You did it again...

I love a beer, and I love my League.

But again there has been an incident in our game that helps drag the League community back towards comparisons with Cro-Magnon Man. Just when you thought we?d been through enough with Coffs Harbour, phone messages and broken doors in fast food ?restaurants? we are again confronted with an alcohol related incident.

You do have to be careful when separating fact from fiction in these stories however. Sometimes those incorruptible media types get hold of it and beat it up a little. Trent Barrett?s little workout in his brief?s was a prime example of this. I couldn?t have cared less about that.

But the Craig Gower incident is proving to be a thorn in the side. I have a problem with this one I?m afraid. And given what has come out about it, I doubt anyone in the media is smart enough to make it up themselves.

A week or two after the National coach resigns, citing concerns over the drinking culture of our game, the Premiership winning captain of the Panthers and the current Australian halfback decides to tie one on for all to see.

Not that I care if people drink. Or even if they decide to go a bit overboard with the grog on their buck?s weekend. I don?t care that he might have crashed a golf cart. Those things are hard to drive when you?re drunk and you can always pay for the damage later.

The throwing cutlery bit seems a little dangerous, as does chasing someone with a bottle. But if it stops there you?d probably say: ?Well, things got a bit loose, but no one was hurt?.

Unfortunately things didn?t stop there.

I?ve never understood why blokes feel the urge to get their gear off and run about as though they?re Greek Gods parading their gifts to humanity, especially when they were thrown out of the Australian team six years ago for doing exactly that.

Surely, a man who has already been out in the representative cold would be traumatised enough to know he doesn?t ever want to visit that place again. Surely, when you?re removing your pants, no matter what state of inebriation you are in, bad memories come flooding back and the voice in your head tells you to put them back on.

But no, things get worse.

Despite having rebuilt his credibility as a human being since his incident in 1999, and gaining the trust of a beautiful woman like Amanda Flynn, he decides to grope another woman. I don?t know about everyone else, but whenever I get caught looking at another woman I get daggers from the missus. Imagine how much fun Craig is having right now explaining things to his fianc? with their nuptials only three weeks away.

It might actually be worse that Gower picked the daughter of Wayne Pearce considering the man has a conscience for the game and could be torn between exposing the situation in full and defending his daughter?s honour. If it were any other ordinary citizen I dare say all the gory details would have been fleshed out in our self-sacrificing newspapers by now.

So, Junior?s commentary on Foxtel should be interesting next season when he?s covering Penrith games.

But where does this leave Craig Gower the person? Well, all I could think of was an early episode of The Simpson?s when Lisa wires up a cupcake to give off an electric shock during an experiment. Her pet hamster tries it once and runs away. Bart has a go and also gets a shock. But he just keeps going back for more and more. Like Bart, Gower has now proved himself to be dumber than a hamster.

Sure, people make mistakes. But fools make the same ones twice.