Which maybe the primary reason it appears to be on the increase. I can only imagine what some of the pictures from some of the famous drinking sessions would've looked like from the old days had there been camera phones, CCTV and social media.

I still think that back then the likes of these young men may have drunk too much but they would probably have been too knackered from working all day in "proper jobs" to have then gone out on the alleged rampage in the middle of the night.
The truth now is some of our modern sportsmen have too much money & too much time on their hands.

TBF in the "old days" there wasn't CCTV, and there wasn't even reporting of a lot of the types of crimes that NRL/SL stars are getting caught up with now. Who knows what was going on.

And we didn`t have solicitors who advertised no win no fee.
There was always trouble in the "good old days"
Men were men and were too ashamed to say they had got a good hiding from someone so just got on with it.
Trust me I was friendly with the likes of Paul Gill, Roy Dickinson, John Atkinson and Alan Smith who I am sure could tell you a story or two.
CCTV like has been mentioned wasn`t around either.

Yep. Drink-driving mentioned. People drink-drove *all the time* in the 70s/80s unfortunately. Including many of the Loiners first team, I'd imagine (case in point, John Atkinson, a former *policeman* got done for it many years later, once it became taboo.)

Take advantage of a girl when drunk? Go for it. Hell, marital rape wasn't made illegal until 1991. Controversy over a homophobic insult? Ha.

Fact is for all our rose-tinted memories RL was played in a tougher, more macho world on and off the pitch back then and there's no evidence that behaviour of the stars was any better than now, and I'd wager if judged by today's standards it would have been a good deal worse.

I have to agree - I sincerely believe that today's modern RL player is much better behaved than his 60's/70's counterpart.

The difference being social media, CCTV and the fact that 90% of the UK's under 25's have a smart phone complete with 'quick access' camera glued to their hand 24/7. Coupled with the unfortunate litigious society that we currently live in, misdemeanors like the one's that Zak seems to get himself into are quickly reported, dramatised, exaggerated, tried and sentenced on the internet within a matter of minutes.

In a court of law the defendant's previous behavior can not be a contributing factor to their trial, but with the society we live in today will pin a big fat "Guilty" on someone because of the past indiscretions before anyone can bat an eyelid.

So far we are debating something that might not even have happened.

Still seems a bit strange that the incident took place on February the 3rd and the first its reported is March the 10th. It said several men entered along with other students yet no images of them put up to question them. That nobody there was able to identify to police Hardaker who is a top player for the city's RL club and apparently entered the building with them?

If you stuck Zak Hardaker's face in front of four random students at any university in the country, I doubt many would be able to immediately identify who he is.

Even less so at 3am when you've just been woken up by a ruckus outside your front door.

If he's involved, it's one incident too many. Time he was gone.

I'm pretty sure the building they entered has decent security too so if they were in there then they were invited in by someone. Who knows what went on after that.

It's not just any random university somewhere in the country, the building is just down the road from the training ground.

As Charlie Sheen mentions in his post. The building has really good security, trust me I've been in it.....they didn't just sneak in, they couldn't.....someone must've let them into the building so someone knew who they were bringing into the building and as the original article says, they were SEVERAL men and students who entered together.

Let's get one thing straight before you read on, with this post I am in no way defending anything Hardaker has done in the past or has been implicated in this time, I'm merely making the point that people on here seem to be very hypocritical and cannot have it both ways.

This 'one incident to many' bull is an absolute joke, yes the England incident was one which didn't represent the club well etc, however the only other incident in which he has been found guilty of to my knowledge or memory was the homophobia incident last year, the same incident to which hundreds came on here and were making comments along the lines of 'this happens every week it's only because it's been seen on camera blah blah blah blah' so to come on now and say it's one incident too many after defending him over that one is absolutely ridiculous. Like I said you can't have it both ways, so if you were defending him last year and didn't think it was 'fair' then stop posting stupid saying 'one incident too many'

Then for the people who question his ability or what he brings to the team, get off your sofa and get to a game and actually watch other games too, he's the best full back in the league IMO and many others, hence why he was in the dream team last year, you may not believe his performances have been brilliant this season, but for one the lad had no pre season so he's only just getting going really and for two what's expected of him in terms of performance standard has been raised also. If you would rather have any other fullback from the super league playing for us over him, go watch badminton because you'd have about as much of a clue about that!