REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT
On how Patrick Smith became the voice of the AFL in the Essendon saga; the voice of Cricket Australia in the pay fight and now, the voice of Rugby Australia.
There is no sadder sight than the heavyweight who goes one bout too long, seeking to remain relevant when he no longer is.
Trying to land a haymaker when he can’t get his hands above his hips.
Struggling to get his addled brain to withstand the blows of his opponents that long ago rendered him senseless.
His friend should have told him.
But even though he saw it coming years ago, he didn’t.
Instead of being the fair and independent investigator in 2013 that he might once have been, when the dreadful chicanery that is the Essendon/ASADA/WADA/CAS blackest day in sport broke, Patrick Smith stopped being a heavyweight journalist and became the PR agent for the AFL.
Last year, as Australia’s cricketers fought Cricket Australia, Patrick Smith, now on his knees and heading for the canvas, was the voice of Cricket Australia and there he was again more recently when the sand-paper scandal broke in South Africa, failing to expose the cover-up that is CA misleading the public about who was interviewed by the Integrity Department in Cape Town.
And last Saturday, you’ve got to love this, after he got the 10-count and we thought he’d retired from The Australia, there he was attacking Alan Jones, sticking up for Rugby Australia, trying to defend the indefensible, as sad and sorry a sight as Muhammad Ali in that ill-advised final bout with Trevor Berbick.
Patrick comes from Melbourne, where rugby football is very much the boutique sport, so I don’t expect him to fully understand the game beyond those limited boundaries. His ignorance has been proven by events since his column as Israel Folau’s comments show that Rugby Australia had mislead the public about what happened in that meeting between player and officials.
Another case of the cover-up exceeding the original crime, something that should cost the CEO her job.
When Patrick’s not writing the odd, some would say very odd, comeback column for The Australian, he works for a radio station with a small but loyal following, and most of those listeners only want to talk about Australian rules football, which is understandable.
And the loyalty and passion of those readers he has in Melbourne, and those hardy listeners, places a responsibility on Patrick to tell them the truth.
He failed that test during the Essendon saga in 2013 when he was the AFL’s trumpet amid the other horn blowers who find it easier to follow the AFL’s orchestrations; to champion the cover-up rather than dig deep to find who committed the original crime.
He failed it again when he wrote that awful article when James Hird, a fine young man who the AFL’s heavyweights set out to destroy to save their own skins, attempted to take his life.
That dreadful moment in James’ life caused people to reflect on the Essendon saga and many began to realise they had been led up the proverbial garden path by Patrick and the other AFL horn players.
Patrick panicked, trotted out all the lies and deceptions of 2013 all over again, lest he be exposed for getting it horribly wrong, for being complicit in the destruction of Hird’s reputation on the flimsiest of evidence, i.e. none.
James Hird was denied natural justice.
He was bullied by the AFL.
He was mocked by Patrick Smith whenever he attempted to defend himself.
Patrick even mocked Hird’s wife Tania when she told the world what everyone knows, that the AFL is a mob of bullies.
Yes, everyone Patrick, whether it’s the widowed Mrs Bailey, the former Swans chairman who had the temerity to recruit Buddy Franklin, or the Tasmanian club president who has been warned to shut up or face excommunication as he argues for the game in his State, which I am told is in a shocking mess after years of neglect by the people running the game in Melbourne.
I am not qualified to tell the AFL what to do in Tasmania, so will not go beyond that comment just made, but over the years, I’ve learned a thing or two about rugby union.
Something else I’ve learned is what happens when you sit back and just spruik the lines of the Establishment. They love it, the people in the blazers: the cosy trips, not being held to account as they constantly fail to act for the good of the game, letting things fester, then making that worse with another cover up.
When Patrick sides with the Establishment, whether in rugby football, in cricket, and most obviously in in the AFL, he is party to doing untold damage to both journalism, and to the sports.
The damage he did to James Hird’s reputation should haunt him for the rest of his life and will do as the truth slowly emerges from the quagmire of lies and deceptions perpetrated by the AFL, ASADA, WADA and the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
You might be able to get away with that when you’re leaking to tame journalists, whether starry-eyed kids who know no better, or fallen heavyweights.
You can’t in the courts where you take an oath to tell the truth.
Yes Patrick, the truth, something that it behoves all in the media to seek out, not just put a by line on the Establishment’s media releases, an on-going act that becomes in your case a Requiem for a Heavyweight.
Bruce Francis
