worry so much why it has happened, I more think about how it can be fixed and to be honest, I don’t think it would be impossible.

Let the garbage artists be the garbage artists, nothing will stop those gossip columnists being ‘first’ to anything. I’m sure there is a big market out there for that kind of rubbish.

But for the rest of us, at least establish one paper or media outlet that deals purely in investigative journalism and who isn’t afraid to call these other idiots out. They will pretty quickly become fairly influential if people feel they are getting legitimate journalism.

A lot of the problem today also is opinion is far too often being passed off as fact and headlines are being sound that are at best pure lies, at worst slander. I’m surprised more players and managers don’t sue some of these idiots, particularly those that talk rubbish about players’ personal lives. If more players did this, this issue would change pretty quickly, follow the Rebel Wilson precedent, one success will at least make these idiots think twice about making up stuff again in the future.

 

[1910]

I don’t doubt that at all. I guess I don’t even really worry so much why it has happened, I more think about how it can be fixed and to be honest, I don’t think it would be impossible.

Let the garbage artists be the garbage artists, nothing will stop those gossip columnists being ‘first’ to anything. I’m sure there is a big market out there for that kind of rubbish.

But for the rest of us, at least establish one paper or media outlet that deals purely in investigative journalism and who isn’t afraid to call these other idiots out. They will pretty quickly become fairly influential if people feel they are getting legitimate journalism.

A lot of the problem today also is opinion is far too often being passed off as fact and headlines are being sound that are at best pure lies, at worst slander. I’m surprised more players and managers don’t sue some of these idiots, particularly those that talk rubbish about players’ personal lives. If more players did this, this issue would change pretty quickly, follow the Rebel Wilson precedent, one success will at least make these idiots think twice about making up stuff again in the future.

The thing is they don't make it up, they take 10% and make it 100%- they go to training and someone trains on the wing so the headline is Shock move to wing- not made up.

100,000 hits thanks!

I am pretty sure you can't put the genie back in the bottle, unless you go back to paper in the morning and 6pm news at night. That's not happening.

It takes too long to do investigative stuff. I know a big time sports journo who wrote a brilliant award winning sports piece once and I asked why don't you do that more? He said it takes too long and in that time I didn't write 40 stories that they need for clicks all day.

 

[BroncsFan]

The thing is they don't make it up, they take 10% and make it 100%- they go to training and someone trains on the wing so the headline is Shock move to wing- not made up.

100,000 hits thanks!

Yeah except that's not the bullshit that we are talking about.

No one gets '100,000' hits because of a positional change and you fucking know it.

We're talking about the BS Bennett to the eels, Bird back to the sharks, etc. garbage that gets spewed out because a 'journo' has a hunch