Steve Deanne: Carney, Webster axings tip of moral iceberg

Todd Carney of the Roosters. Photo / Getty Images

We've gone too far this time, we sports fans, paranoid parents and mass media junkies. We've allowed society to mutate to the point where we punish our sports stars for offences that aren't really offences at all. We demand our fellow citizens uphold standards many of us couldn't hope to meet in our own lives, and then we tear them down when they prove just as fallible as the rest of us.

I'm referring directly to the sad demise of Corey Webster and Todd Carney over the past 48 hours, two sporting mavericks who have been sent packing in disgrace despite not having done anything terribly disgraceful at all. Webster and Carney are surely just the tip of this horribly misguided moral iceberg.

Webster was sent packing from the Tall Blacks and is facing sanctions over a positive test for Kronic - a substance that was neither performance-enhancing nor illegal when he allegedly took it.

The offences that saw 2010 Dally M medallist Carney "agree" to part company with the Roosters boiled down to going out to the pub with his mates. He didn't do anything illegal, didn't even behave badly by his own, admittedly low, standards. He went out for a couple of pints and they turned into a couple more. Ghastly stuff.

Yes, there were aggravating circumstances in both cases. Carney had promised his team-mates he wouldn't drink, so was guilty of breaking his word. In Webster's case, Kronic was not illegal but it was banned by WADA. He allegedly knew of his positive test for some time but didn't tell BBNZ, which makes him guilty of not wanting to tell one of his bosses his private life had got him in trouble - again.

Carney's NRL career is over, judging by these words from NRL chief David Gallop.

"If another club looked to sign him, we would want to sit down with that club and Todd, and understand what their plans are to keep him out of the spotlight off the field," Gallop said.

"That doesn't necessarily mean alcohol bans, but it does mean coming up with a plan where he's not going to make promises that he can't keep, and bring attention to himself."

Carney is a distinctively tattooed and pierced man who frequently appears on television and on the pages of every major newspaper in Australia. Is Gallop really saying he can drink but he just can't be spotted doing so in public? Perhaps the NRL plans to supply him with a burqa?

Either that or Carney will be banished to Les Catalans, a sort of French foreign legion for wayward footy players looking to rehabilitate from offences such as not smashing glasses in their girlfriends' faces or pretending to have sex with dogs. Okay, so Joel Monaghan actually went to Warrington, but the point stands.

As for Webster, given he has been previously sanctioned for smoking real cannabis, it's pretty clear he is among the 13.4 per cent of New Zealanders who like getting stoned. Webster's real problem is that he is part of a much smaller percentage of the population who earn their living through professional sport.

It will be interesting to see how his main employer, the New Zealand Breakers, deals with him.

Webster the stoner might not marry up very well with the family-friendly image the Breakers like to project, but can the club justify sacking him for doing something legal? Prior to its ban, sales of synthetic cannabis were estimated in the high hundreds of thousands of dollars a week in New Zealand, so Webster certainly wasn't alone in chasing a legal high.

I've got three kids and I hope they don't take drugs when they grow up, synthetic or otherwise. But if they do, I don't think it will be because I let them watch Corey Webster play basketball.

Just let the kid play.