Cartoon / Rod Emmerson

Cartoon / Rod Emmerson

My first experience of league group sex occurred in a mid-sized New Zealand city.

I had not been covering the sport for very long. A big game was in store.

In those days, teams and media often stayed in the same minus four-star accommodation.

As I was minding my own smalls and coloureds in the laundry, a player I had known for a mere few weeks came in to iron his shirt.

Talk quickly turned to group sex, as it does in these situations.

He kindly informed me that another player I hardly knew was, at that moment, hiding in a wardrobe watching another player I barely knew have sex with a woman none of us knew. Iron and shirt in hand, he didn't actively seek my consent for the telling of the story or its contents.

As this notoriously tough football gladiator delicately ironed his shirt, I wondered what this bloke would reveal to me if we actually knew each other moderately well.

I had enough trouble getting correct team lists from coaches - that's when I wasn't waiting outside the inner sanctum (grotty changing rooms) for scraps of information. Yet here I was, privy to these intimate dealings. This fella might flick me the game plan.

My tacit, unspoken approval for the wardrobe bizzo was mandatory. I put the soap in the machine and waited for my little world to go round and round.

With time to think about it, if the woman didn't know the bloke was in the wardrobe, she was being violated. Then again, she may have been proud of her romp, and delighted that it wasn't wasted on a few twisted wire coat hangers if and when her audience was revealed.

This story serves as an introduction to the topic of the scandal raised by an Australian television documentary that revisited what a Cronulla league team got up to in Christchurch seven years ago.

They got up to group sex, and it has left the woman involved traumatised.

The documentary has also led to an apology from the NRL boss David Gallop for the "appalling and unacceptable behaviour" of some NRL players towards women.

This apology should bring some comfort, hopefully, to those who have been wronged if only by dint of official acceptance that they were actually violated.

It is a necessary step from Gallop, deserving of applause. The players themselves need to break with bad traditions.