Some part of me wants incidents like these to keep happening. I almost want it to get to the stage where the code itself is threatened and on the brink of going under (not quite but close). Hopefully by then the players and clubs will learn a lesson. They still haven't learnt anything it would seem. Year after year vile and lesser incidents happen. It might be harsh, but I think the only way for them to learn anything is for the code - in it's entirety - to get to the stage where their livelihoods are actually threatened. At least then things might change for the better.
That would work if they were all like that. But they're not. We have 16 teams with 25 guys each, I reckon 20+ on each team are great blokes. They work with charities without ringing the paper to take a photo of them while they do it, they spend Friday nights with their wives/girlfriends. A good night out for them is a quiet beer with close mates and a few hours spent playing Wii. This is the vast majority of players who go through their entire career without ever making a headline for the wrong reason.
A minority of them are dickheads, and they'll always be dickheads, they'd be dickheads if their livelihoods were endangered, they'd be dickheads if they worked at Maccas. We just find out about their dickheadedness because they work in a high profile job.
The only thing you can do about it is no 2nd or 3rd chance for people like Monaghan, sack em, let them be dickheads in their own life where it doesn't affect an entire code and millions of fans.
It saddens me that these incidents (which do happen too often) give all the innocent players a bad name. I happen to know a guy that plays first grade footy. He's a perfectly nice, polite, quiet bloke and he tells me most of his teammates are just like him.
It just feels like every 2nd player is troublemaker because its only the bad stuff that makes the headlines. Each night on the evening news we're not read a list of all the players who haven't done anything wrong that day.
