Jon Ralph: Clubs, league need to ‘move with the times’ and end Mad Mondays

Six players and an umpire have been suspended across two post-season celebrations for offensive costumes in the past month. JON RALPH writes clubs and the AFL needs to ban them.

Time for the AFL and its clubs to move with the times.

Time for an end to the Mad Monday festivities and the increasingly troublesome dress-up antics that seem guaranteed to get AFL players and their umpiring cohort into postseason trouble.

Already this post-season we have had six players and one umpire suspended, the most recent incident the one-week ban for umpire Leigh Haussen.

Across 300 SANFL and AFL games Haussen has never hit the headlines but wearing an Osama bin Laden mask at an AFL umpires Mad Monday event finally gets him publicity of the worst kind.

Across the AFL, the other 17 clubs must be wondering what other Mad Monday pratfalls were lucky not to hit the headlines.

Umpire Leigh Haussen has been suspended for one match. Picture: Michael Klein

The AFL hierarchy, the AFLPA and the 18 clubs must surely be ready to draw a line in the sand.

If players want to get together in the postseason for a beer they do it on their own dime, on their own time, and without the kind of costumes that seem certain to get them into trouble.

Not the day after their season finishes at a quasi-official function with club minders that often sees exit interviews postponed until the players can sober up.

Surely GWS boss David Matthews has already made that decision on eradicating Mad Monday at his club.

Some fans might wonder why Josh Fahey got a four-week ban for his Jarryd Hayne costume and skit while Haussen received only a one-week suspension for his Osama bin Laden mask.

The more constructive query is to wonder why Haussen felt dressing up as the world’s most notorious terrorist and the architect of an act that killed 2977 people was remotely funny.

Or why Toby McMullin and Cooper Hamilton thought simulating the September 11 terrorist attack would draw laughs from their GWS teammates.

Former Giant Cooper Hamilton was suspended by the league after GWS’ mad Monday. . Pic: Michael Klein

But tut-tutting about it until the next episode this time next season seems the definition of insanity.

So time to leave the dress-ups to the kids at Halloween.

They are all lame attempts to copy Geelong, which invariably ends in sheepish players parading past the TV cameras as they slink into a private room of some Bridge Road pub.

AFL players are totally capable of finding controversy across the season on their own anyway.

So let’s eradicate one more opportunity to offend the community and do away with Mad Monday functions altogether.