Despite the book’s subtitle, it mainly focuses on rugby league. There is little information on soccer. Masters has spent most of his adult life in and around rugby league.

Most popular books on sport provide ‘glorious’ accounts of great teams and players. Their oeuvre is myth. Masters’ point of departure is to see sport as another example of the playing out of the human condition; of how fate smiles on some and frowns on others; of men striving and failing to find their respective places in the sun. Masters doesn’t shy away from the dark side of sport. He delves into violence on, and sometimes off, the field; player injuries and bodies broken before their time; sex, alcohol, drug and betting scandals; boardroom battles, including corruption and the deaths of former players.

Masters has great respect and love for these bad boys. He knows and understands the demons that dominate them. He writes with insight, knowledge, pathos, humour and a wonderful turn of phrase. His major contribution is to examine usually hidden dimensions of the occupation that is sport. Tom Keneally has said of Masters that he would have had a successful career as an author but for the drop in his income. Literature’s loss has been sport’s gain. Bad Boys is highly recommended.