Role models deserve a fair trial

JOEL TOMKINS is fighting for his career with Wigan Warriors after a drunken, foul-mouthed rant at bar staff was captured on camera. He has been fined £10,000 and banned for four weeks by the club. Why? Not the fine or the ban. All perfectly explicable. Tomkins, and to a lesser extent his brother Sam, were behaving in an obnoxious way at Fifteens of Swinley, near the DW Stadium. Joel Tomkins, in particular, was aggressive and abusive. His behaviour reflected very badly on the club and it is right that Wigan’s owner, Ian Lenagan, has taken firm disciplinary action. Yet fighting for his job? Why does every transgression, every moment of stupidity, need to be met with the ultimate sanction these days? Raheem Sterling has a tattoo that some deem offensive and, immediately, there are calls for him to be dropped from England’s World Cup squad. Rugby player behaves repugnantly when drunk and instantly endangers his career. If this is a familiar pattern of behaviour, if Tomkins regularly frequents the bars of Wigan, uncontrollable, and aggressively berating staff, that is a different matter. Yet if this is, as it seems, an isolated, stupid incident for which he has already ‘profusely apologised’ — according to bar owner Tony Callaghan — why should it be career-ending? Walk about any town or city centre on a Friday or Saturday night and one would see this country has a drink problem. Bingeing to excess, fighting, collapsing in the street, if everyone who made an idiot of themselves in a bar at the weekend paid with their jobs, production would grind to a halt on Monday morning. Yet if a public figure steps out of line, the severest sanctions are demanded. He’s a role model — he should be an example. Yes, but shouldn’t we all? We get the Saturday nights we deserve; we get the rugby league players, too.