Mitchell Pearce was an idiot - but the video made his shaming even greater

WHAT bizarre times when you see video of a Roosters player with a dog and can no longer assume he is making a guest appearance on Bondi Vet, writes RICHARD HINDS.

iPhone footage of NSW Origin and Sydney Roosters half back Mitchell Pearce apparently drunk the night of Australia Day January 26, 2016, simulating a sexual act on a dog, and being kicked out of a party. MUST CREDIT: DiiMEX

WHAT bizarre times when you see video of a Roosters player with a dog and can no longer assume he is making a guest appearance on Bondi Vet. Days when we are bombarded with first hand evidence of athletes behaving badly. This requires a new rule of thumb.

When you see footage of a well-known athlete staggering around drunk or going the full Barry White with someone’s pooch, ask yourself: Am I outraged by what happened? Or am I outraged because I can see what happened?

When judging the appropriate punishment for the latest NRL “bad boy’’, the difference is vitally important.

Which brings us to the sorry case of the halfback, the lesbian kiss, the non-consenting poodle and the couch urinal. Which is only as funny as it sounds because you sometimes need a dark sense of humour to retain even a slither of faith in rugby league.

Not at all funny is that the career of a still relatively young and sublimely talented footballer is in peril because of behaviour that would be considered revolting at a heavy metal band’s after-party. That’s just plain sad.

But before imposing Mitchell Pearce’s penalty, ask that question again: Are the calls for anything from a six-month ban to public beheading justified by his drunken antics? Or does the viral video create a reaction out of proportion even to Pearce’s vile behaviour?

Recently, AFL star Dustin Martin, who has a rap sheet as long as Pearce’s, was accused of menacing a female diner in a crowded restaurant. It was alleged Martin threatened the woman with chopsticks and punched a wall just behind her after she told him to be quiet.

Martin admitted the alcohol-related incident, apologised and it was assumed he would be heavily sanctioned by his club Richmond. But after the woman chose not to press charges because she did not want to be identified, Martin was not suspended.

Despite Martin’s belated protestation the incident had been exaggerated, it seems unimaginable he would have escaped greater sanction if someone had trained a smart phone on him.

Mitchell Pearce will never escape this vision of him with a dog.

This is no way excuses Pearce. Players sign off on the standards accepted by clubs. As a Roosters co-captain, Pearce helped set them. The punishment he will receive for his drunken barbarity, compounded by his public humiliation, is entirely self-inflicted.

Nor can Pearce complain about being filmed. The price of sport’s vast earnings is that athletes now star in their own episode of the Truman Show.

Even if they didn’t, asking an athlete not to get paralytic drunk, make unwanted advances to a woman, pretend to have sex with a dog and pee on a couch is not exactly putting them in some sort of anti-fun straight jacket.

But for all that, Pearce will pay a heavier price than some because his disgrace is there for all to see. The expensive lesson: it is now very difficult to escape your own stupidity.

Originally published as Mitchell Pearce was an idiot - but the video made his shaming even greater