The Serve

Another West Coast Eagles star in trouble

DAILY SERVE: Mon 26/2

It shouldn’t really be of great surprise that the latest AFL player to be arrested is from the West Coast Eagles. The club has a past. A past of having their stars fall foul of the law and more pertinently a past of turning a blind eye.  

Daniel Kerr was thrown in the clink on Saturday night for disorderly behaviour. Not his first offence, but not exactly the crime of the century either. Certainly not in the Ben Cousins league of swimming across a river to avoid a booze bus. Back then the skipper was given a hearty slap on the wrist, as he was for a second offence later in the year for having a drunken altercation with police.

So? What are you gonna do? Get rid of him? He gets thirty possessions a game.

Up to half a dozen Eagles players have fouled up in recent times. Michael Gardiner the most prolific. Eventually he was moved on. When he didn’t become an on-field necessity, that is. Cousins was far too indispensable to make an example of, and with a 3rd and 2nd placing in the Brownlow in the past two years, so too is Kerr.

The Eagles are ‘refusing to rule out’ the possibility of sacking Kerr, much in the same vain as the Qantas hostess ‘refusing to rule out’ the possibility she’s carrying Ralph’s baby. Makes for a terrific headline but in reality is just a handy diversion. It’s a fun sport, the refusing to rule out game, you should try it. I’ll go first: I’m ‘refusing to rule out’ that I’m, um, the father of Anna Nicole Smith’s rich little daughter. Wouldn’t be the first bloke. I was in America a couple of years ago. Maybe I got so completely blind drunk one night that I’ve had the memory of having one the worlds most prominent celebrities completely wiped. Billion to one shot, but refusing ro rule it out.

West Coast CEO Trevor Nisbett was asked yesterday whether he felt the public shares the view that the players think they’re above the law. He said ‘No’. Fine Trevor, but does the club?