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As Joel Monaghan fronted the media for the first time since the photo of his lewd act with a dog was released into the public realm he whispered to those around him “this is torture”. It was hard to disagree.
The representative centre sought a release from the final two-years of his contract and saved the club from having to sack one of their favourite sons.
He’ll now try to score a contract in the English Super League.
This was a man taking sole responsibility for his actions. He wasn’t looking for anyone else to blame. It would’ve been easy to shift some of the responsibility on to the still unknown individual who took and distributed the photo.
The club says that person isn’t in their own ranks.
Monaghan lasted just 2 minutes and 40 seconds in front of the cameras before he was unable to continue. The realisation that he had lost everything he had worked for was starting to set-in.
Raiders CEO Don Furner was even close to tears. He isn’t a man easily moved by emotion of that kind, but revealed he wanted Monaghan back at the club one-day.
Whether the NRL would allow that to happen remains to be seen. They after all hold the responsibility of registering contracts.
Since the emergence of the photo commentators have called for punishments ranging from suspensions, to counseling and the axe.
Would fans of the game have accepted the first two? I don’t think so.
It’s admirable, in a way, that team-mates tried to convince the board not to cut him loose, but those pleas were always going to fall on deaf ears due to public outrage and pressure from sponsors.
They’re a tight-knit group in Canberra and Monaghan is a much-loved figure, but the situation always had to be resolved in this manner.
The man himself says he knows he’ll be paying for his moment of madness for the rest of his life.
That’s a heavy burden to carry and while there should be considerable outrage at his actions, we should also keep his welfare in mind.
Given what he has lost, it will not be easy to recover from something like this.
It’s a remarkable fall from grace for a representative player and his actions have given the NRL an international black-eye.
His downfall should serve as a warning to other players out there.
It would be a great shame for no-one to learn from this situation.
You can follow luke on twitter @luke_doherty and on Sky News Australia.
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