It is evident now that there are two sets of rules that govern sport. There's the very malleable protocols that are used to manage Australian sport. And then there are rigid rules that Australians use to judge everybody else's athletic endeavours.
Given the history of NRL penalties for salary-cap cheating since 2002 when the Bulldogs were fingered, it is all but certain that the NRL has been compromised by at least one club rorting the system every year since. It would be a brave AFL supporter who stated that all AFL clubs are under or on the cap limit. 
This is plain old corruption. Officials who break competition rules, not necessarily for personal enrichment, but definitely to gain an unfair advantage on their opposition. We shake our fist at the corruption that has been endemic in world soccer yet there is every chance our bid to secure the World Cups of 2018 or 2022 was not squeaky clean.
AFL and NRL clubs stupidly allow witch doctors to run dangerous and illegal peptide and supplement programs yet when confronted with the facts fight any sanctions. That's Australia applying Australian rules.
The excuses to clear the footballers were plentiful if not logical. The players were duped, Stephen Dank was a "rogue" operator and the players signed confidentiality agreements. Australian rules also applied to the officials and coaches. It was obvious immediately that the people in power at the clubs involved had to stand down or be sacked. But Australian rules are not open to governance considerations. Especially if the folks involved are good blokes.
Yet we scream for justice for our Olympic athlete Jared Tallent who finished second in the 50km walk at the 2012 London Games to Sergey Kirdyapkin. In   January 2015 the Russian was found guilty of using EPO from 2009 to 2012 and beyond. The Russian athletic authorities stripped him of medals and titles through that time but left him with the gold medal from London. This cherry picking was overturned by CAS this year and Tallent is now an Olympic gold medallist. And fair enough. That's this country abiding by international drug rules.
Another example popped up last month and it yet again exposes how Australians seek to treat their countrymen and women differently from the manner they would act against internationals.
Former Labor minister Lindsay Tanner, who is now president of Essendon in the leaping, jumping, flying game, said Jobe Watson should keep his Brownlow Medal.
Watson is one of 34 past or present Essendon players suspended for breaching the drug code. He won the medal in 2012, the year in which he and 33 others were found guilty of being administered a banned peptide.
"As far as we're concerned it is an individual award and we will support Jobe in whatever approach he chooses to take, should it get to that," Tanner said.
The decision on Watson's medal will be made at a meeting of the AFL Commission at which Watson will be offered the chance to put his case to retain the celebrated award.
Tanner said: "All I can do is express my view and the view of the Essendon Football Club - we won't be the ones making the decision. Our view is that Jobe should retain that medal.
"We shouldn't forget the fact that the AFL's own independent tribunal â€¦ actually found they were not satisfied the players had taken substances, let alone that they were guilty themselves." The World Anti-Doping Agency appealed the AFL tribunal decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport and won convincingly. The AFL not guilty decision became a two-year ban. The CAS panel ruling "the majority of the panel is comfortably satisfied that all players violated clause 11.2 of the 2010 AFL anti-doping code and were significantly at fault in doing so â€¦" After CAS backdated the penalty to the AFL tribunal sitting and took into account the provisional suspension previously taken by the players the ban ends in   November this year. CAS had no sympathy for the players.
The AFL Commission will not make a decision on Watson's medal until a players' legal bid over the CAS appeal is decided by the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland. So it was interesting, no make that startling, to hear the AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan's comments on Fox football on Tuesday night.
The boss said, unbelievably: "I think the people charged with the responsibility of making that decision will not have made a more difficult decision, not just in their time in football but almost in their lives." This is the first time it has become apparent a firing squad must be involved in the process.
"I don't want to overdramatise it, but that will be as hard a decision they will ever have to make, I'm sure," McLachlan said.
"I think everyone involved (McLachlan won't sit on the judgment) - if they had to make that decision - would dread it. I think it would be as hard a decision as any one to make." So much for spending $200 million and a lot more to set up Gold Coast and Western Sydney. So much for suspending James Hird for 12 months. So much for throwing Essendon out of the finals. So much for the mangled illicit drug policy.
McLachlan said a number of conversations he has had with people throughout the process may make him appear anything but impartial, so should it come to a decision having to be made on the medal, he has decided to excuse himself.
"If it happened, Jobe would be represented, make submissions and it would be considered objectively and independently by the commission," he said.
Gillon, it is anything but a hard question. It is simple and clear-cut. Watson must lose the Brownlow Medal. You are seeking to apply Australian protocols which state no one is guilty of anything at anytime unless they are from, you know, "over there".Tallent is rightly now a gold medallist for the same reason Watson can no longer be a rightful Brownlow medallist. Ditch your Australian rules, Gillon, and stand up as a citizen of integrity in international sport.