Woah Nelly. What is going on here? Andrew Demetriou has just let it be known that a couple of players are not allowed to go on school visits because of, well, we’re not sure why because Andy won’t tell us.

On Melbourne talkback radio station 3AW, Demetriou said:

“There are players, and I won’t go into the names … there are actually a couple of players who aren’t allowed to go into schools because they’ve had issues in their past.”

Demetriou was keen that this fact not be linked to the recent rather distasteful flurry over the St Kilda players and the young girl who is now pregnant. I deliberately kept my distance from that one. It sounded initially like what it turned out to be: a tawdry little affair involving young blokes thinking more with their Southern Brains than the heads and a fairly impressionable young girl who is now going to become a teenage Mum.

But this revelation by Demetriou is troubling. What exactly did these players do at schools that has caused them to be banned? Or more accurately, what issues are there in their pasts that makes the AFL so wary of letting them in schools?

What about club family days? What about open training sessions? What about when these players are walking down the street and a kid who goes for their team approaches them?

I’m not for a second suggesting any of these players have issues with kids in a touching them inappropriately way. I suspect its more to do with anger management or basic lack of social skills or even plain rudeness, a simple inability to get along with kids.

But it is still hardly an ideal situation.

All clubs know which players they’d prefer going into schools. Why don’t the clubs provide a list of players they’d like to represent their club and then AFL has an approved pool to send off on these vital visits.

Those deemed not safe to enter schools could be employed to, I dunno, do footy clinics in jails, or break stones to provide paving gravel for old folk’s homes or something.

Or likely, they could be offered help for whatever it is in their past or their makeup that has the AFL so concerned about the prospect of them visiting a school.

It was Herman Goering who famously said that when he heard the word culture, his first instinct was to reach for his revolver.
Anyone who spends any time on footy chatboards like this one would most likely sympathise with the mad old fascist junky tool on that one count, if nothing else.

Every time a player commits even the slightest indiscretion, and said indiscretion is reported in the media and thus here, the culture of the club in question is immediately said to be suspect, if not rotten to the core.

A strange algebra of wrongdoing seems to apply. Getting drunk and urinating on a police station is bad, but not as worthy of opprobrium as say getting drunk and forcing a rookie to imbibe more than his natural limit.

Of course some bad behaviour is criminal, some very seriously so and can’t just be laughed off. But by the same token, there’s a bizarre logic afoot with many that suggests a player who is the victim of crime, by saying being king hit by an idiot at a party or a club, is also somehow in the wrong.

The reality is every single club has had players acting like imbeciles and every club will have to deal with their antics in the future. Nobody is immune. But at the same time, you can have a culture that reduces the possibility of these incidents happening. And more importantly, one that uses them for good, learns the lesson and emerges stronger. To steal a phrase from the President of the United States, a club with a strong culture will turn its first round draft pick bashing a kebab vendor while dressed as a character from the Rocky Horror Picture Show into a ‘teachable’ moment.

For mine, Sydney are a good example of a club with a preventative culture. Paul Roos and Brett Kirk are both fairly straight down the line blokes. The famous ‘No ********s’ policy has by and large been effective – I haven’t done the responsible thing and carefully researched every team’s muck ups over the last ten years and created a ladder of indiscretion but hazarding a guess, I’d say if one did exist Sydney would be at the top. Or the bottom. You know what I mean: you don’t hear of Sydney players offending social mores while out on the razz all that often.

Then there’s the reactive culture, which for mine is more interesting. This is the one that comes to the fore when a major incident is thrown into your lap burning and squealing and farting column inches. The one you can’t really prepare for. The bad one.

The granddaddy of these is the revelation Wayne Carey and Kelli Stevens had been having an affair. It remains the biggest off-field footy story since Barassi went to Carlton and it’s hard to think of what could top it, though eventually something will. North fans endured, and will continue to endure, claims that there was something malignant in our culture that allowed the captain to sleep with the vice captain’s missus.

I’d argue the opposite. One individual on the team and another person stuffed up hugely. But the reaction of the club – to suspend the best player in the competition then come out and win our next game – showed what the real culture of the club was like.

Similarly with West Coast – the turbulence of the Cousins debacle, then Judd going – would have torn the guts out of a lesser side. But for all the slagging that they are a mere franchise West Coast get from Victorian types, they have shown real determination and look to have come out the other side stronger for it.

