In an ideal world, sport stars should be people to look up to, people that youngsters can look to as someone they aspire to be.
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They provide a great amount of joy to millions across the world, both young and old. But as we are reminded over and over again, sport stars can be some of the worst people in the world.
In March, ex-Parramatta Eels player Jarryd Hayne was convicted of sexually assaulting a woman in her NSW Hunter bedroom on the night of the 2018 NRL grand final and forcibly performing oral and digital sexual intercourse on her.
Hayne was sentenced last week to at least three years and eight months in jail and a maximum of five years and nine months.
He has given notice he intends to appeal his imprisonment on sexual assault charges.
Hayne's legal team on Friday lodged a Notice of Intention to appeal in the NSW Supreme Court.
His legal team now has 12 months to lodge a formal appeal.
District Court Judge Helen Syme noted Hayne, 33, only stopped attacking the 28-year-old victim when she started to bleed, not when she told him to stop.
One would think that details like this would bring sympathy to the survivor of the sexual assault.
But once again, we have seen players leap to Hayne's defence.
Tony Williams has been axed by his American club and Krisnan Inu is facing an English league investigation over comments they made following former NRL teammate Jarryd Hayne's prison sentence.
Williams and Inu both took to Instagram last week, with the former claiming an "innocent brotherly" had been sent to jail.
Inu's post claimed justice was not served "to its proper intent".
"Because the things that was said about my boy, wasn't what he's about. Never has, never will be," he wrote.
Inu's English Super League club Salford confirmed an "internal investigation" was underway into "the social media activity of one of our players" while the governing Rugby Football League confirmed it had referred the matter to its compliance department.
Williams also labelled the victim and justice system as "flops", as part of his Instagram stories.
The posts prompted near-immediate action from the New York Freedom, who signed Williams last month as the highest-profile recruit in the new North American Rugby League.
Williams has since given what he would say is an apology via his Instagram account.
"To anyone that I may of (sic) offended I speak from the heart and most of time it's out of anger a brother had been convicted it isn't easy to take," Williams posted.
"People that know me know that I'm loyal and loving and sometimes gets the best of me but will never leave a brothers (sic) back when he needs me to hold him up.
"I apologise for the choice of words I used and to anyone that I have caused hurt.
"Especially to people that support me. Sorry."
Let's analyse this so called apology.
"To anyone that I may of (sic) offended" is not an apology. It is a way of saying that he doesn't don't think he is in the wrong, but that someone in their life (a PR team perhaps) has advised him to reel back his comments.
"Will never leave a brothers (sic) back when he needs me to hold him up." The person who needs support is not the man convicted of sexual assault. Standing by him and admitting such sends a message to young men around the world that Hayne is a victim in all of this. He is not.
"I apologise for the choice of words I used." Once again, not apologising for the sentiment behind his support of a convicted criminal, just the way he phrased it.
"Especially to people that support me. Sorry." And those are the final words from his post. You might think it's missing something. You would be correct, it is missing an apology to the woman Hayne sexually assaulted, although if I was her it wouldn't be an apology worth accepting.
Too often are messages like this taken on face value, with grown adults treated as though they don't know any better and that any wrongdoing should be quickly forgotten.
Kids need to be taught not only that this kind of behaviour isn't acceptable, but also to call it out when they see it.
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