BACK in the day, when men were men and Australians considered themselves more masculine than the rest of the planet, flying and drinking went glass in hand.
David Boon, a high-class batsman who could split the offside field with a single unfurling of his moustache, was famously said to have knocked back 52 cans of beer on a team flight to London, thereby breaking a record allegedly set by the pugnacious gloveman Rod Marsh.
All of which prompted another renowned wielder of the willow, Doug Walters, to scoff in his schooner. Walters claimed the record for himself on the grounds that he had commenced the booziest of his long-haul journeys in Sydney, whereas connecting flights had given his rivals a head start.
Spool forward a decade or three and what do we find? A couple of Western Force players being dropped for downing two glasses of wine – yes, two – as they made their way home to Perth after a comprehensive victory over the Rebels in Melbourne.
A third party animal, the Wallaby prop Greg Holmes, below, was similarly…er…wild, but the Force's lack of depth in the tighthead position gave him a stay of execution.
As Groucho Marx said: “Those are my principles and if you don't like them – well, I have others.”
