Joel Monaghan dog incident a sorry tale of social media gone wrong
* by Rory Gibson
* From: The Courier-Mail
* November 15, 2010 12:00AM
HOW about that star footballer and his tryst with a dog, eh? Unbelievable. Imagine doing such a thing for the amusement of team-mates?
How can anyone think that is funny?
But they did. Talk about laugh! It cracked everyone up.
Bet they're not laughing now though, what with their friend being publicly humiliated and watching his career disintegrate.
Humiliated? What are you talking about? He's got a great job in the sports media and there was never any outcry.
Wait, are we talking about the same bloke? Joel Monaghan from the Canberra Raiders?
No, no, no. I'm talking about the other footballer, the Wallabies legend, the one who, according to a British broadsheet newspaper, had a very similar encounter with a dog to the one that has sent Monaghan's life into a very dark place.
Former England rugby international Paul Ackford, writing for The Telegraph in Britain, interviewed current Wallabies forward coach Jim Williams back in 2003 when he was playing for Irish side Munster.
Williams recounted the episode involving the player and his dog in graphic detail and it was published.
You could still read it on The Telegraph's website early last week, but curiously the page was removed by Friday.
If you do track it down perhaps you will be struck, like me, by how differently life has turned out for two people who allegedly did the same thing.
Both incidents were filmed, both became public knowledge.
But one footballer moved from a lauded playing career to a successful, high-profile television job, and the other quit his club in tears to avoid being sacked and is undergoing counselling to help him cope with the considerable fallout from his alcohol-fuelled moment of madness.
I'm not about to pass judgment on either of them, but I can't help but feel sorry for Monaghan. By all accounts he is an otherwise splendid fellow who, before this, was held in high esteem by fans, his fellow rugby league players and his employers, the Canberra Raiders. What's that joke about "just one goat!"?
There's been a fair bit of rough justice thrown at him, but more of the same should find a couple of other targets.
I want to know who took the photo of Monaghan that raced around Twitter. He should be sharing his mate's pain.
And I want to know who gave up that photo for public consumption. Monaghan should sue him for defamation, and include a seven-figure claim for potential lost earnings.
Whoever did that is a grub who should be subjected to public contempt of a greater intensity than what Monaghan is experiencing.
Is this how we want our society to progress? Is this how the internet and social media are going to shape our behaviour? If so, let me outta here.
We are already a country muted by the demands of political correctness, where no one SAYS anything interesting any more in case someone takes offence.
Now, with Twitter and Facebook, etc, things done in private can be instantly served up for scrutiny before the court of public opinion, and it is a very harsh arena indeed.
So we are fast becoming a nation where no one will DO anything interesting in case someone takes offence.
Why were the two footballers treated so differently?
Was it because the vision of one was only seen by a couple of dozen people – even though knowledge of its existence became widespread via the detailed eyewitness account recorded by Ackford – while the vision of the other was there for all to see on Twitter?
Was there a tolerance in 2003 that doesn't exist now?
Whatever, there is a lesson to be learned here by all of us.
No matter whether you are a teenager mucking around with your school mates, a footballer on an end-of-season trip, or a suburban parent at a neighbour's barbecue, you can never drop your guard. Or your pants.
If someone has a phone, that means they've got a camera. And if you so much as pick your nose, some bastard will take a snap of it and do their best to ruin your life.
