Opinion: Storm fullback Billy Slater will play game of conscience well after career's over

Billy Slater will achieve his personal milestone but, selfishly, also leave behind a chaotic state in the NRL of what will constitute a shoulder charge at players' risk. Photo / Photosport

Here's what's horribly bent and twisted about the National Rugby League (NRL) in Australia.

Dress up a clown in a suit, buckle him into a seat for a flight in a private jet bound for a judicial hearing and rest assured he'll get away with murder.

The joker in question is, of course, Melbourne Storm fullback Billy Slater who was cleared on Tuesday night of a grade one shoulder charge — a murder in the context of contact sport — and, consequently, will play in the NRL grand final match against the Sydney Roosters on Sunday.

Sosaia Feki was the uninjured Cronulla Sharks winger in the 22-6 loss to the Storm in the do-or-die match last Friday when Slater came charging at him and drove him over the sideline near the cornerflag.

Presiding over the case against Billy the Kid in the Kangaroo court in Sydney late on Tuesday night was the three-man panel of Sean Garlick, Bob Lindner and Mal Cochrane.

After almost an hour, the trio found Slater not guilty.

It's fair to say it has drawn the ire of rugby league fans worldwide, not to mention in New Zealand where they feel if it was a Warriors or Kiwis international player then he would have been unceremoniously booted out of even a game of hopscotch or tiddlywinks.

The word "cheats" has cropped up on social media and parallels drawn with why Australians lack scruples, such as disgraced cricket captain Steve Smith and opening batsman David Warner for their myopic roles in the ball-tampering Sandpapergate scandal in March this year.

However, while all that is far fetched it doesn't detract from the NRL become a laughing stock, albeit not in the same league as cricket.

Frankly few fans would have expected the judicial process to find Slater guilty. Eye patch-wearing Melbournites will argue Slater should have been exonerated "for the good of the game".

Some feel rugby league is "too soft" and there's nothing wrong with a little bit of biffo.

Tragically James Ackerman died from a forceful shoulder charge, which ruptured an artery in his neck against the Norths Devils in the Queensland Cup in 2015.

For many followers Slater's ruling has ruffled the scab of an old wound.

Not surprisingly the great unwashed now want the NRL to produce exhibits of what constitutes a shoulder charge if what the retired Queensland and Kangaroo international executed isn't deemed one.

Mind you, the news comes unconvincingly at the same time as the NRL disclosure that it has halved the $272,000 fine imposed on the Canterbury Bulldogs for their lewd Mad Monday celebrations, after Adam Elliott and Asipeli Fine were photographed nude at a Sydney pub.

Had the decision come in the impending danger of unsold tickets with the omission of Slater then there would have been some leeway for fans to draw reasonable, if not pertinent, conclusions.

Alas, the gloss seems to have been lost from a grand final already played in a dimly-lit room so why bother watching the game on Sunday.

The protagonists were dressed in suits and their resounding verdict is that a handful of players, in the ilk of Slater, are bigger than the sport.

The top suit, Slater's lawyer Nick Ghabar, is the biggest winner in a case that only reaffirms the belief that Slater has been treated with kid gloves.

His reckless disregard for Feki's welfare goes against the grain of what he had alluded to in an earlier interview, relegating it to hollow sentiments.

"It was a scary time, a really scary time," says the 35-year-old in a videotaped footage on the Channel 9 Wide World of Sports website in contemplating a healthy life before a sporting career due to injuries. "For the first time rugby league was taken away from me from the time I was 4 years old and it was quite tough to sit through those moments."

Melbourne Storm fullback Billy Slater engaged in an infantile exercise in trying to wriggle out of a blatant shoulder charge. Photo / NZME

His desperation for another 80 minutes of a personal milestone, I feel, has somewhat tarnished his envious career.

The demeanour in the whole process has been an infantile exercise, akin to a child trying to wriggle out of a sticky situation using a feeble excuse of how his arm had knocked a precious antique piece off its perch in a china shop.

"I've got a duty to make a tackle, the duty of care is to myself and player Feki. To ensure I don't make a high tackle is a duty to Feki. I feel the contact that was made was unavoidable once he veered back in. I think the decisions I made ensured the safest possible contact was made," he testified.

Really Slater? No malice may have been intended but did you make a shoulder charge?

The soothsayers will throw in the cricket analogy of why a batsman isn't under any obligation to walk if the umpire hasn't lifted his finger.

Conversely, Slater's farewell benefit will cause chaos in the NRL with the code scrambling to redefine and push the shoulder charge into a greyer area.

More mind-numbing clauses and sub clauses will be enacted to rob a game of its simplicity.

The tail is wagging the dog and, yes, it is a Storm in a teacup.

Slater may not have woken up to it in the euphoria of an impending farewell yet but it'll mutate into a game of conscience he'll have to play well after his career is over.

The game's governing body is guilty of something bigger than a lack of consistency — the absence of credibility in the face of overwhelming evidence.

How else can you explain Slater's treatment as an "extinct species"? This is the bloke who was awarded the Wally Lewis Medal despite missing the opening match of the Origin series.

That returning Maroons teammate Daly Cherry-Evans outshone Slater in the last match is proof enough there'll always be someone waiting to take over the reins, no matter how big a player you are.

Thanks, NRL, for your advocacy of the "short man syndrome" well before the Roosters have started crowing.