Tosspot of the week

I had someone else in mind for this week's award, but that was before yet another rugby league player was involved in a sex scandal:

Canberra Raiders star Joel Monaghan has confirmed that he is the player in question in a photograph that has been published on the internet featuring a sex act with a dog.

The photograph of Monaghan, a NSW and Australian representative, was taken during Canberra's Mad Monday festivities.

Monaghan issued a statement through his manager Jim Banaghan today expressing both remorse and disgust at an alcohol fuelled prank that led to images being circulated across social networks.

“Joel can’t blame anyone but himself for an act of stupidity that will haunt him for the rest of his life,” the statement said.

“Joel wants to make it clear that he was the one playing a prank on an absent team mate by simulating the act.

“There are no words of explanation that can be offered because none can be appropriate."

Well, the last sentence of the quote is almost right. There are plenty of insults that leap to mind to describe both the perpetrator and the act itself, but this is one of those occasions where insults are superfluous (superfluous - look it up). How can you insult someone who has already degraded themselves to such a level. Now I haven't see these pictures, but apparently they were doing the rounds on Twitter, and the person who posted them has evidently been the subject of vitriol from Canberra Raiders fans. Just why people think that shooting the messenger in this case is going to make the act any more appropriate I don't know, maybe they were after next week's award.

Sadly, this isn't the first sex scandal involving rugby league players (although at least the others involved adult human beings -- not that this justifies them in any way), and I doubt it will be the last. There will no doubt be a lot of calls for the NRL and the Raiders club to take action against the player. However, it is my hope that someone also remembers that the police have a role to play in dealing with these issues, too. After all, having sex with an animal is illegal as far as I know, so the police (along with the courts) really are the ones who need to take action.

Too often in these cases the media and the public expect football clubs with vested interests to take action, and frankly, that is about as likely to happen as the tooth fairy turning up on my doorstep and reimbursing me for those wisdom teeth I had out a couple of years ago. Besides, this guy really deserves to go to gaol (jail for you Americans) for a long time, and the Canberra Raiders don't have the power to make that happen, even if they wanted to.