Derksen’s Night Out Costs Him His Licence, and Carlton Its Patience

I’ve seen a lot of silly things happen to young footballers over the years, going right back to blokes I watched run around at Princes Park in the old VFL days, but losing your licence for twelve months with a reading of 0.174 is up there with the dumbest.

Wade Derksen has pleaded guilty to high-range drink driving, copped a $873 fine and a year off the road, and now the football club has to work out how to handle it. Point oh-one-seven-four is more than double the limit, mind you, it’s not some bloke who had two schooners too many and misjudged it. That’s a fair old skinful behind the wheel of a car, and I don’t care how many premierships you’ve got in the trophy cabinet, that sort of carry-on deserves every bit of the fine and the ban it’s copped.

No Sympathy for the Reading, Plenty for the Kid

Now I want to be careful here because I’m not about to sit here and pretend I know what was going through young Derksen’s head that night, and it’s not my place to carry on like he’s some sort of criminal mastermind. He’s pleaded guilty, he’s fronted up, he’s taken his medicine from the court, and fair play to him for not trying to wriggle out of it with some fancy lawyer and a sob story. That counts for something in my book. But by crikey a reading like that doesn’t happen by accident, and anyone trying to tell you it’s just a one-off lapse in judgement is kidding themselves.

Back in my day — and I know, I know, here comes the old man again — footballers drank like fish most weeks and thought nothing of it, and plenty of blokes who should’ve known better got behind the wheel when they shouldn’t have. The difference is nobody had a breathalyser shoved in their face on the way home and nobody had a mobile phone ready to film it either. I’m not saying that was a good thing, mind you, I’m saying the culture’s changed and thank god it has, because high-range drink driving isn’t a boys-will-be-boys story anymore, it’s a bloke who put himself and everyone else on the road that night in genuine danger.

What This Does to the Club’s Standards

Carlton’s been building something the last couple of years, and anyone who’s watched us claw our way back into contention knows how fragile that culture still is. You don’t get four years of good habits undone by one bad night, but you do get a headline that every opposition fan and every lazy commentator will drag out the next time we’re six goals down at three-quarter time and looking rattled. That’s the unfair bit of footy, the club cops the reputation hit even though it was one player’s decision on one night that had nothing to do with game plans or training standards.

Michael Voss and the leadership group will have their own quiet word, I’d reckon, and good on them if they do it behind closed doors rather than through some big public song and dance for the cameras. That’s always been the Carlton way when it’s done properly — deal with it internally, make the consequences clear, and get the bloke back on track without turning him into a public pinata for every keyboard warrior with an opinion.

The League’s Reaction Will Tell Us Plenty

I’ll be fascinated to see whether the AFL feels the need to stick its oar in here as well, because head office loves nothing more than a bit of extra sanctioning when a player’s already been dealt with by the courts. We’ve seen it before — a bloke copps his fine and his licence loss, thinks that’s the end of it, and then gets an extra suspension or a please-explain letter from league headquarters on top, like double jeopardy’s suddenly fashionable. If the AFL wants to have an integrity policy around this sort of thing that’s fine, but it should be consistent, and it shouldn’t change depending on which club the bloke plays for or how big a profile he’s got.

• Carlton needs to handle this quietly and firmly, not with some big press conference for show
• The AFL should apply whatever sanction exists consistently, not selectively
• Derksen needs support to actually address why this happened, not just a slap and a lecture
• The fans need to remember this is a young bloke who’s made a serious error, not committed murder

Where the Real Blame Sits

I’ll admit I get a bit cranky when people pile on these young blokes like they invented bad decisions, because last time I checked plenty of us have driven home after one too many over the years and just been lucky enough not to get pinged for it. That doesn’t excuse what Derksen’s done, not for a second, a reading that high is genuinely dangerous and he’s lucky he didn’t hurt himself or someone else, but it does mean the pile-on from certain corners of the media feels a bit rich given how many of them have probably done exactly the same thing without the misfortune of a booze bus waiting round the corner.

What frustrates me more is wondering whether the club’s player welfare programs are actually doing enough, because these boys get paid handsomely and get treated like royalty from the age of seventeen, but do they get proper support around the basics like getting a cab or a ride-share instead of getting behind the wheel? I’d like to think in this day and age with apps on every phone and a club full of staff whose entire job is player wellbeing, this sort of thing should be avoidable nine times out of ten, which makes it all the more frustrating when it happens anyway.

What Happens Next for the Boy and the Blues

Derksen will serve his ban, pay his fine, and no doubt cop an uncomfortable training session or two where the senior blokes make their feelings known without needing to say too much, that’s how it’s always worked at good clubs and I don’t imagine Carlton’s any different. The hope now is he learns from it properly rather than just riding out the embarassment until the next news cycle moves on to someone else’s mistake, because these things have a nasty habit of repeating themselves if the lesson doesn’t actually sink in.

In the end this is a sobering reminder, pardon the pun, that these blokes are human and make human mistakes, but it’s also a reminder that the stakes for a professional athlete with a public profile are higher than for the rest of us, fair or not. Carlton’s got bigger fish to fry this season on the actual football field, and the quicker this gets dealt with sensibly and put behind everyone, the better for both the player and the club. Just don’t expect the old bloke writing this column to stop grumbling about it down at the pub for a few weeks yet.