Drunken debacles

1 Julian O'Neill

Jules could have had the first three places on this list but we decided to combine them as one. There was the time he urinated under a blackjack table at the Gold Coast casino; the time he defecated in the shoe of Souths teammate Jeremy Schloss and smeared faeces around his Dubbo motel room, and then infamously told a teammate "I shat in Schlossy's shoe"; and the time, with a cigarette lighter, he tried to set fire to a 13-year-old boy dressed as mascot Danny the Dolphin, on a boat cruise at Port Macquarie.

2 Mark Gasnier

It was Origin time last year when, at 3.41am, Gasnier - full of juice - used Anthony Minichiello's phone to leave this message on the answering machine of a woman: "Where the f--- are you? There's four toey humans in the cab. It's 20 to four … and you're in bed, f--- me. Fire up, you sad c---." Gasnier was fired by NSW and fined $50,000 by his club, St George Illawarra.

3 ACT Brumbies

After a night out in Cape Town following a Super 12 game, five Brumbies - Joe Roff, Owen Finegan, Rod Kafer, Bill Young and Peter Ryan - hailed a taxi and refused to pay the fare. When driver Riedewaan Abrahams turned in to a police station to seek help, the players formed a scrum and pushed the taxi down the road, ripped out the meter and dented the roof.

4 Brad Fittler

He was described by a police source as "the drunkest human being ever". After spending the night on a boat carrying women on a hen's night, "Blind" Freddie found himself - or someone found him - lying on the nature strip outside Glebe police station. Police said he was unable to communicate and they allowed him to remain on the premises for three hours until he was sober enough to supply his home address and be taxied home. His coach at the time, Phil Gould, said: "He's gone where we tell all our kids to go when they've got a problem: to their nearest friendly police station. He showed good sense to get help."

5 Royce Vardy, Jay Schulz

In 2001 Vardy blew three times the legal limit when breath-tested. In 2005, Schulz, a P-plater, failed the test after driving 80kmh in a 40kmh zone. Nothing unusual you might think, but their AFL club, Richmond, was sponsored by Victoria's Transport Accident Commission, which has spent years pushing the message that drink drivers are idiots. The club was warned in 2001, but after Schulz, the TAC withdrew its sponsorship, costing the club $400,000 plus incentives.

6 Pat Rafter

After taking an unbeatable 3-0 lead in the 1997 Davis Cup quarter-final against the Czech Republic, Rafter and the team went to a nightclub to celebrate. Rafter had a few and fronted the next day to play the dead rubber, which he won. He later admitted he was still drunk when he turned up to play. He apologised profusely for the incident, saying he had set a bad example. "The one regret I do have is giving children the wrong impression of using alcohol to win matches. You just can't do it."

7 Gennadi Touretski

The former Australian swimming coach had a few problems with alcohol. He was jailed for a month and fined $10,000 in 1995 after biting a flight attendant's forearm and poking a passenger in the eye while drunk on a flight to Hawaii. He also was fined $600 for negligent driving, refusing to supply a breath test and failing to stop at an accident in Canberra in 1997. Police said he was "heavily inebriated" after a party to celebrate his Australian citizenship.

8 Mark Jacobsen

It wasn't exactly an atrocity, but it involved alcohol and lawn bowls, so it's worth a mention. Jacobsen, a Commonwealth Games gold medallist, was sacked by the Altona North club in 1999 after being accused of drinking the night before a major competition. Jacobsen and his team went down by four shots in an event at Corowa, but the previous night, he, his wife and friends had been at a nightclub until the early hours. Jacobsen denied he was drunk, having had only eight beers through the day and night.

9 Quinten Hann

The Melbourne snooker player made another controversial exit from the world snooker championship this year when he claimed he was suffering from a hangover when beaten 10-2 by Peter Ebdon. Hann had to borrow another player's cue after finding his own had a piece missing when it arrived back from Beijing after the China Open, but rather than practise with the cue, he got on the turps. "I went down the local snooker club … had more than a few drinks and the hangover kicked in during the game. I was going to pull out but it wouldn't have been fair on Peter not to get a match, so I thought playing was the right thing to do." What a guy.

10 So many others

Others deserving a mention include golfer John Daly, for trashing hotel rooms and being escorted off planes drunk; Chris Walker for breaking Origin camp curfew and being doused by police with capsicum spray (he was charged with assaulting and obstructing police and being a public nuisance); Craig Gower for exposing himself to an Irish woman at the Coogee Bay Hotel after a bonding session, Matt Dunning for breaking the nose of teammate Des Tuiavii on a night out; and the many British footballers with stories to tell, like George Best and Paul Gascoigne.

Michael Cowley