Geelong too seem to have built a strong culture. Stevie Johnson has never looked back from the six game suspension he copped after getting lairy one too many times. And the decision to make Matthew Stokes get a ‘real’ job after he was arrested on drug offences shows an admirably level headed approach – reminding the young man of just how easy in reality he has it.

And then the culture of some clubs – perhaps those who base their entire on the notion that they are club X, **** the rest – appears desperately resistant to change. Maybe a culture where success is everything has some benefits. Such clubs tend to win plenty of flags.

But with the AFL ever keener to crack down on off field misbehaviour, one suspects that such attitudes will soon be left behind. Culture. Maybe it’s not such a dirty word after all.

I fair spat my Jack Daniels into my cornflakes this morning when leafing through the increasingly insubstantial offering that is The Age.

Do not get me wrong, there are some genuine nuggets of quality among the dross. Their investigations team does sterling work and anyone living in the city of Melbourne who wants to know what is really going on reads Royce Millar. Thus it was I was chuffed to see that Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker from the investigations team and the good Mr Millar had their work recognised at the Quill Awards.

But then as I read down the piece I began to suspect I had taken leave of my senses. Certainly someone on the Quill awards judging team has.

Age Sports reporter Samantha Lane won a Quill for best sports story for her expose of the infamous North Melbourne chicken video that depicted sex acts. The judges said the story highlighted a serious cultural issue for the AFL.

Ye Gods. Not only has this non-story raised its head again but it’s been deemed the best sports story in a year of Victorian journalism? Can there be any more definite indicator of a once proud tradition in terrible, perhaps terminal, crisis?

Before you start, let me lay out some facts. Yes, the video was in remarkably poor taste and by shooting it on club property and, unforgivably, including the sponsors logo, the boys done really bad.

But the fact remains that it was an in-house production never intended for public consumption that would never have seen the light of day had a staff member not posted it online.

And this is where the sheer imbecility of Lane being given a Quill for the story begins. She got a tip off from a contact that the video was up or she happened upon it herself. My suggestion would be the former. A journalist is only as good as their contacts but somebody dropping you a line to let you know about a video on YouTube is hardly cultivating Deep Throat, or being trusted with a briefing after Cabinet.

Then Lane committed her second error. I happened to be up late in early April last year and when I saw the top line on the piece Lane had written, I nearly died:

A VIDEO depicting degrading sex acts filmed in the rooms of the North Melbourne Football Club and posted online by one of the side’s young footballers is being investigated by the club.

What I took from that, what any reasonable person as they say in the trade, would take from that is that actual sex acts had taken place and been filmed. My mind went into overdrive – this was going to be Carey times a zillion. Idiot bloody footballers taking drunken girls back to the rooms and rooting them while their ******** mates taped it. Let’s be honest, it isn’t out of the realms of possibility given what footballers have gotten up to in the past.

But thankfully, that’s not what happened. And in allowing her readers to arrive at an incorrect conclusion, Lane broke the first rule of journalism. It was only when we got further into the piece that we discovered the ‘sex acts’ took place between inanimate objects.

What occurred then can only be described as a beat up most foul. Lane and her editor Caroline Wilson proceeded to flog the ‘story’ to death. And it ran for nearly a week and ended up with Adam Simpson, a player universally liked and respected, having to make a humiliating apology on The Footy Show.

But now, nearly a year after the whole affair, we can see it in a calmer light. Let’s recall that one of Lane’s staunchest advocates in pushing the story was Phil Cleary, who said:

"It just bristles with degradation of women. Don’t they get it?" he said.

“Here we have the North Melbourne Football Club allowing someone access to their clubrooms, to their offices, to produce a video that’s just plain misogynistic. It’s just full of women hatred — women are to be belittled, to be raped and to be degraded. It’s sick.”

This would be the same Phil Cleary who recently displayed his Solomon like judgement by defaming a QC and who now faces a rather wallet impacting payout as a result. Given his personal circumstances, there is no doubt Cleary speaks from the heart when he talks about issues to do with violence against women. But as his misjudgment on both the North video and the defamation case show, sometimes passion clouds reason, that simply because you hold dear a principle doesn’t mean you are best placed to expound that view.

Then there was the sponsorship matter. Both Lane and Wilson suggested for many weeks that video could, perhaps would, cost North its sponsorship with Mazda. Right up until Mazda re-signed with the club for another two years on improved terms.

That the story would be given the Quill is even more galling when we look at what else has followed. Let’s recall the judges said it was worthy of being rewarded because it “highlighted a serious cultural issue for the AFL.”

