In years to come, the St Kilda Football Club's calamitous mismanagement of the past week's New Zealand controversy should be used in media and PR manuals, in the chapter entitled "How Not To..."

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That the scandal has involved the often controversial Saints has been a godsend for Melbourne's Herald Sun and certainly anyone whose first name is "Brendan" and last name is "Fevola".

You know a sports story is very, very serious when "map man" does a special graphic at the top of the page and, in this case, "Saints in Crisis" is the motto of the week.

Has anyone considered that in the ‘80s, the St Kilda Football Club was on the bottom of the ladder, perpetually broke, changed coaches and key administrative staff like their underwear and played at the ground with the worst facilities in football for players and spectators alike? (But was a heck of a lot of fun to attend, all the same!)

Well, two decades later, apparently the club that has played off in the past two AFL Grand Finals, has a strong balance sheet, stable key personnel and has just moved into a sparkling multi-million dollar training facility, is just about stuffed.

Huh?

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So why is there a perception that it is in crisis? Because believe it or not, the St Kilda Football Club "told" us that it is.

Yep, the "crisis" started when the club's official website saints.com.au released a statement - which assured them a week-long bunfight - at 8:41 pm on January 31 that was just manna from heaven for those in the media trying to work out how to find new angles in existing but done-to-death stories about the NAB Cup pre-season competition, the new interchange rules and Juddy's missus.

In a nutshell, three 20-year-old footballers with a combined games tally of 16, and a moderately performed defender, have been fined the maximum amount allowed under AFL rules - $5000 - been banished to their VFL affiliate and forced to find "real work" in the community during that time.

They have also effectively been publicly hung out to dry by their own club, as three legs of this particular quaddie would only have previously been known to family, friends and dream-team nerds. While, outside of being known as Anthony Rocca's bunny during his Hawthorn days, and his involvement in an extensively distributed nudie photo with a couple of team-mates, Zac Dawson is as anonymous as most punch-from-behind defenders in the competition tend to be.

Their "crime" was nicking off from the team hotel & having a few drinks, which most in the general community could surely relate to at some time in their life, with the headline-grabber being the use of sleeping pills with the alcohol.

The Herald Sun's yes/no survey was an only slightly arm-twisting: "Was St Kilda's punishment too lenient for the four players involved in the New Zealand alcohol and drugs scandal?"

'YES' thundered 2631 or 63.83% of the votes.

Strewth! The club fined them the maximum monetary amount allowed, suspended them and organized counseling for them, and it was still far too lenient on them?

Just imagine what would have been expected of them had any of the players been pissed as a newt, got in their car, then proceed to drive through the local streets before gently finding a park inside their local pizza shop?

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But underneath the graphs, polls and headlines, the paper's Jon Ralph nailed it by covering the most intriguing angle to the story from a PR perspective. It stated that Dawson didn't consume drugs; he just consumed two glasses of red wine and broke a curfew. Because of that, he was deemed to have broken team rules so "the leadership group" decided he had to be punished with the others.

To underline, chief executive Michael Nettlefold was quoted in the story as saying: "Zac broke the team rules by being out as well and we felt it would be difficult to impose measures on the younger guys and for Zac not to be picked up in that ... Clearly, Zac wasn't as involved as the other guys. He is a little older and it was difficult to draw that distinction."

So they've allowed one of their own senior player's who wasn't accused of "misusing prescribed medication" (mixing sleeping tablets with alcohol) to be grouped in with three "kids" who did.

Their very own press release that fed the hungry media beast made no such distinction between Dawson's more moderate breaches compared to that of his teammates.

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But who at the club thought it was the correct decision to include the line about misuse of prescription drugs? Did anyone think through that there was absolutely no need for it to be mentioned at all, even if the decision to fine and suspend the players (perhaps) warranted a media release?

Consider that had any of the players been found to have ingested an illicit drug such as cocaine or speed instead of sleeping tablets, they could not have been publicly named.

Because under the controversial, yet thoroughly sensible AFL illicit drug policy, any player who tests positive to a non-performance enhancing drug is ensured confidentiality.

The AFL, its players association and experts in illicit drug rehabilitation have been lock-step in their belief that "naming and shaming" does not and will not assist an individual who's made a stupid choice through a snort of some powder or a pop of a pill. They have also made it clear that it is a confidential medical matter and that football club's simply cannot be trusted to keep this information to themselves. Yet they have collectively previously claimed, "But we have the best interests of our players at heart!" Of course they do.

Ask the families of Zac Dawson, Rhys Stanley, Jack Steven & Paul Cahill who would currently be fielding personal, gut-wrenching questions from all and sundry, thanks to their employer sending out a press release linking them to drug use.

Strength through loyalty?

("Racetrack" Ralphy Horowitz is a former producer at "The Footy Show" "Sunday Footy Show" 3AW and SEN, and now works full-time in horseracing. Twitter.com/rtralphy)