KIERSTEN DUKE: Reece Walsh should learn from Bailey Smith’s Mad Monday mistakes ahead of NRL grand final

Dear NRL and NRLW grand final players, what an exciting weekend that’s coming up.

Everything you’ve worked for so hard for all season comes down to 80 minutes on Sunday evening.

The sweat, the blood, the broken bones — Jahrome Hughes I’m looking at you!

All the sacrifices will feel worth it when you fight for your life in a final bid to lift that glorious trophy.

Emotions are running high this week and rightly so. On some days I can imagine it feels like a full-time job keeping both your head and body in check and running like a well-oiled machine going into one of the biggest days of your career.

All that built up pressure being contained must feel like violently shaking up a can of Coke Zero but not cracking it.

Until Mad Monday that is. When all hell can break loose — within reason and hopefully far away from any mobile phones.

Reece Walsh, I have a cautionary tale for you. I know you love to drink it all in, especially toilet water, but as you are the walking headline for the NRL, so is Bailey Smith for the AFL. While you were busy on Monday watching tape with Madge and revelling in ending the Panthers’ dynasty, Smith was doing what he does best — stealing the limelight and dividing fans as he did it.

Smith, who likes all the attention, but only on his terms as one female photographer found out after copping a foul-mouthed tirade from the star for simply taking his photo at an open training session, has come under fire again for an Instagram story he posted to his nearly half a million followers on his team’s Mad Monday sesh.

Dressed as Brad Pitt’s character from Legends Of The Fall, Smith posed for a photo with skipper Patrick Dangerfield, who was dressed as a character from TV series Yellowstone. Smith raised eyebrows by captioning the photo as a scene from Brokeback Mountain — with Dangerfield embracing him from behind while Smith held a hand over his crotch, and the words “this is what losing a granny does to ya”.

Now I don’t know Smith from a bar of soap, so I don’t know if he meant to sound homophobic but that is how it sounded. The AFL’s first openly bisexual man Mitch Brown called out the post categorically.

“In all seriousness though, guys do better,” he wrote. “Last time I checked, losing a grand final doesn’t make you gay, but being homophobic definitely makes you a loser.”

Yikes. A valid comment from Brown and a good reminder that jokes you want to share with the boys are best done far away from Instagram.

And while you will be telling you teammates to “put that phone away” as you celebrate or commiserate your NRL grand final win, Storm and Broncos players as well as the NRLW grand finalist Roosters and Broncos, alike need to make sure they know who they are partying with.

With every unknown guest comes a phone that has pretty good camera on it. This week, a wannabe paparazzi filmed Cronulla forward Toby Rudolph bashing out some enthusiastic Taylor Swift karaoke, beer in hand. Rudolph was simply enjoying himself after the Sharks’ finals fairytale was ended by the Storm and it was completely harmless, but why did what seemed like a private party ended up being shared for the world to see?

It appeared the cameraman was sneakily filming the boys, whether it was through their fingers or the blinds, the betrayal of trust made me feel queasy. I wasn’t alone in this feeling with many commenting that the “creepy camera man” needed to be named and shamed. The whole thing felt like a violation.

So don’t allow anyone outside of your immediate teammates join your celebrations unless your trust them unconditionally and it’s probably worth getting everyone to put their phones in a bowl upon entry.

You’ve all had huge seasons and don’t deserve to be plastered all over social media after having one too many or maybe saying or doing something that you shouldn’t.

So, boys and girls, give it your all on Sunday and let it rip on Monday — responsibly of course. But maybe start a no phones policy when the beers start flowing.

Love ya work, Kiersten.