Really? Were people genuinely in doubt about the problems of footy players and attitudes to women BEFORE this story? That despite all Wayne Carey’s reprehensible actions, despite all Fev’s antics, despite the Milne and Montagna stuff, despite all that, it was only the revelation that a few drongos at North had made a video where a rubber chicken roots a frozen chicken that made people suddenly realise that some footy players hold questionable attitudes to women?

Get real. Other stories recognised, like Gary Hughes effort on the bushfires, have contributed to the progression of public debate, of policy, lead to changes in regulations, to the way things are done. Since Lane’s confection of misrepresentation and vastly hypocritical moral posturing, how has the AFL’s wider player population’s record on attitudes to women improved?

The Andrew Lovett and Lara Bingle debacles would suggest not much.

There’s two final reasons why Lane being given this award is a joke. The first is that there was an actual story to be followed up by Lane. As we’ve seen, there’s entrenched and ugly attitude to women among many footballers and footy clubs and footy identities. Taking the Boris video as a lead, Lane could have undertaken a diligent and informative investigation of this seamy side of footy. Instead, she chose to sensationalise one small element of that culture in what appeared to many observers to be a campaign more aimed at promoting Sam Lane than anything else.

Thus when actual violence against women by footballers occurred, the likes of Lane found they’d whipped themselves into such a frenzy of hysteria about the chicken video that they nothing left to deal with real life abuse when it happened. As a side note, it would be funny if it weren’t sad that for all Lane claimed to be ’sickened’ by the video, thousands more people, many of them children, saw it that never would have even known of its existence if it weren’t for her posturing.

And finally, there was a real story to be had at North. Since taking over, Brad Scott has made it clear that North has an entrenched heavy drinking culture that he intends to change. That would have been an interesting story, but Sam had already missed the boat.

The chicken video was a non-story that got beaten into something bigger by a peculiarly Melbournite mix of talkback radio and footy fever. That it is somehow considered the best sports story in the great state of Victoria is a sad indictment on just how far the trade has fallen in footy’s spiritual home.

Compare and contrast this with Nick McKenzie’s sterling investigation into corruption in the Victorian racing industry to see just how far short of the mark ‘Chickengate’ falls as a quality sport story.

I’m presuming most of you will already be in a seated position when you read this, but for those of you who are using a Donald Rumsfeld style stand-up desk, or perhaps have futuristic sunglasses which flash up the Internet on the inside of the lens, get your bums safely parked.

Andrew Demetriou deserves every single red cent of the $1.8m he was paid last year. He did an excellent job in very trying circumstances and as a result, the Australian Football League is in rude health and poised to grow further in coming years, with suitors lining up to beg to be included in the next TV rights bidding.

I’ll get the obvious out of the way early. I can see them now, simple types, their brows furrowed with effort, unaware they’ve chewed clean through their pens leaving an unsightly blue smear across their chin, desperately trawling BigFooty for something, anything, to file before the news editor asks how they are going to fill those gaping holes in the back three pages.

Yes, I’m a North supporter. Yes, I opposed tooth and nail the attempt to shunt North to the Gold Coast. And yes, Demetriou was a key player in that.

But that was in the past. This is now and the future is rapidly arriving. We didn’t go to the Gold Coast. We are staying in Melbourne. And one of the key reasons why I think Demetriou is doing a good job is that, unlike some his more strident be-braced cheerleaders in the media over the Gold Coast relocation attempt, he’s moved on from it.

Regular readers of this blog will know my general medium term thesis as regards the strategic direction of the AFL. Post North refusing the move up north, the AFL had to reassess its strategy. It still wanted a team on the GC and one in Western Sydney. It did the sums and realised that to fund that expansion, it needed the steady and reliable majority income the ten Victorian sides provide.

Naturally some of those teams are ‘worth’ more in terms of attendances and TV rights than others, but Demetriou is canny enough to know that he can’t just top slice the major revenue raisers. It doesn’t work like that. The sum of the whole is far more than the individual value of all the parts.

So it is with this mind that Demetriou has shown his true worth. He successfully re-negotiated the stadium deals set up by his predecessor with the intention of slowly starving off smaller Victorian teams. The revised deals aren’t perfect – North, the Dogs and St Kilda are still paying off more than our fair share of an asset that will ‘belong’ to all clubs sooner rather than later – but they do provide steady gameday revenue that allows the league to concentrate its administrative and financial focus on the expansion.

