REMEMBER WHEN

GOLD COAST BULLETIN Friday March 5, 2004

A REMORSEFUL Darren Lockyer apologised for telling a ‘bad taste’ Bulldogs joke which he hoped would not damage his retention of the Australian Test captaincy.

Lockyer left more than 500 guests at a Brisbane football charity luncheon stunned after repeating a crass joke relating to the Bulldogs alleged sex scandal and the former St George legend Johnny Raper.

“You know, St George, they won 11 premierships with one Raper, imagine how many Canterbury are going to win,” he said.

The gaffe was met with gasps - as well as laughter from the audience and the Test captain soon realised his error of judgment, adding ‘that was in bad taste’.

“If I’ve offended anyone by my comments I apologise,” an embarrassed Lockyer told reporters after the lunch. “At no stage did I intend to demean anyone or trivialise the seriousness of events of the past few weeks.

“I hope that the people who know me realise that this is something out of character, without malice and is an unfortunate incident. Now I realise it was in bad taste and if I could have my time over again I wouldn’t have said that.”

It was feared Lockyer could be fined for bringing the game into disrepute over the slip-up but comments from NRL boss David Gallop suggested he would escape any punishment.

“It was obviously a massive error of judgment and quite out of character for Darren,” said Gallop.

However, it was feared the Golden Boot winner could see his chances of retaining the Australian captaincy diminish.