No, not a cricket story about Mitchell Johnson bowling a no ball!

It’s typical of self-appointed guardians of society like Neil Mitchell that they take it upon themselves to flout conventions, regulations or orders protecting the identities of those suspected of some criminal activity.

Of course, there’s more than enough precedent in everyday media. Television news broadcasts routinely name people being arrested or being taken into custody, often even when pixellating their images.

It’s reasonable to ask why high-profile footballers should be treated any differently.

But the real point is that NO-ONE should have their name broadcast before being found guilty.

This principle is even more applicable in accusations of sexual assault which can turn on the participants’ varying understanding of consent as it applied in the context of the alleged assault.

Let’s be clear that there should be no quarter allowed if the assault is proven to the satisfaction of the law and that the victim must be protected as far as possible from further harm.

But let’s also be clear that those accused or suspected of sexual assault are entitled to not bear the opprobrium if the case is not proven.

For at least some sections of the community, Steven Milne, Leigh Montagna and Andrew Lovett will be considered sexual predators whether charges were/are sustained or not.

It is reasonable and right to guard the identity of the females involved in these cases. It should also be reasonable and right to similarly guard the identities of the males involved up to the point that they are convicted.

No conviction, no ‘name and shame’.

Here at AussieRulesBlog Central, we thought the status of the words role model had been brought just about as low as was possible, but we reckoned without the charm of Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse.

Frankly, what Malthouse or assistant coach Paul Licuria may or may not have said to Saint, Steven Milne — and whatever Milne may have said to them — are merely indications of relatively tiny cerebral cortexes. It’s called sledging and we Aussies are supposed to be world champions at it, although the reported exchanges are hardly championship material.

For many years, the principle that “what happens on the field stays on the field” has provided a curtain for sledging and all manner of less-savoury actions. Participants in AFL matches in 2010 can not credibly claim ignorance of a multitude of high-resolution cameras examining their every action. What happens on the field is now public property, for good or ill.

The simple fact is that Malthouse and Licuria have no place having contact of any sort with an opposition player. The principle is well-established and Malthouse has been around the game long enough to know it.

We have an old-school belief that the more senior people in an organisation provide a lead for the rest. The team captain sets a benchmark and we expect the playing group to aspire to meet that benchmark. Similarly, we expect coaches to provide a model for those they are teaching to aspire to, not to mention the thousands of club supporters who might legitimately look to them to provide a model for their behaviour.

Malthouse, it appears, has lied. After the game, when it must have been clear to him that he had been caught on camera interacting with Milne, he denied speaking to anyone other than his own players. Come Monday morning, he’s offering apologies.

If there was any wonder at the time why Heath Shaw and Alan Didak were economical with the truth after their traffic brouhaha, there can be little now.

“What the hell were your blokes doing on a booze cruise in the middle of pre-season?” One hopes the start of Adrian Anderson’s conversation with Greg Swann and Stephen Kernahan carried some of this tone.

It is reported that the AFL will not impose further sanction on the Blues over the events of and surrounding the booze cruise.

Indeed, it’s difficult to see what more the AFL could have done. Despite the stupidity of the cruise in the first place, despite the club captain’s participation raising questions about his leadership, despite a young rookie being cajoled into a drinking “game” and despite Carlton’s somewhat equivocal response, this has mostly been a PR issue for the League. Notwithstanding the negative aspects of the publicity, League HQ will be secretly quite pleased that the whole issue of alcohol abuse at the elite level has had such an extensive public hearing.

It’s all but inconceivable that anyone even remotely interested in elite Aussie rules will not have heard the furore and formed the opinion that the Carlton guys shouldn’t have been on the cruise, shouldn’t have drunk so much and shouldn’t have abused the trust Levi Casboult’s parents placed in the club. That’s a pretty powerful message that has now had a good couple of months’ airing, importantly, through the generally ‘boozy’ summer and festive seasons.

Only time will tell if the Blues are able to generate some significant change to their inner culture. About the only person who might be pleased would be one B. Fevola — grateful, for once, to be out of the spotlight!

It’s not news that the AFL Players’ Association (AFLPA) provide a primer for all recruits to AFL clubs each year.

In this report, AFLPA general manager of player development, former Bombers big man Steve Alessio, says,

“ ‘We want to make sure they're fully aware of their off-field responsibilities and obligations [and] don't jeopardise their career by making bad judgments when they're newcomers to the game.’ ''

“Up to 90 per cent of the players will join a year-long program over 22 sessions that deal with budgeting, finance, nutrition, public speaking, defensive driving and more.”

Matthew Ricardson's retirement should be seen as a filip by Richmond fans, though I am sure most will see it as an extremely sad day. For AussieRulesBlog it’s a very sad day — one of my favourite whipping boys is no more!

Let me say, yet again, that Richo’s love for and dedication to the Tigers has never, ever been in question, and he should be applauded for this. The sad truth, however, is that Richo has, for most of his career, been a disastrous on-field role model for less exalted teammates.

I feel for Damien Hardwick today. He will have to maintain a solemn outward demeanor appropriate to the ending of such a famous career, but his heart must be bounding with joy at losing a significant millstone in his quest to return the Tigers to consistently competitive football.

