Lesson 3: Graciousness in Defeat

Who would want to be a rugby league referee? Today, a referee was called a "fucking cheat" by a player, which prompted him to call over the captain of the team, who made a similar remark. When being talked to directly, the player who made the initial remark told the referee to "fuck off, cheat". The trainer of the side, supposedly the mature head amongst some physically charged youths, echoed the words of his players with more obscenities directed at the referee. As he was walking off the field with his sideline officials, verbal shit was flying from all directions.

When they reached the change room, they thought they had found solace, peace amongst the chaos. Wrong. A spectator, claiming not to be affiliated with either of the A-Grade clubs, came to the door and said "you guys are a fucking disgrace". When asked to leave, the spectator, in his mid-twenties and dressed like a metrosexual, threatened the official with violence, saying "if you touch me, I'll knock you out". Yeah, very intimidating dickhead. How about this - if you touch him, I'll shove those metro sunnies up your fucking asshole.

For the next 20 minutes or so while the officials were in the change room, all sorts of unsavoury things were heard from the outside. Eventually the spectators left and the referees were able to leave the ground, which they did together in order to lessen the likelihood of a post-match incident. Who would want to be a rugby league referee?