That’s good management. Plan A didn’t work out so Demetriou was able to quickly and effectively institute a Plan B that kept the longer term goal viable. He also seems to be negotiating the treacherous waters that are South Australian footy politics with some aplomb, steadying Port’s ship and managing to secure a nice old taxpayer whack to do up the Adelaide Oval, which then takes away some of the SANFL’s hold on footy in SA by offering an alternative to Football Park.

There’s other important achievements too. As the AFL itself says:

The league also announced record membership of AFL clubs of 586,748 compared to 574,091 in 2008; the third best season attendance in the game’s history with record finals series attendances; record participation in football of 732,803, a growth of more than 5.7 per cent on the previous year, and record NAB AFL Auskick participation of 169,000 at 2875 centres.

Last season’s AFL grand final between Geelong and St Kilda was watched by an average national audience on the Ten Network of 3.848 million people and was the most watched TV program of any kind in Australia.

This last one is key. Rugby League’s main advantage over footy has been that it gets more eyes on screens, and that it’s Grand Final is THE biggest TV event of the year. Well, not any longer it would appear. The importance of this milestone being reached should not be underestimated.

When the sharks in sharp suits who are TV executives sit down and nut out where to spend their diminishing dollars in coming years, a headline boast like that – we have the biggest show in town – can spell the difference between a TV deal in the high hundreds of millions and reaching … breaking … the billion mark.

And this is the glittering Rome unto which all Andy’s roads do lead: getting a billion or more for the next tranche of TV rights. Every decision, every tactical move, all of them are fundamentally predicated on that final goal.

Sure, Demetriou himself stands to benefit personally if that KPI can be met. And why shouldn’t he? A TV rights deal of that worth will grow the game at every level for years to come. It will protect the smaller clubs whose fans are just as worthy as the big clubs who can ‘pay their own way’. It will provide funding for endless Auskick clinics. It will be the future of the game.

The TV rights negotiations are barely upon us. The backroom maneuvering has started but real battle has yet to be joined. It would unwise to make a definite prediction on the outcome but what I will say is that Demetriou has positioned the AFL as well as could be to maximise its opportunities of reaching the targets it has set itself.

For that, he should be rewarded.

Adelaide – Cruelled by injuries so not much of genuine significance to take from this but in guys like Vince, Dangerfield, Tippet and Walker they have quality galore. Even if their luck deserts them this season, they have plenty to look forward to.

Brisbane – They’ll have learned that bringing Fev up north doesn’t mean his problems have been left behind. Didn’t really do enough either way to get a good read on how they will go as the winter progresses. My suspicion is that they’ll be thereabouts without ever presenting a convincing premiership challenge. Oh, and there’ll be a new Fev scandal. That you can be very sure of.

Carlton – Flying under the radar a bit after a very hectic off-field post season. The big question – can they cover the loss of Fev? – still hasn’t been answered and until we see a clearer indication either way, pretty much all is speculation. Too much quality through the midfield an unheralded yet quietly effective defence mean they won’t bottom out though.

Collingwood – Can the Woodsmen take the next step this season? I have to say nothing they’ve showed in various NAB Cup or Challenge games has made me think they can. I’m be happy to be proven wrong but don’t see it happening.

Essendon – A funny one the Bombers. Hardly set the world on fire with their pre-season hit outs yet it is hard to see them falling too far back on last year, yet also difficult to see where any great improvement will come from. Hille back will be a big plus but what would have really made their pre-season stuff would have been big Gumbleton playing out games in strong form.

Freo – Quietly impressive. They won’t contest for the flag this year but they seem to be building the basis of a squad that will be thereabouts before too long. Hill is a gun, Barlow another of the quality mature age finds and names like Mayne and Broughton not widely known in the eastern states soon will be.

Geelong – A funny one. Weren’t convincing in their loss to a hungry North side despite having their gun midfield unit in place, except for a stunning seven goal burst where they demonstrated why, when they are on full form, they are still the best side in the comp. When you get to a position like Geelong’s, with a few ageing bodies, the pre-season stuff matters less and less in games won terms. All about September again for the Catters.

Hawthorn – Not a good start. A severe injury in the one area they can least afford it, the ruck, has left them looking desperately thin before a ball has been bounced. Josh Gibson was savagely exposed by Barry Hall, Shaun Burgoyne hasn’t played a game and is still troubled by injuries and there’s a worrying air of malaise come frustration around Buddy. They still have far too much class to be written off but they’d want a change in their stars sooner rather than later.

Melbourne – Bashed round the head by injuries again. This, combined with a young and inexperienced side, suggest 2010 will be another tough one for the Dees. Getting games into undoubted young talent like Trengove and Grimes can only be good. Even some of their more loyal supporters here are already publicly writing off 2010.

