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Michael Clarke, Anthony Watmough, and Brendan Fevola – all sporting headline grabbers for the wrong reasons. Clarke, the new Australian cricket captain, is under the pump for publicly skylarking celebrating his 30th birthday.
Watmough is grabbing the headlines for urinating on a shopfront window on The Corso in Manly, at 9.30pm at night.
And Fevola was sent off in an amateur Aussie Rules game for Narre Warren, extending his endemic drinking and gambling portfolios.
What gives with these blokes?
Obviously they have no perception of who they are and what they mean to the sporting public, who effectively pay their wages. These players live in a little dream world of their own.
Or they simply don’t give a stuff what people think of them; they’ll do their own thing where and when they feel like it and never give a damn about the consequences.
Clarke was the most harmless of the trio, with a ton of television footage showing him the worse for wear after a long lunch that went into the night, close to home.
Which begs the question how did the cameramen know Clarke’s birthday plans?
Or was the whole affair stage-managed to show Clarke as a knock-about bloke from the western suburbs of Sydney?
If that was the reason, Clarke’s spin doctors badly read the mood of the paying public, where 74% of 21,000 Sydney Morning Herald readers voted against Clarke for the captaincy. Clarke polled a distant third behind Shane Watson and Mike Hussey, among 8,500 Daily Telegraph readers.
A comprehensive no, so last Saturday night’s frivolities gave the anti-Clarke fans all the more ammunition. It was a dumb call.
What was lost in the telling: the Australian cricket captaincy is the second most important position in Australia, next to the Prime Minister.
In the modern era Allan Border, Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh would never do anything publicly to damage the image of the captaincy.
Ricky Ponting had a few jerky moments en route to the leadership off the field that incurred the wrath of Cricket Australia, but none while he was at the helm.
When Bob Hawke was Prime Minister he went close after Australia won the America’s Cup in 1983, but for a bloke who loves a drink, he was in control at all times.
But Clarke seems to be in no-man’s land.
In his post-party interviews, Clarke has been bewildered why so many people have taken such an interest in his celebrations, and his behaviour.
He’s either naive, or thick – naive gets the nod in the light of him constantly saying he has yet to come to grips with the fact he’s the new Australian cricket captain.
Naive alright, and he’d better snap out of his naivety quickly or Bangladesh will give him a fright in their three-match ODI series starting Saturday, at Dhaka.
But from here on in, Clarke will be well advised to enjoy any celebrations behind closed doors, or he’ll be demoted from naive to thick.
Watmough is obviously thick, a serial offender on the drink. Yet a good bloke when sober.
But urinating on a shopfront window in Manly’s busiest street is beyond belief, flying under the radar set by his coach Des Hasler, a stickler for decent behaviour at all times.
A Kangaroo, and NSW State of Origin rep, Watmough’s been bashed with a feather for his stupidity. Manly suspended him for a week, and fined him a week’s wages – reportedly $8,000. The police fined him $220 dollars.
Watmough wasn’t the only Manly offender urinating. Terence Seu Seu was also suspended and fined. Both have run out of rope, another indiscretion and their contracts will be torn up.
Seu Seu has already had a contract shredded by the Newcastle Knights in 2007, after he was charged with drink-driving.
Some never learn, like Brendan Fevola, set to take over the national “Human Headline” tag from controversial Melbourne broadcaster Derrin Hinch.
Fevola, sacked by Carlton and the Brisbane Lions for his drinking and gambling addictions, just can’t or won’t help himself despite weeks of rehab.
It’s impossible to feel sorry, even sympathetic, for someone who refuses point blank to mend his ways. His send-off for fighting last weekend just another string to his shocking behaviour bow.
Fevola’s reaction post-game shows he simply doesn’t get the message: “I really enjoyed myself, it was good to get back and play with the local boys”.
In Fevola’s case, once a goose, always a goose. He’d better get used to suburban football, the AFL door is hermetically sealed.
And he has nobody but himself to blame.