Raiders board give Josh Papalii the 'wet lettuce' treatment

U Wot Mate? Dropped from leadership group, Dropped from Australian team, Dropped from 1 NRL Game. Loss of license, and fined. Note he fessed up to the police, could've called a mate instead and gone home and not even been caught. whats your problem.

Surely 2 weeks for Bromwich is more of a wet lettuce punishment than what Papalli received!? How about the excuses from Bromwich and Proctor - they said they were too drunk to remember..wow! What if Papalli had said he was too drunk to remember driving?! lol

Its a private matter for an error - any penalty is over the top but obviously others will be less lenient.

It would probably shatter into a thousand pieces!

I don't think any Raiders fan rues the loss of Milford anymore. It's just one of those sliding door moments - we wouldn't have out current squad if Milford was still on the books chewing up $1 million a season.

Forgot about Milford - thanks for reminding me Ron. Yeah I heard about Milford being shopped around by his manager - it would be ironical if he turned up somewhere else after playing the homesick card to go back to Brisbane. Still I think he was about 12 when he moved to play in Canberra so you can understand why he wanted to go home. His leaving hurt so much because he was so damn good and only just starting his career. In terms of the all the other bad boys Dugan, Ferguson and Carney - I think most Canberra supporters have moved on as have they - but whenever they turn up to play in Canberra they will get a right old bollocking from the home crowd - but I think it would be in jest now rather than hatred.

Nice work Ron . A lively debate . A name for the Raiders fans ..... Steve Irwin . Took the heat for golden boy and then got rissoled ! Now that was poor .

On a very cold Canberra day being hit by a wet lettuce is tantamount to torture.

Max - I've been really impressed with the consistency of Papalii this season - sure he was understandably a bit distracted last week but he's been on fire the rest of the season and deserved his Australian jumper. There are plenty of other Raiders players I would be pointing the finger at in terms of needing to improve their performances including Boyd, Soliola, Austin and Hodgson just to mention a few. Sezer showed signs of improvement last Saturday but the whole squad needs to lift over the next couple of weeks if they want to make the finals this season.

Dragging up how the Raiders dealt with bad boys in the past such as Carney, Dugan and Ferguson is always going to hurt. Not sure the Monaghan incident was as bad - bit like the Mitchell Pearce incident - it was a stupid party prank that got caught on a mobile phone camera. I think Monaghan was reluctant to leave and the Raiders were reluctant to let him go but both had to be seen to be doing the right thing. Its easy for other supporters to slag off at how club administrations are run and how retaining players behaving badly is going to contribute to poor club culture. The Raiders weren't exactly in a position of strength in terms of attracting quality players at the time these incidents occurred and tried to manage their bad boys as best they could. Given their marquee status their bad behaviour was tolerated more than it would have been for players of lesser ability. You can judge it how you will but from the perspective of a club trying emerge from years of mediocrity its understandable. Anyway we all live and learn. Dugan and Ferguson have become redemption stories eslewhere and are now playing for Australia. That hurts for supporters who used to love to see them play well in another strip of green but nothing can be done about it now. We learn and we move on. To Ricky Stuart's credit he seems to have moved away from recruiting talented local and imported youth and has relied more on recruiting solid mature players who fit into his vision of club culture. I'd suggest that Papalii is a pretty solid citizen as well but has strayed in terms of behaviour a couple of times - much to his own regret. The fact that he rang the police himself to report this latest incident is a pretty good indication of how remorseful he felt. I just hope he is getting the support he needs to put these incidents behind him.

I agree with this in some ways. I don't really care that much what players are doing off the field and would happy for the courts to deal with it. However the NRL has decided that they don't want their brand associated with bad off field behaviour. Fair enough. But then there's an issue of consistency. I might not have a problem with the behaviour itself but I do have a problem when some guys are getting 8 weeks for crude but ultimately harmless incidents while others break laws and potentially put lives at risk and get milder punishments. Its all subjective but it seems completely out of whack to me. I have my opinion on what brings the game into greater disrepute.

I agree he seems like a nice bloke but with two DUI's, a road rage incident and busted for driving with no licence. At what point does Papalii become a DH...? The Raiders have not always been hard on behaviour at all. They sacked players when their discipline and culture had sunk so low they had no alternative. If they'd been less tolerant of bad behaviour earlier, they might not have ended up with so many DH's. As big a pair of DHs as they might be Ferguson and Dugan haven't been in strife since leaving the Raiders.

Ron , Again,they are only footballers! Granted they can pass and kick a ball better than the average person but that doesn't mean we should hang on every word or action they do. They have the same attraction as a newspaper, grab your attention for an hour and half on Saturday and Sunday then go out and mow your lawns or wash the car. Next week someone comes in to fill Papalis spot, has a good game, we all clap and praise him (or not) Football life go's on!