AFTER all these years, it remains The King's deepest regret. "I wish I'd never done it," he admits. "If I had the chance to live my life over again, that's one thing I would change. Because you've got to live with it for the rest of your life."

There was never any doubt about Wally Lewis's full-blooded hack at Gold Coast prop Jim Cowell in 1989 while playing for the Broncos. Nor the oyster Cowell fired straight back.

"It was retaliation to something he said about my wife," the five-eighth of the century said yesterday. "The thing that I wasn't happy with is that I let someone I didn't like get the better of me. I was shitty, he was in front of me, and I cracked."

Did something crack inside Matt Hilder and Wade McKinnon at the weekend? A moment of white, blinding fury that stirred something in the sub-cockle regions, gathered speed in the back of the throat before being torpedoed out of the mouth like Michael Diamond in the Olympic men's trap?

Or, as Hilder submitted when asked how he normally spat: "I suck it in through the nose and spit out through the mouth - like most footballers."

The two spitting cases at the NRL judiciary last night resembled the Seinfeld episode when former New York Mets first baseman Keith Hernandez allegedly spat at Kramer and Newman after a baseball game in the 1980s.

Jerry's analysis then spoofed the movie JFK - and that's how it seemed last night as spit and its delivery was analysed from every angle.

Trajectory of spit. Angle of spit. Height. Consistency. How it travelled through the air …

"A liquid substance" is what Storm winger Anthony Quinn thought he'd been hit with, maybe coming from Hilder's mouth in the 79th minute of last Saturday night's match in Newcastle.

Hilder's representative, Bill Neild, reckoned there was a key difference between "a single, unified gob of phlegm delivered with an arching of the head" to a "scattergun of saliva".

It caused a few snickers in the room but he was right: a reputation hangs on whether it was intentional or not.

In an age where players attempt to crush another's vertebra in a tackle to gain an advantage, the dark science of spitting remains the most unwanted slur that can be levelled at a rugby league player, alongside eye-gouging.

Heading into last night's hearings, only Balmain back Jamie Corcoran had served a suspension for it when he received a two-match ban in 1993.

All players had successfully escaped sanction. In 2005, Manly hooker Shayne Dunley went so far to use reflux as his defence, claiming he inadvertently hoicked up a piece of food that had become stuck in his throat. He was suspended but let off on appeal.

There was speculation yesterday whether there was history between Hilder and Quinn but the Knights rake dismissed it after the hearing.

"I've played with him in junior NSW teams," Hilder said. "I thought he was a good bloke. I've got nothing against him. Hopefully, we can come up against them in the semis and get him that way."

Nevertheless, the former Knights winger was so incensed by Hilder's actions he wanted to fly to Sydney to provide evidence. Instead, he testified via video hook-up. At least they weren't in spitting distance.

It took a matter of minutes for the judiciary panel to clear Hilder - about as long as it took in 1989 to slap fines on Lewis and Cowell.

Weeks later, Blues supporters wore "Wally Golly Guards" at the second State of Origin and he was continually lampooned in the Sydney press that year.

But The King's mad moment doesn't follow him like a shadow, despite his regret. "You're the first call this week," he snorted. "Must be a Sydney thing."