Footy stars reveal the shocking punishments their clubs put them through – including getting naked and being spanked by teammates

NRL players and coaches have revealed the incredibly harsh way in which stars are punished for rule breaches, after a football great said the shock tactics are ‘standard operating procedure’ across the competition.

It comes after former Bulldogs player Jackson Topine launched a $4 million legal action against the NRL club, claiming he was attacked by as many as 35 teammates in what amounted to assault and battery during a serious punishment handed down last July year was imposed.

Topine, 27, claims he was subjected to ‘illegal physical punishment’ when he was ‘locked’ in a Sydney gym and forced to wrestle 30 to 35 of his Bulldogs teammates in retaliation for being eight to 10 minutes late arriving at a training session.

The practice is known as ‘shark bait’ and is widely used in NRL clubs.

It is even used at junior level, with Palm Beach Currumbin (PBC) coach Aaron Zimmerle previously revealing how North Queensland and Maroons star Tom Dearden excelled at it during his school years.

“I have a video of him doing the ‘shark bait’ during a wrestling session where they wrestle everyone in a circle. It sums him up,’ Zimmerle said in 2022.

‘Tom was getting more and more tired and the boys coming at him were fresh. He seemed ready.

‘The next moment Tom has somehow mustered the strength to throw him off and reverse the position. I thought, ‘how did he get out of there?’ He just has the ability to find something extra inside.”

Current NRL players are being punished by having to run naked through a line of teammates while being punched by them, forced to eat hot peppers, or shave their heads or dye their hair, stars told the Sydney Morning Herald.

News Corp revealed in 2017 that Melbourne also used the practice of shark baiting in training and that those who failed to do so often did not train with the club. The bigger forwards would have to wrestle two players at a time.

Braidon Burns, now at South Sydney, is another Bulldogs player who faced shark baiting as a sanction, but chose not to discuss it publicly when contacted by the Sydney Morning Herald.

However, a former Bulldogs player said wrestling multiple teammates, known in the NRL as ‘shark bait’, is quite common among teams.

This former player also said that players often face tougher challenges during pre-season, including intense camps where their limits are tested for three days without sleep.

The North Queensland Cowboys are based in the garrison city of Townsville and regularly participate in army boot camps in the rainforest of far north Queensland.

Attacker Coen Hess revealed in 2022 how tough these camps can be.

‘The army people specialize in jungle operations, so it was a very humid climate and we had alternating physical and mental challenges. We did that for what felt like 10 hours, had a little break and did it all over again,” he said.

‘Grog [coach Todd Payten] rewired us all mentally. He made us enjoy hard work and solving problems together under pressure.’

The Manly Sea Eagles are another club putting their players through an army boot camp, training that coach Anthony Seibold described as ‘ruthless’.

‘They were sleep deprived, they were gassed [exhausted]It was brutal,” Seibold said in January.

“And that was the whole point: put them under extreme physical and mental pressure, because you don’t know how you’ll react until you try.”

The Panthers have also drawn on the experience of the Australian Defense Force to teach their players new levels of endurance.

“I knew after our camp, that’s when I knew there was something special about this team and what we could accomplish,” Panthers forward Zane Tetevano said at the time.

‘It was tough, it was tough. It helped bring out some of the guys’ characters and I think it helped them reach their full potential.”

Not all punishments handed out in NRL clubs are physical.

Nudity is common in the locker rooms at football matches and also common when it comes to punishing players.

Most footy fans are aware of the annual ‘nudie run’, where players who haven’t scored a try all season have to strip off and do laps around the field while their teammates cheer them on.

During the season, some NRL clubs employ American college football-style punishments, where players strip naked and run through a tunnel from their teammates, who beat and punch them along the way.

Some clubs, such as the Bulldogs, have a wheel that determines punishment for crimes such as being late to practice.

Others take a more cognitive approach, with players putting together PowerPoint presentations on random topics to really push them out of their comfort zone.

Speaking on NRL 360 on Wednesday night, footy Braith Anasta was incredulous at Topine’s stance, saying the penalties are ‘standard procedure at any football club’.

‘It’s crazy. “I can’t get my head around it, this guy started training late, so if you start training late you’re going to get some tough discipline,” he said.

“You learn not to let your teammates down because if you rush late in the game it will cost your team. This happens every day at every club and every player.

‘You are punished for that, every player knows that if you are late for training, you are punished. On this day the Bulldogs are wrestling, so the penalty was wrestling.

“If they were into fitness it would have been like this, those are the standards that are set.”

And coach Trent Robinson said clubs didn’t just mercilessly flog their players, it was a balancing act that also involved looking after them.

“You have to push players to be their best, and you have to take care of them at the same time,” Robinson said.

“You won’t always get it right, but if you care about your program and the players you have in that program, for the most part you’ll get it right.”