“There would also have to be massive improvement in the relationships between players and the media – in particular, the unfair scrutiny under which these young men are being forced to live their lives – before I would even contemplate a return to coaching at any level.”

Oh yeah, that’s the problem. Those pesky journos keep reporting the drunken fights, sexual assaults, gang bangs, drug abuse and so on.

It’s that sort of attitude that helps ensure that these behavioural problems keep recurring.

More immediately, exactly how does Gould think the media can be muzzled to protect people who commit criminal and socially abhorent behaviour? And why should rugby players get special protection? Shouldn’t TV and film stars, politicians and everyone else in the spotlight be able to avail themselves of this “Gould shield’ whereby the media can only report nice stuff about famous people?

And Gus, Queenslanders get the same scrutiny and they seem to be able to overcome it and deliver the goods on the field.

The NRL is trumpeting an increase in crowds and television ratings for 2009.

The league says crowds are up five per cent on the same time last year and have totalled 1,688,948 so far in 2009.

It says game one of the State of Origin series reached a record average of 2.322 million viewers across the five capital cities, 177,000 better than the previous best, for game three last year.

Weekly television ratings for NRL games are up 21.7 per cent in Brisbane and 14.2 per cent in Sydney.

And club memberships have grown 27 per cent with nine of the league’s 16 clubs achieving record numbers.

Of course, it helps that the competition is even and the quality of the football is high. And the publicity, even bad publicity, keeps it top of mind with the sports-loving public.

Today we are watched and we watch the watchers, recording everything and each other via mobile phone, Twitter, blogs, images, video and more.

Many of us who engage fully in social media are, like Armstrong, already living a Truman Show life anyway. Why not step it up to another level and allow athletes to record their conversations and interactions with the drug testers?

They can then publish them to the web almost as fast as the AFLD leaks to the pages of L’Equipe.

While many call for privacy and an adherence to a strict cone of silence in the doping wars, I think it’s time for total transparency.

Armstrong (and other athletes) should be allowed to fully record his interactions with the drug testers, all in the interests of openess and disclosure.

He’s halfway there anyway and it’ll make for great drama and entertainment in real time.

Juve Stabia are a club from Castellamare di Stabia, a town outside of Napoli (also the birthplace of Fabio Quagliarella). Juve Stabia, or the Vespe (bees) as they are nicknamed, have always been a club that bounced around the lower divisions, never reaching the paradises of Serie B and Serie A. This season the club find themselves in last place in Lega Pro Division 1 (Serie C1) and severely run the risk of being relegated to Lega Pro Divison 2 (Serie C2). The Vespe don’t have a bad roster, they have players who have Serie A and Serie B experience (Salvatore Soviero, Raffaele Ametrano, Raffaele Biancolino, Marco Carparella, and Gaetano Grieco) and shouldn’t be in last place. After the clubs latest loss to Pistoiese away from home, the fans decided to hold a little protest. They waited outside the stadium for the team bus to arrive, and when the players got off the bus, they told the players they were not worthy enough to wear the Juve Stabia colors (yellow and blue) and forced the team to remove all their Juve Stabia clothing and strip down to their underwear! Some players were in tears while others tried to reason with the fans, who wouldn’t hear any of it. Some players managed to get some kind of clothing from the equipment manager, but most had to drive home in their tighty-whiteys. Ah, Italian calcio, just when you thought it couldn’t get any more bizarre and crazy, there’s always stories like this that reaffirm the reputation.