Susie O’Brien: While the AFL lets players act like little boys, what hope do our boys have to grow up to be good men?

The depressing, puerile TikTok by Collingwood’s up-and-comers isn’t amusing or acceptable — it’s immature schoolboy behaviour.

How can we help our boys grow up to become good men when grown men in the AFL keep behaving like little boys?

Today the AFL is facing yet another social media scandal, with a TikTok video of Collingwood stars Jack Ginnivan and Isaac Quaynor lying in bed and rating women out of ten surfacing.

Their depressing, puerile chitchat covers a range of women’s characteristics, with their ratings going up or down according to their smell, teeth, wealth and homeless status.

It’s the kind of behaviour we have come to expect from immature school boys trying to impress each other in the playground, not grown men in elevated positions in our society.

Jack Ginnivan tackled by Isaac Quaynor at Collingwood training. Picture: Michael Klein

It beggars belief as to how adults could think this kind of exchange is acceptable, or even amusing. And how could they then go one step further and film themselves and post it on social media?

It comes as Collingwood is already dealing with the biggest disgrace in the AFL at present, Jordan De Goey, who’s been caught on social media pulling aside a woman’s top and partying in Bali mid-season.

On social media posts he’s also seen making a crude gesture and mimicking a sex act with his tongue and fingers.

Video showed De Goey pulling a woman’s top aside. Picture: Instagram

Other video showed De Goey making crude gestures to the camera. Picture: Instagram

This is all after he was fined $10,000 in March by the AFL after a late-night incident in New York last year. Charges of forcible touching and assault were dropped and he pleaded guilty to a downgraded charge of harassment.

For too long star AFL players such as De Goey have been indulged and feted as long as they impress on the field.

Clubs have been willing to do anything to prop them up and keep them playing.

There may finally be signs the club is sick of De Goey’s lewd and offensive behaviour, with suggestions they are about to pull a multi-million-dollar contact.

But there are more clubs waiting in the wings to sign up such a talented player.

The club and the league must act swiftly and decisively in these cases, not only to punish these men behaving badly, but to send a strong message to others.

The code’s social media policy, which specifically outlaws such behaviour, is worth nothing unless infringements are acted upon and punishments handed out.

Sadly, the list of social media scandals involving AFL players is long and sordid and stretches back over a decade or more. It goes from Hawthorn’s Jonathon Patton, who was linked to sending unsolicited and lewd photos on social media last year to Carlton’s Josh Bootsma who proposition a young fan for sex within 15 minutes of connecting on social media back in 2014.

Ironically, De Goey sees himself as a victim, slamming media outlets for the “the relentless pursuit and persecution of athletes”.

We don’t expect AFL players – who are mostly young men with big pay packets and big egos – to be model citizens.

But we do expect them to treat women with respect and refrain from breaking the law.