In the wake of photos emerging of Parramatta Eels forward Shaun Lane carrying a bag of white powder on what appears to be his former club Manly’s 2018 Mad Monday, Peter Sterling has weighed in with how Mad Monday can exist in a highly-scrutined media environment.
The discussion is nothing new. Calls for Mad Monday to be escorted to the big celebration farm in the sky have been ongoing since the early oughts.
However, technology has evolved and, with that, exposure has increased.
Sterling has had his fair share of one-day blow-outs, but can’t see a future for the event in its current guise.
“We got together on a Monday after our last week of performances and we had a great day,” Sterling said on Macquarie Sports Radio. “We sat there, we had a beer, we had a bet, we had a chat and a wind down from what is an arduous period of time.
“The players have got every right to do that, but they need to understand the world has changed. It changed when on a phone you can now capture an instant.
“They’ve got to understand that you can’t do things that in the past might have been overlooked or not seen. You couldn’t capture those moments on your phone or record anything.
“I’m all for Mad Monday. You’ve just got be sensible about it.
“Get together, have a good time with your teammates, who you’re going to have a little bit of a break from in the off-season before you get back into the hard work again.
“It’s not hard to go out and have a good time without offending anybody.”
MORE: The outrage over Canterbury's Mad Monday doesn't fit the crime
While Sterling is adamantly against the dress-ups factor of a Mad Monday, he’s not totally against dress-ups, apparently.
An easy – in theory - fix to appease the Mad Monday fans and detractors appears to be losing the phones altogether when the mood turns from sauced to salacious.
"I think the takeaway from this for players is the whole taking photos doing stupid things, whether it's illegal or not, just how it looks," Benji Marshall said earlier in the week.
"The thing of wanting to take a photo of yourself doing something silly and send it - we've got to be better than that.
"The times are changing, and I feel like as players we are changing with it."
MORE: Des Hasler responds to Shaun Lane Mad Monday images
Last year, Canterbury's Mad Monday ended up in the headlines after players were photographed naked.and journalist Paul Kent suggested the NRL may have to step in.
"The game didn't need it. It's disappointing," Kent said on NRL 360.
"I think mad Monday is something the NRL is going to have to start addressing a bit more seriously."
