I love rugby league. I grew up with a South Sydney supporter for a dad. My brother is a complete Bunnies nut with running commentary throughout any game and endless social media posts straight after. My sister-in-law, a saint, bought him tickets to the only grand final in recent memory that South Sydney has played in. Rob thinks it was his presence which made the difference, whereas I'm pretty confident it had more to do with the Burgess bros. My husband and my son support different teams but our relationships have survived.
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And as for Origin, it is the best, although as a long-suffering supporter of the NSW team, it can be hard to feel enthusiastic about the endless losses (yes, yes, let's see how they go this Sunday before we get carried away).
But for three weeks, I have been staring at a shocking set of numbers, numbers which aren't about missed tackles and metres gained.
They are the set of numbers which reveal that on State of Origin game days, the rate of family violence soars by nearly 40 per cent. Those are the numbers Michael Livingstone, from the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research, dug out of the data from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research – and his method is fascinating. He decided to look at the 24 hour period beginning at 6am on game day and then compare it to the Wednesdays before and after. And he did that over six years – 2012 to 2017 - every year, it followed the same pattern. Game day had a massive increase in family violence and a massive increase in other violence.
What causes male violence against women? You can't blame alcohol alone on family violence but it is a contributing factor, in just the same way that gambling can be a contributing factor. And that's why sporting organisations in Australia must rethink their relationships with alcohol and gambling sponsorships – there is a huge amount of advertising for both alcohol and gambling during State of Origin; and that's before you even look at the jerseys as those big blokes run onto the field. They are running billboards for beer.
Whenever there is a major sporting event, there is a spike in family violence and it's well-documented across countries and football codes. In 2013, a British study showed an increase of over 30 per cent in domestic violence in 2010 after England's World Cup team lost 4-1 to Germany; and a US study in 2011 looked at the results of National Football League games over 11 years and found domestic violence increased by 20 per cent after a team's loss to a traditional rival. A lot of this research looked at whether domestic violence was worse after a loss or a win (both increased but losses much more than wins) – but in NSW, it makes no difference. The incidence of violence still spiked, even when NSW won the State of Origin series in 2014. The AFL grand final also shows a rise in alcohol related harms, from research conducted by the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research. There is also a rise in other assaults and violence – it's not restricted to domestic violence so a move to stop violence would benefit women and men (although I struggle to have much sympathy for those who sit on the sidelines, get utterly pissed and then beat each other up. How on earth can that be fun?)
Melanie Pescud, from the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education, wants the NRL to know that this behaviour is unacceptable - obviously - and demands the code reconsiders its heavy reliance on alcohol sponsorship. As she points out, women are the backbone of the sport.
So, what can the NRL do about the violence which surrounds it?
Turns out, it already knows it has a problem with culture. That's why years ago, it engaged Catharine Lumby, a professor at Macquarie University with a speciality in gender. As of last week, she is leading a comprehensive research project which she describes as taking the temperature of NRL culture, engaging drug and alcohol researcher Paul Dillon to look at the impact of those substances on rugby league culture. Together they will look at how what happens in rugby league compares to what happens in the broader community.
Lumby acknowledges the link between alcohol and violence and asks if the NRL culture is in any way perpetuating violence against women; or if there is anything the NRL can do to change the broader culture. I think about all licence given to some of the players and I wonder why they can get away with beating the shit out of women yet still play. Why do they get a second chance when the women don't? The women bear scars for ever.
"But can the NRL change the culture? Players are seen as role models so we may need to look at the way in which rugby league promotes drinking and gambling."
Wouldn't that be great? Get the players to run on to the field with uniforms which have nothing but their allegiance to their states.
And maybe a few advertisements in between which say that no matter how drunk men get, they should never hit women.
Jenna Price is a Fairfax columnist and an academic at the University of Technology Sydney.
