Yet the NRL has the biggest TV audience. I don't underestimate the popularity of aerial ping pong in Australia and acknowledge its wider spread but in NSW and Queensland the NRL is king and players face a much higher level of scrutiny, more at a level football players get here.

One other important point about the original article cited, the "prominent columnist" is an unapologetic Yawnion troll who will never miss an opportunity to have a dig at a code that is far more popular and successful than the dying game he favours. There have been more than enough incidents of yawnion players misbehaving on the grog but these receive less attention because, the (a) their chums in the press are better at cover ups and (b) nobody gives a rat's cock about them.

NRL bad boy incidents compared to SL are more numerous than SL simply because of the greater number of players there and the interest in them. If we were going on percentages of bad apples in the sport it is probably higher in SL, in addition to our home grown idiots we import those deemed too badly behaved for the NRL.

What is your basis for saying that there are a higher percentage of bad apples in SL? Apart from Zachary Hardaker, who have been the really bad apples in SL, behaving on a similar level of nastiness to the NRL perpetrators described in the article?

Why are professional athletes abusing their bodies with alcohol. You should want to be the best athlete possible.

Maybe the punishment their bodies go through where they struggle to get out of bed the next day or two and constant bodily pain plays a part in using alcohol too much?

Maybe when they finish playing

I think it is just young men with a bit more money than they might normally have living in a male. Macho environment who go over the top.

Probably not dissimilar to how groups of men behave badly in many environments.

I don’t think that they are particularly different from most people of The demographic they come From

for less money than the AFL

This is closer to the right question in my mind - for me, the right question is 'why do rugby league players seemingly go out on the drink/sniff much more than any other professional sport?'.

People saying in NRL it's because of higher money/profile, then why don't we get the same with Premier League footballers over here? (Now it could be that they're that rich, they pay enough to hide it, but I doubt it).

In other professional sports, the athletes seemingly take things much more seriously and are far more disciplined with diet and drink etc.... you just hardly ever hear of athletics folk, footballers, golfers, boxers, even bloody darts players being on the grog. There is only really cricket and rugby league where the drinking culture still exists.

I'm sure there are a while host of reasons, but think there are a couple of main factors (and I appreciate this explanation is going to rely on some stereotypes);

1 - The typical social background of RL players. Most players come from very similar backgrounds and are of a similar mentality. The very physical and aggressive nature of RL means the sport attracts kids who are tough and enjoy the confrontation. Inevitably, often they come from tough backgrounds where confrontation/aggression/violence is a regular occurrence. What would be a really interesting study would be to see what percentage of pro-RL players in England were brought up on rough estates - it will be high. Cricket I believe has the issue for a different reason that is because of the culture around local cricket clubs - they're a social hub usually, and again, kids will be brought up going to the cricket club and seeing their parents drinking their regularly. In both sports, it's learned behaviour from generations of families.

2 - RL is a sport where natural physical strength/toughness alone can get you relatively far - it's possible for players to be a bit loose of the field and still perform on it (maybe if there was a bigger pool of players to choose from, those with natural talent would need to be more professional) - but this is probably because the sport as a whole is built on the same foundations. It's no coincidence that Melbourne, the most disciplined amd professional team in the game are the benchmark.

Ultimatelty, throw groups of young lads together from these similar types of background, who enjoy physical confrontation, who have been brought up around drinking, and then give them a pocket full of cash, an element of profile and a culture where drinking is not only acceptable, but is the norm, and you've got your answer.

As a far fetched example to kind of prove the point, I could ask 'why do so many weddings of travellers always end up finishing with a massive fight, compared to normal weddings?'

Not in SL but I see Scott Moore is back. In addition to people like Ben Barba, Todd Carney, Albert Kelly, Joel Monaghan amongst the higher profile players who had to relocate to SL for behavioural reasons there have lower level bad ones as well. Adam Walker would be a good call for a home grown idiot and Joel Tomkins didn't exactly cover himself in glory last year.

And I repeat the author of the article is an anti-League knob. I wonder if he will mention the 2 wobblies who were dropped from the yawnion game against England this weekend for disciplinary reasons?

For pulling birds whatever next!!!!

Take out the Aussie bad boys and you are left with Zachary Hardaker and Scott Moore who have committed serious offences. Those two are very few compared to the large number of NRL delinquents. It seems to suggest that the SL players are better behaved than the NRL players.

Are you seriously telling me there is no drinking culture in rugby union?

Of course there is a drinking culture in Rugby Union. The difference is thst their player pool generally comes from well-educated, private school, middle class backgrounds. What you don't see or hear is the RU lot getting leathered and heading to their nearest Yates, Walkabout or other dung hole bar trying to pull the 18 year old local slappers - they're too busy guzzling champers and eating foie gras in private clubs with the bankers and politicians.

Read into what Greg Johnson did who plays for Salford, proper scumball.

Bar SOO, AFL gets better tv numbers and also bigger attendances at games. It truly is the number 1 sport in Australia

Or not with regards to TV. rlhttps://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/nrl-trumps-afl-in-tv-ratings-war-20180910-p502u1.htmlrl

And why exclude SOO - arguably the pinnacle of the game down there?

I'm not demeaning the importance of AFL and realise that the likes of Thurston, Inglis and Slater could wander around Perth and Adelaide largely unrecognised but NRL is very high profile indeed in the more civilised Eastern States.