No longer will messages about clinical skill execution be thwarted by a favourite son dropping clangers as if he were re-enacting Hansel and Gretel’s stroll into the magic forest. Forwards can now be expected, nay required, to kick goals like professionals without the most famous current forward squandering chances like a gambling addict at the tables at Crown Casino.

Today also marks the passing of the last of the triumvirate of mediocrity that anchored the Tigers to the middle or lower reaches of the competition for most of the last two decades — Wayne Campbell, Matthew Knights and, now, Matthew Richardson.

As an interesting postscript, just as the Tigers will, I believe, be able to make a new start with Richo removed from the playing group, Collingwood may find a similar benefit in the retirement of that endurance athlete, Anthony Rocca. Both have, I think, for quite different reasons, held their teams back.

In a recent press conference, a certain recently-resurrected AFL player whom this blog will not name — see the previous post! — made a comment about role model status. Those few who have read this blog in its entirety may recall a previous posting discussing role model status.

In 2001, I wrote to The Age Letters page criticising a coronial finding censuring Gary Ablett Snr for, among other things, failing in his responsibility as a role model (see here). As I opined at the time, Ablett had not been chosen by football clubs, nor acclaimed by the football public, for his capacity to make fine moral judgements.

Late in the 2008 season, Alan Didak and sundry Shaw siblings found themselves at the ‘Poor’ end of the moral judgement continuum. I was very critical of the three Magpies. The unwritten implication was that they had entered the AFL system in full knowledge of the requirement to be a ‘role model’. Following the recent press conference aluded to above, I find myself reassessing my position on the matter of role model status. Notwithstanding that reassessment, my general criticism of the Magpie trio remains, however the implied role model criticism is withdrawn unreservedly.

In considering the issue anew following this week’s press conference, I have concluded that there cannot be blanket assumption that everyone entering the system is appropriate to the task of role model when the primary consideration is physical sporting prowess. I am inescapably drawn to the conclusion that those equipped for the task will willingly embrace it, perhaps even seek it out.

It is irrational to suppose that these 16 groups of nearly 50 males will not contain most shades of the wide spectrum of human personality. While celebrating the football and team skills of these 800-odd men and youths, we must be careful not to automatically assume fitness for moral leadership. Let those who are capable, and willing, grasp the baton themselves. Let us keep our expectations of the rest to their sporting performance.

(with apologies to Mr Dickens)

Some years ago, at the height of the fallout over Gary Ablett Snr’s drug and booze-fuelled involvement with the death of Alicia Horan, I wrote to The Age condemning the Coroner's criticism of Ablett as a role model. In that letter, I made the point that Ablett would not have consciously taken on the mantle of “role model” later assigned to him by some (see below).

The same, however, cannot be said of Heath and Rhyce Shaw and Alan Didak. By the time these young men entered the ranks of AFL players, society’s expectations of the privileged few were crystal clear. I heard someone say, in the aftermath of their disastrous binge, that they’d been “hung out to dry”. I would contend that this is a misreading of the situation.

The facts are that these young men are considered elite athletes. Their club, their club’s supporters and the football world in general are entitled to expect that they act the part. By all means get blitzed on Mad Monday, but during the season we should be free of reports of drink driving, public urination and the like involving AFL-listed players.

If these young men, incidentally being paid pretty substantial amounts of money to be elite athletes, are so wedded to boozing through the season, let them play in a suburban or country team where their mates will be doing the same thing.

Times have changed; expectations have changed. AFL clubs need to ensure that club cultures also change.

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Letter to the Editor, The Age, 31 March, 2001:

Two high-profile AFL figures have been pilloried during this last week. One gained his profile through his business acumen and standing in the community. The other gained his profile exclusively through physical prowess. The community has, unfairly in my opinion, this week expected the same rectitude of both men.

The coronial report handed down on Thursday has seriously overstepped the mark in censuring Gary Ablett for failing a responsibility as a community hero and role model. The Coroner has mistakenly decided that public acclamation automatically confers the ability to make fine moral judgements. Nothing could be further from reality.

Ablett's status in our community derives solely from his ability to play Australian Rules football. His former manager, speaking on the 7:30 Report, described his life skills as "basic". His relationship with an adoring public has always been more-or-less one-way.

The football clubs who recruited Ablett did so based on his footballing abilities rather than his life skills. Whether they or his management should have so protected him from life is another issue and one that the AFL Players Association in particular seems keen to address. The footballing public marvelled at his deeds on the football field, not at his ability to live a fine, upstanding private life.

It is troubling then that a responsible government official should apparently be so caught up in the hysterical fan worship of Ablett that responsibilities and roles he neither wanted nor was prepared for are arbitrarily assigned to him.

The other figure, Carlton President John Elliott, has been a part of the business and political establishment and might reasonably be expected to understand the import of his comments and actions. By undertaking the office of President of an AFL football club he also freely and knowingly accepts responsibilities as a 24-hour-a-day symbol of the club. It is a matter of record that he treats these responsibilities with scant regard.

Elliott is rightly asked to account for his actions. He is clearly responsible for them even if he chooses to thumb his nose at orthodoxy. While the death of Ms Horan is indeed sad, it is grossly inappropriate to saddle Ablett with responsibility for the actions of another adult.
Neither Elliott nor Ablett are good role models. The difference is that one achieved his position understanding the consequences.