North Melbourne – Some good pre-season wins for such a young side. Brad Scott will be happy with the emerging midfield he has got and his defence gels nicely. Nothing in the NAB Cup showed North are any closer to filling the key forward hole that still haunts them. If Tarrant or the highly-rated Aaron Black can show signs of doing that in the season proper, then things will brighten even further at Arden Street.

Port – Surprise packets so far. After a tumultuous off season, the boys from Alberton have come out firing. The addition of Dean Laidley to the coaching rosters appears have an instant and positive impact. Still plenty of issues to confront in terms of ensuring raw junior can replace older stars but they don’t appear to be heading for the bottom out period some suggest.

Richmond – Going to be another long season for the Tiger faithful. Damien Hardwick is obviously rebuilding from the ground up with a brand new game plan and that will inevitably take time to gel. But the ultra-impressive Dustin Martin should provide some welcome distraction for Richmond fans and the rest of us too. Kid can play.

St Kilda – A very, very solid lead in. Have to be considered one of the best sides going. Kosi is a worry but I’d be far from writing him off. In many regards, not winning the NAB Cup will suit Ross Lyon down to the ground. Lids are being kept on and all that. Will finish top four and be right in amongst it come September.

Sydney – Another mob with an ideal lead in. Not sure why people seemed to have written them off before this season. The notion that Paul Roos would allow his last season in charge to be dismal bump along the bottom affair is plain moronic. Guys like O’Keefe and Goodes seem to be in as good a nick as ever while quality youngsters are coming through. Roos will hand his long time number two Horse Longmire a squad in fine fettle.

West Coast – Many are of the opinion that West Coast will rise up the table and maybe even sneak into the eight this season. Not sure if the pre-season form backs up that view but then, there’s no doubting they certainly have the young players to undergo just that kind of rapid improvement. If Josh Kennedy can take the next step, then it’s likely the West Coast will indeed jump up a few ladder spots.

Western Bulldogs – Given they won the NAB Cup by filling what many identified as the only thing holding them back from real premiership success – a key forward – you’d have to suggest they are looking just a little bit of alright. There’s a real buzz about the Dogs. Their supporters seem have collectively decided this will be the year, rushing to buy memberships that guarantee Grand Final tickets and they players seem to be doing their best to make that dream come true. It is early days of course, but for mine, premiership favourites.

This place has been in the news lately, notably with the Geelong Football League and the coach of the St Albans, Peter Davenport, threatening legal action over posts that were made here.

This follows a piece in the Sunday Hun regarding rumours that were posted here about allegations regarding infidelity between a high profile footy identity and the wife of another very well known star in the footy firmament.

I’m not going to comment on the first matter, especially given Mr Davenport has retained legal representation apart from to say that falsehoods spread about anyone can be distressing, no matter what the circumstances.

But there’s a wider issue at play here. Essentially, what we see is 20th Century attitudes reaching out to legal precepts established in the 19th Century to try and make sense of what is happening right here, right now in the second decade of the 21st Century.

We’ll start at the start. Australian Rules football as a whole, and especially as represented by the Australian Football League, have been poor to disastrous in their handling of new media. The AFL site is a joke, widely mocked here and elsewhere. The clubs, with the far-sighted exception of Essendon are locked into deals with one provider. Overseas fans are forced to pay a third party provider to watch games and content in what is an unnecessarily complex arrangement.

Compare and contrast this with the approach taken by other organisations, like the NBA, which has always been at the forefront of using new media to reach out to fans and improve access to its product and the AFL looks like what it is: an organisation with no coherent policy to deal with new media that is a long way behind the pack and dropping further back.

At the club level, things are improving. North Melbourne’s media man Heath O’Loughlin has been evangelical in his use of new and social media to engage with fans. It was telling that when North played Hawthorn in a practice match at North Ballarat last week, the Hawthorn contingent on BigFooty were following the live text updates on North’s official site as it was the only live coverage possible.

Other clubs are no doubt doing similar, or will be planning improved new media strategies for the simple reason that it is dawning on them that the Internet genie simply cannot be put back in the bottle. Now all we need is for those who govern the game – and report on it – at various levels to make that leap too.

The comments made by Football Geelong chief executive Lee Hartmann regarding the Davenport case show just how far some people – and this goes right to the top of the game – have to come.

