I believe that no laws were changed that would not allow you to use intoxication as an excuse. Not that I would condone any sort of bad behaviour, but they are the laws.
We are slowly starting to see a different story emerge. Yes he may have crash tackled her as he came out of a cab, and from all reports caused no injuries and in front of multiple witnesses. But that is a big change from sexually assaulting her in a dark stair well. I would like to know where that story originally came from?
Agendas anyone?
Yeah, the media has handled this disgracefully but I don't think it is so much an anti-rugby league agenda as a sensationalism agenda.
Sex sells and sexual assaults sells better especially when it is a famous person. I mean it is easier for the media to just slap a rapist tag on a rugby league player because of a perceived image the public has with the average league player (a sleazy thug) and this image is in PART a creation of the media, but rugby league does need to take some responsibility for this image.
In these threads we hear a lot about responsibility. The responsibility of an unbiased press, of women to not put themselves into certain positions. Yet the one thing we don't hear from is that Rugby League players need to pull their f**king heads in with the attitudes that some seemingly have towards women and the public in general. They are not Gods they are very good athletes.
I love Rugby League and I wish it was a giant sport, but the players do bring this upon themselves. If they were all cleanskins then the media wouldn't be able to push any agenda besides "rugby league players, too boring ???"
EDIT
While I edit in the post I was responding to (this thread moves pretty fast) I will say this. Rugby League players are human beings and shouldn't be looked up to as angelic role models. That is certainly not the point I am making. They should be able to go out and have a laugh with their mates without some idiot filming every action they do on a camera phone trying to catch them doing something a bit stupid.
They do need to take responsibility for these sorts of incidents, but also the clubs and the sponsors if they don't want the players who advertise their products out acting like imbeciles. Sponsors need to stop giving players free alcohol. When Todd Carney famously pissed all over Dane Tilse's mate he had been fed free alcohol from start to finish by various sponsors.
Who would seriously turn down a free beer ? Certainly not me. The game just needs to be sensible about this, you don't need to ban alcohol but there has to be some kind of change in attitudes towards both alcohol and women and that will be difficult because these attitudes can start very young.
