Football has a strange moral code at times. Players can commit reprehensible and illegal acts and have clubs and other invested parties go out of their way to make excuses, allowances or "wrap their arms around him" as the cliché goes. But explore alternative employment and they may have just committed the game's cardinal sin.
That's what it looked like, anyway, watching West Coast captain Oscar Allen delivering a remorseful mea culpa in front of a hastily-assembled media throng on Thursday, flanked by Eagles head of football John Worsfold.
Allen, whose crime had been to meet with Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell to discuss his playing future beyond his soon-to-expire contract with West Coast, looked chastened to say the least as he shared details of his earlier meeting with the Eagles' playing group.
"It was quite difficult. I felt quite embarrassed and ashamed in front of the boys," he said. "For me, I mostly feel remorseful towards our fans, our playing members, supporters, and staff, I can imagine how you guys are feeling."
Worsfold, for his part, said Allen's meeting with Mitchell was simply part of the modern player movement landscape.
"At any given time, there's hundreds of players out of contract across the competition," Worsfold said, looking a little like a schoolmaster watching over an errant student as the youngster apologised for giggling during prayer.
"This is not a unique situation. But the public nature of it we've acknowledged isn't great timing when the team is struggling on-field."
Fair enough. But neither was West Coast's crappy effort against Fremantle in last Sunday's derby great timing given those on-field struggles, and the Eagles as a whole weren't made to publicly humiliate themselves as a result. Why should Allen for merely looking at his employment options?
Just as well this media event wasn't staged before an opening training session, or Allen might have been put in a set of stocks whilst angry West Coast fans pelted rotten tomatoes at him.
Actually, to be truthful, it was mainly an indignant media acting outraged on behalf of Eagles' fans who were leading the lynch mob. "Utterly disgusting" was one journalist's somewhat melodramatic take on matters, demanding that the Eagles captain immediately relinquish the mantle.
Former player turned commentator Garry Lyon drew a distinct line between rank and file players actively exploring their options with rival clubs and a captain doing so. "Letting down the captaincy brethren," he called it.
"I just can't have it. I can't have the elected leader of the football club -- who represents the players, who needs to set an example, and before they run down the race eyeballs them and asks for a commitment and an effort and all that sort of stuff -- then be meeting with an opposition coach," he said.
"Now, if that puts me into the old-fashioned, old man category, then fair enough. I just think it's hard now for those players to look at him, (who will ask) 'are you with us or not'?"
Will they ask that, though? Would Allen's teammates really not give him credit for being professional enough to give his usual 100% not just as a player but as a leader simply because his circumstances may change beyond this season?
I'm not sure doubting their capacity to acknowledge the AFL club environment as a workplace where individuals are looking to better their career prospects whilst still demanding a wholesale commitment to the current cause does them much credit, either.
At least dual Geelong premiership coach Chris Scott trusts his players enough to do their job professionally whatever their intent beyond the season at hand.
"I would argue that the people who have the biggest issue here and are trying to project their difficulty of these sorts of situations based on their experience in 1987, aren't really reflecting what and how the players of today actually operate," he said.
But more annoyingly, what about the double standard at play?
Why is it that so much of today's football media focusses on the alleged professionalism of the game now to the extent that we are treated to a year-long running commentary on the likely targets for post-season trades and free agency grabs. And yet when a player, albeit a leader, explores some of those mechanisms, he's treated like a traitor?
Spare me the "old school" stuff, too, and the questioning of the commitment of a senior player just because he explored some options.
Those of us who have been around the traps can recall that just under 40 years ago now, Hawthorn's West Australian star forward Gary Buckenara was desperate to return home upon the formation of West Coast.
But while Buckenara's contract had expired, the Hawks, fearful not only of losing a genuine star, but of the new WA club becoming a powerful rival, invoked a controversial option clause to prevent him leaving. A bitter and protracted dispute ended up in the Supreme Court, and Buckenara, who lost his case, was forced to play with the Hawks or nowhere at all.
Far from the dispute straining relationships, Buckenara not only accepted his lot in a professional manner, but would star for Hawthorn for another four seasons, playing in three more Grand Finals and two premierships.
And that in an era where hoary old cliches about commitment to the jumper resonated in the football world far more than today.
Allen has given a mostly struggling West Coast great service for eight years now across nearly 100 games. He has every right to talk to whichever clubs he pleases, as no doubt many of his peers at other clubs have done without copping the sting of public opprobrium because some not-so-bright spark blew their cover.
And to now paint him as some sort of Benedict Arnold when AFL players are routinely treated like cattle up for auction is I think pretty distasteful.
You can read more of Rohan Connolly's work at FOOTYOLOGY.