Tyson Stengle only made a little mistake. So little he might not have even made a mistake. Someone else must have made the mistake.
It’s not like he has a track record of making mistakes.
The AFL player was rushed to hospital in the early hours of the morning recently but it was only a little error of judgement. That said, it was still enough to earn another nomination for The Frownlow Medal.
The Frownlow Medal is awarded to the player whose off-field demeanour epitomises the values of the modern-day footballer and draws attention to the status of footballers as role models to young Australians. It covers Australia’s four major football codes: the National Rugby League (NRL), Australian Football League (AFL), the A-League (Football) and Rugby Union’s Super Rugby competition. NRL player Shaun Kenny-Dowall won the inaugural medal in 2015, while NRL star Talatau Amone is the most recent recipient.
The Geelong Cats player was carried out of a nightclub in the early hours of a Sunday morning in July while celebrating a win over North Melbourne. He was in such bad shape that he was taken to hospital.
He was reportedly in a serious condition but returned to ‘light’ training soon after the incident. The club and his teammates played down the incident and even implied that someone might have spiked Stengle’s drink at the club.
He was given the club’s full support at the time, as is the norm these days, and his captain Patrick Dangerfield told the media:
“We treat our players like adults, so they have every right to go out and enjoy themselves,”
“Clearly with that you’ve got to do it responsibly and there’s been a bit of an error in judgment around that.”
If Stengle did nothing wrong, why did ‘Danger’ say that there’d been ‘a bit of error in judgement around that’?
Maybe Danger knows enough about Stengle’s past and his previous Frownlow nominations. The talented player was nominated 3 times in the same season – yes, 3 times – while playing for the Adelaide Crows in 2020, for incidents involving COVID isolation breaches and alcohol.
Despite his obvious talent, Stengle’s services were no longer required at the Crows and he moved to Geelong.
One has to ask, if Geelong win the flag this year and the team celebrates like they should, will Stengle make a bit of an error in judgement?
Image: NuNa
The Frownlow Medal 