There is a massive problem in the NRL, it's possibly the dumbest problem to exist because it's a constant cycle. No one seems to learn, no one seems eager to do something revolutionary and genuinely try to change the culture of the NRL. We just keep getting new stories about who was a silly bugger, who pissed here, who punched this guy, who smacked that girl, it's all terrible but somehow it keeps on happening.

The players, the men who perform these actions for some reason continue to do so despite know the consequences, despite often being in trouble before and continue to do the same thing. Take the example of Paul Carter who was given the boot by the Gold Coast Titans for his second drunk driving offence this year. It troubles me, nah it doesn't just trouble me, it bamboozles me how a young man with so much on the line could go back to back.

There are many human beings, let alone professional sportsmen who have problems that we don't know of or can't relate to. That's ok, people make mistakes and some people repeat those mistakes until the point gets through to them, who knows why but it happens. Just look at Jesse Ryder who has been down that road. Now, I don't know why he does it but who am I to judge when we don't know the ins and outs. But that's a very different situation as Ryder is the exception, while in the NRL such actions are the norm.

We constantly hear how much clubs do to support their players who are going through tough times, just look at how the Newcastle Knights supported Russell Packer. They perfectly handled their duty as an NRL club to ensure the welfare of a player and his family, but clubs seem to be absent when players repeatedly offend. Wouldn't you as a club, do everything to make sure a player gets whatever he needs to not make those mistakes again? Don't you want that player to keep playing for your club? 

That's the tricky part, we don't know if clubs are really doing all they can to ensure history doesn't repeat itself, but there is only so much they can do. At the end of the day, these are grown men who make their own decisions. Look at someone like Jake Friend, who had his issues but is now a extremely important cog with the Roosters. He didn't fall down the same hole, he came back thanks to the Roosters showing supreme confidence in his ability and character and of course his own willingness to grow as a man.

Young NRL players are given a rather extensive education about the dangers of their careers. Yet we see a plethora of young offenders like Jamil Hopoate, Kirisome Auva'a and Zane Tetevano who do dumb things. They have been through the system and should know, they should understand but they still did what they did. Young men make mistakes, but when young men constantly make mistakes despite going through the system, is there something wrong with the system? Or is it just that their elders, like Greg Bird, like Todd Carney set such a fine example?

You can't single out anyone or any party to take the blame, it's a collective issue because it's an issue that centres around the culture of the NRL. Somehow this culture maintains itself in 2014, somehow people whether they be players or officials allow this culture to exist. We as the NRL community have worked our way in to a cul de sac, with no escape with zombies swiftly approaching - you have to take drastic action. Not in terms of punishments, we've seen that the punishments handed out do little to stop dumbness, but in terms of the culture. For the NRL to progress, the entire culture has to be altered from the top to the bottom.

We get fed this angle that the majority of NRL players are top blokes, servants of the community and role models, which they are. But where do you place your standards? I would much rather see maybe 1 or 2 cases of a silly NRL player getting up to mischief than 10 in a year. The regularity and repeat nature of this sillyness should sound the alarm at NRL HQ, which I'm sure it has but all we have seen, the evidence, points to nothing being learned and nothing changing. That's the worry.