RATWATCH 2016
The rugby league world is buzzing with rampant speculation around the league-leading Broncos. Specifically, there's a rat in the ranks, and nobody outside the club knows who it is.
The story is basically something out of The Departed. Broncos players knew a teammate was speaking to the media, and decided to smoke out the rat. The players had identified a handful of suspected snitches in the squad, fed them each individual stories, and waited to see which one hit the media.
Sound familiar? This is basically the same thing Frank Costello did when he grew suspicious of Billy Costigan.
The stories all centered around Matt Gillett. The skilled second rower was already in the news; he was reportedly playing his last season with the Broncos, who it seemed would have to cut Gillett loose in 2017 due to salary cap issues.
The players told each of the potential rats a different version of the story. They told one player "Matt Gillett is going to St. George."
When Queensland newspaper the Courier Mail ran a story about Gillett heading to the St. George-Illawarra Dragons, the Broncos players had found their rat.
After Wednesday's training session, the suspected rodent returned to the sheds to find a photo of a rat had been stuck to his locker. He understandably didn't appreciate the gesture, demanded answers, and a scuffle broke out.
The nature of the scuffle is the subject of great speculation. The team denies anything happened. Triple M Brisbane host Greg Martin reported is as follows:
“That person had a picture of a rat placed on his locker in the dressing rooms,.”
“A scuffle ensued between the player with the rat that was placed there and the player that he thought had placed it there.
“Training started and (coach) Wayne Bennett had to settle everything down, that’s how they went into last night’s game against St George.
“Wayne Bennett didn’t drive it, this little group of players said ‘we’re sick of somebody, if we are going to be such a tight team we can’t have anybody leaking stuff’.
“The player didn’t mean to leak it he just told his manager. He may have a blabber mouth manager.”
