The tone-deaf Tigers have provided a lesson for all footballers

Of all the moments to make yourself the story, this wasn’t it.

Sure, the Richmond players celebrating the end of their season didn’t think they were making themselves the story, but no one does until they are on the front page.

Right now, in the post-Pullman environment, this was the time for footballers to know not to put themselves and their club at risk of becoming the story. So keep your shirt on, your belt buckled and your pants up (advice for the ages).

A week ago – before the events at the Pullman – Richmond players being filmed behaving as they were, shirtless in the cold, play-acting whipping each other’s backsides with belts, would be schoolboyish and boorish but little more.

Post-Pullman, the off-field behaviour of all footballers is viewed through a different, less forgiving lens – noting that police are still investigating the incident, with no arrests or charges laid.

What may have been seen as innocent tomfoolery a fortnight ago is doubtfully appropriate now. Maybe it’s a correction football needed to have.

The Richmond players thought they had done all the right, careful things and gone out of their way to avoid trouble. They hired a bus to take them as a group to country Victoria. They hired out the pub in Garfield from 11am to 6pm and requested no female staff be working out of a sense of due caution. They had chaperones with them to keep an eye on them, like teachers on a school trip.

They thought that secreted away in Garfield, population 2114, in west Gippsland, they were at risk of offending no one except each other and the cows over the beer garden fence.

They didn’t dress up in try-hard costumes that utterly misunderstood the line between humour and just offensive, like GWS and Geelong. They didn’t book topless waitresses or strippers (and certainly not to the team hotel at 4am). Nor did they hire people with dwarfism to throw and accidentally set on fire (see St Kilda a few years ago). The pub manager said the Richmond players were nothing but fun and well-behaved.

Apparently, one young player walked out of the bathroom still fixing his pants with his belt and another player quickly saw the untethered belt and ripped it out, lassoing it about. One player dropped his pants for reasons he is surely still wondering about today and was whipped lightly on the backside with it. It was camp but not intended, as has been assumed and feared, to be about the Swans or the women who have made complaints against them.

Were the Richmond players mocking that situation? They say not. In fact, they are indignant and are shocked at the very idea people would think so.

After the week we have had, they shouldn’t be surprised that people would add two plus two and get Sydney Swans.

You would hope the pictures without words told a misleading story and it was nothing to do with the Swans. You would hope so, because to think otherwise is an appalling idea.

The point of this story, whether you consider it an outrage or a beat-up, and the lesson for all players on Mad Mondays, Whacky Wednesdays, Thickhead Thursdays and F—wit Fridays is that they have to know: whatever players do as a group off the field is viewed through a different, less forgiving lens now than it was before. Behaviour lightly regarded as fun last week is a comment on toxic, blokey football culture this week.

For many the response to that is “about time”.

Max Gawn said on radio on Tuesday: “As an industry, we have a lot of people telling us that stuff is going on within our four walls. It’s our time to start listening. Is this one of these cases? I’m not sure. But it’s a great chance for us to reflect on lots of people giving the AFL feedback on culture. It’s another thing to listen to, so we should.”