SINCE when did playing rugby league mean surrendering your moral and civil rights?

Recent decisions by coaches, officials and players have seriously damaged the image of the game and mock the claim rugby league today is more transparent, honourable and less thuggish than the game played in the 1970s and '80s. Contracts were agreed by handshakes 30 years ago and coaches were expected to set an example. Yet Canberra coach Neil Henry's decision to renege on his agreement and accept the Cowboys/Broncos job for 2009 means he can't ever do a deal with a player and expect him to honour it.

OK, Wayne Bennett broke his contract with Canberra in 1987 to take his dream job in Brisbane and Phil Gould walked out of the Panthers for the Roosters but their departures weren't preceded by assurances to the playing group they would stay. No player re-signed, as Raiders half Todd Carney recently did, based on Henry's promise to see out his Canberra contract.

There was more chance of the men of the so-called Paleolithic era of coaches relying on Santa Claus than a hidden clause.

The Cowboys' Graham Murray is under siege in Townsville and Henry is unpopular with his players in Canberra, meaning he could head for North Queensland within weeks, provided he doesn't sign with Brisbane.

If there is little honour off the field, there is increasingly less on it, together with some selective editing of history.

Souths' Craig Wing suffered a dislocated shoulder during the opening-round match when Roosters hooker Riley Brown zoomed in like a missile on the half, who was held by two players as if crucified. An appalled Souths coach Jason Taylor said words to the effect of "that probably happened in every tackle in 1980". I coached first grade for 10 years around 1980 and can never remember it happening.

The NRL's on-field vice cop, Greg McCallum, took no action, saying the tackle wasn't against the rules. Nor did he cite Cronulla captain Paul Gallen for grabbing the testicles of a Titans player, ruling: "He didn't make much contact." Perhaps it wasn't a traditional "ball-and-all tackle" but what constitutes a handful?

If McCallum didn't think there was much in it, the Titans player has a right to be offended on two counts. Gallen was cited for attacking the face of Anthony Laffranchi after the Titans second-rower bravely returned to the field following 20 stitches in a wound following an earlier head clash with Gallen.

Titans managing director Michael Searle lamented this act "can still happen in the game". When did it last happen?

Thirty years ago players gouged, squeezed testicles, twisted ankles and bit opponents but if a player gouged an opponent to force a wound to be re-stitched, he would have been drinking on his own afterwards. Headgear and turbans of tape were always targets but digging your fingernails into stitches?

Broncos fullback Karmichael Hunt recently escaped censure for a shoulder charge on the Roosters' Braith Anasta, who subsequently escaped censure for a similar tackle on the Storm's Steve Turner. Hunt has form for this type of tackle, yet it seems the video vice cops are watching only the camera angle that aids the assailant's cause.

Club officials are exacerbating this degradation of players' rights. In his first day as Bulldogs boss, Todd Greenberg sought to build the crowd for Friday night's match against the Roosters at ANZ Stadium, his former employer.

His media comments about a welcome for former Bulldog Willie Mason will generate a "fiery clash", leaving the officials with lucrative gate-takings and the players with blood on their hands.

Fortunately, in this environment of increasing dishonour, some behave with dignity. St George Illawarra chief executive Peter Doust made the lonely car trip at the weekend to meet his friend and coach Nathan Brown knowing his board had been unanimous in their choice of Bennett as his successor.

Doust, aware Brown has a young family, may have wished to offer him a paid assistant's role but was compelled to put his board's position. When told Bennett loomed as his successor, Brown said words to the effect: "If I was a director at the Dragons, I'd be appointing him, too."

More honour to Brown.