“The BigFooty forum is an independent website and I know it’s not only us at Football Geelong, other leagues are disappointed too with their attitude regarding comments from time to time. You wouldn’t find many leagues, if any, who support what they do. Because (the comments) can’t be monitored by the leagues it’s something we fully don’t support,” he says.

Er, because you can’t control the comments you don’t support it? Would Hartmann have pubs in the Corio region shut down too because he can’t control comments made within their walls regarding his comp either? Hartmann needs to understand that in the decentralised media world we live in, no organisation will ever be able to fully control comments made on its websites.

How do we know this? Well, take a look at some of the comments made at the bottom of the very pieces where Hartmann is quoted and what do we find? Lo and behold, anonymous comments! Some in other people’s names. It turns out that to make a valid comment, all you need to do is submit a valid address, there’s no ‘double opt in’ arrangement as would happen if the site were truly committed to ensuring the veracity of reader comments. Consider that the Addy is owned by News Corp – Murdoch – and consider how the scale of the challenge involved.

Hartmann goes on to say some leagues have considered, or indeed actually have, set up their own forums for fans to debate footy issues in an environment the league can control but that the Geelong Football is not in a position to do so at the moment.

He says:

“We’re not planning to at this stage; you need the resources to police it.”

But Hartmann misses the point. People don’t want to debate an issue according to the terms set down by those who ‘own’ the issue in question. This is the very reason why the Web has been so successful across the board: it’s provided an outlet outside of traditional media for people with views that don’t sit with those who own the traditional media.

The AFL could try and set up its own forum and it would fail miserably. Why? Because they AFL would heavily over-moderate and the forum would have no spark, no edginess, and no editorial independence.

Yes, rumours do get posted on BigFooty. But one of the highest rating old media slots in the country is 3AW’s Rumour File. And print footy journalists are not above printing stuff barely above rumour status when they feel like it.

And yes, nasty, or distressing comments do get made about footy players and competitions and coaches and wives and everything else on BigFooty. But jeezo, last time I actually went to a game of footy, I heard thousands of people shouting out offensive, often defamatory stuff. It’s called being a footy supporter.

By and large, the mods at BigFooty do a good job. At the end of the 10,000 posts are day are made on the site and the moderators can’t pre-approve every one. In fact, they can’t really do much until they are pointed out.

If somebody does see nasty comments about themselves on BigFooty, instead of calling their local paper, they’d be far better off simply reporting the comments. The mods will see them and they will get taken down.

It’s a new technology and will take some getting used to. I’m sure the coach of the Strasbourg Griffons was upset at the implications of Gutenberg inventing the printing press and railed against these types who had never even run a single joust daring to comment on his boys efforts in the lists, but all in all, the world is a better place for that explosion in communication.

The other thing is that BigFooty, and sites like it, are not going anywhere. They can only grow, especially as every generation that comes along embraces newspapers and radio less and online content, especially that which, according to the Web 2.0 model, let’s you interact with the content rather than just consume it.

The final kicker?

Every time BigFooty gets a mention in the paper in a story like this, it merely drives traffic Chief’s way. I found out about this joint after being directed here by a mate who’d first heard about it when he saw it mentioned in a ‘dead tree press’ article about scurrilous rumour mongering on the Net. I’ll bet there’s plenty like me who’ve read the recent articles and registered here as a result.

Good stuff. The more the merrier.

I’m going to ignore the AFL’s typically hyperbolic and ill-thought drug stuff until later in the week and instead quickly address the growing sensation of Travis Cloke allegedly having done the dirty on Jake King, or “Dobbergate” as I’m calling it.

This Herald Sun piece spells out the various accusations quite nicely. It has to be said that Travis Cloke does not come out of it smelling of roses.

I’m of the firm belief that players shouldn’t dob, except in the case of racial/religious vilification or when they are the victim of something that could genuinely cause long-lasting harm, like eye gouging.

Anybody who goes out onto a field where Australian Rules football is being played knows they are going to cop a few whacks, be they within the rules or not. And those who dish out whacks that are outside the rules tend to find themselves being on the receiving end of a few too.

It was for that reason that Tony Liberatore used to come off the field covered in bruises during the tagging period of his career.

There also the issue for Cloke that nobody, not even the umpires, likes a dobber. Even at school, the teachers had an obvious contempt for laggers. Cops are also well known to have fair level of disgust for their informants.

I think it is fair to say that Cloke will have lost the respect of plenty of players and fans alike.

It is a fine line, what is acceptable and unacceptable and acceptably unacceptable on the footy field, but really, most of us in our guts know what should be tolerated and what shouldn’t.