Australian Rugby League Club Sued Over Punishment Training

This is off-topic but might have implications for training in Union if it goes anywhere.

22 year old New Zealand rugby league player Jackson Topine is suing the Bulldogs, his old team for AUS $4 million. He apparently turned up 10 minutes late for training last summer, and was told to wrestle each member of the 30-odd squad as a punishment. Snce then, he has never played a game again.

In his suit, Topine says he suffered psychiatric injury, humiliation and fear, and can no longer play the game. There's a short article here with the details:

https://www.teaonews.co.nz/2024/04/25/maori-all-star-jackson-topine-launches-4-million-lawsuit-against-canterbury-bulldogs/

It's fair to say there's not a lot of immediate sympathy for Topine amongst old pros. In the video below, Andew Johns, Billy Slater and Brad Fittler recount their own experiences of squad discipline. Johns explains how pushing people beyond breaking point is one of the only ways you can assess whether a professional player is mentally tough.



In the same video, journalist Michael Chammas is a bit more circumspect. He points out that not all old-style rugby training and hazing works with modern, Gen Z players. It's also a big deal for the sport if the lawsuit succeeds, or if the Bulldogs agree a settlement.

Well he should have been on time for training...one of my pet hates...punctuality. If you have to be somewhere...be there on time!

Lombardi time...

Is wrestling 30 people hazing though? Seems like just a bit of fun.....its not like they made him go on 5 mile runs at 2am or anything.

On a side note - has there been anymore news on the concussion case? Seems to have gone a bit quiet the last few months......

Welshmushroom wrote:On a side note - has there been anymore news on the concussion case?  Seems to have gone a bit quiet the last few months......

In a way, it's not a side note. I thought about adding this to the concussion thread but, as it stand, it's still tangential.

There's another discussion here , between Joel Caine, a former club NRL player, and James Magnussen, a former national squad swimmer. Magnussen says much the same as Andrew Johns in the previous video, talking about the need to maintain standards in professional sport.

Caine is no shrinking violet but he does wonder whether such old school methods are suitable for everyone. One off-camera voice says sending Topine to run until he was sick might have made the point just as well, without making his teammates complicit.



As for the UK concussion case, we are where we expected to be. Every time someone joins the case, the plaintiffs have to provide evidence they have a claim worth hearing. At some point, given capacity contraints, they will likely have to draw the line. If it is heading to court, then we are at least a couple of years away from that happening. There could be a settlement before that, though no-one appears to be expecting that outcome.

not sure rugby union has the money at the moment to settle out of court.....

Going to be a hell of a case to try to win in court though.....but if they did it could and possibly will bankrupt world rugby, WRU, RFU etc in the process.....

I am amazed when I saw the original list how many Welsh players were in it. Would have thought proportionally welsh player cases would have been a small percentage compared to say playing numbers elsewhere...... its either that or a lot of other countries havent bothered with this......

Going to be a nightmare to establish a legal link though I would have thought.......lawyers will love this one though....