Joey Johns suffers Daily Telegraph Tall Poppy Syndrome

Make no mistake:

• Andrew Johns shouldn't have been swearing when the match officials missed the knock on this weekend vs Manly
• Coach Michael Hagan should have been more circumspect
• The Club should have been more firm when Johns ditched the ball presentation a few weeks ago against the Eels

BUT

This negative publicity about him started way back when he decided to pick and choose the International Games he could play and toyed with and finally stuck to Origin retirement. The newspaper made editorial decisions about how to handle this particular player and have been riding every headline since!!

You can't be "the games best player ever" for long in this country without the blowtorch being eventually applied... BUT here's the rub...

What does this current treatment have to do with Andrew Johns rescue package to keep him in the NRL instaed of switching to Rugby Union and playing for the Waratahs...

The rescue was a Nine/Packer initiated series of promises... involving future media opportunities!!

News Ltd have a long memory and it hasn't taken much for Joeys media to be fairly negative...

Just as his earlier punctured lung was blown out of all proportion SO TOO is this swearing story... it happens throughout any game and is directed at officials, players, thin air, etc etc..

It'd be all a bit ho hum except its true that the Knights are pretty much gone without him at this late stage of the year!!

Well, the reverse spin was action today as friends and family rue the possibility that if rubbed out Joey will head to Warrington in England to play and now the Appeal against the severity of the charge is in ans we;ll kill a lot of trees reading about it all in the next three or four days!!