Isn't it funny the way things turn out? How things you've said in the heat of the moment can turn around many months later and take a big chunk out of your posterior.

I'm thinking here about comments made this season by two of the AFL's highest-profile figures, the now departed Geelong coach Mark Thompson and Collingwood's recently crowned premiership coach Mick Malthouse.

In the euphoria of Collingwood's premiership victory at the weekend, Malthouse - also a fan of Confucius - talked about Erwin Rommel and Roman legions being the inspiration for his impregnable defensive structures.

But in round three, when Collingwood met St Kilda in a match at Etihad Stadium, Malthouse was not quoting German Army commanders or Eastern philosophers when he called St Kilda's Stephen Milne a ‘'f...... rapist''. He was invoking the spirit of Smith St on a Saturday night.

It was a slur Malthouse initially denied making but later apologized for.

In the heat of a quarter-time altercation as the two teams crossed paths - in a match, incidentally, won bravely by the Saints after Nick Riewoldt left the field in the first half with a torn hamstring tendon - Malthouse chose to bring up an incident from 2004 when Milne and teammate Leigh Montagna were investigated by police for a sexual assault. But which ended with neither of them facing charges.

I mention this only because two Collingwood players are this week being questioned by police over an alleged sexual assault involving a 20-year-old woman in South Melbourne on Sunday morning, about 12 hours after the Grand Final win. Newspapers have reported claims of a pack rape.

I make no judgment about what did or didn't happen, other than to say - at this stage - their innocence must be presumed.

But those Collingwood players - identified this morning by Neil Mitchell on 3AW as Dayne Beams and John McCarthy - find themselves in precisely the same predicament Milne and Montagna did in 2004. A massive media maelstrom is now sure to swirl around them for days and weeks.

They can only hope that, like Milne and Montagna, the storm blows over and they are found to have done nothing more stupid than drunk too much and behaved like stupid, egotistical imbeciles.

In his apology after that round-three match (issued by the club as a statement), Malthouse said: ``It was only after the match that I reflected fully on the events and my actions at quarter time. I apologise to Stephen Milne for comments I made in the heat of the moment, which were wrong and I retract them. I accept that after 27 years as a coach I should know better than to respond to incidents like this.''

Aint that the truth. Now Mick has two of his own players under investigation for much the same distasteful allegations, and he is asking us not to rush to judgment on them, to give them a fair go. A call which Stephen Milne, Leigh Montagna and one or two others will find a little bit rich. Or even seriously hypocritical.

Throughout much of the season, Thompson made no secret of his displeasure with Gary Ablett and what he felt was Ablett's procrastination in committing himself to Geelong in the face of a massive Gold Coast offer.

Thompson simply couldn't disguise his irritation. He held up Joel Selwood as an example of a Geelong player who embodied all the great ideals of loyalty and selflessness - virtues, by inference, that Ablett lacked.

He damned with faint praise some of Ablett's on-field performances, and said he couldn't understand why the wee No.29 would consider the riches on offer in Queensland when his reputation was assured for life if he stayed in Geelong.

It is said by those close to the Ablett camp that this niggling and needling helped little Gazza make up his mind. That his relationship with the coach had soured to such an extent that it was going to take an awful lot of work to repair if he stayed at the club.

Late in the season, Thompson gave an interview to the Geelong Advertisier in which he said he had no regrets about anything he'd said about Ablett during the year. ‘'I can't help myself sometimes. I am who I am, I'm just a very loyal person, very honest person, too,'' Thompson said.

Then, truth always being stranger than fiction, what happens in Grand Final week? On the morning The Australian ran with a story declaring that Essendon has secured his services as part of the coaching panel next season, Thompson was called to the club for an explanation by chief executive Brian Cook. It was then the coach decided to tell the club he was suffering burnout and might not be able to fulfil the last year of his contract at Kardinia Park. There had been no hint of this before but it suddenly surfaced the morning of the news report. Mysterious.

A week later, Thompson resigned from the Cats citing fatigue and loss of motivation. He is seemingly headed to Windy Hill, if not now, then in 2011.

So all the talk about loyalty to the blue-and-white, the lifelong service Ablett owed to Geelong proved to be nothing more than a sham. Thompson proved every bit as pragmatic and expedient as Ablett, but at least the player didn't get on his soapbox and start sermonising about loyalty.

In fact, the little master might be soaking up the sun on the Gold Coast right now having a quiet chuckle to himself about that very strange turn of events.