This time, there can be no excuse. This time, Heath Shaw's rank stupidity in betting not just on an AFL match, but an AFL match involving his team - Collingwood - deserves the harshest sanction.

For Shaw has not just left himself open to accusations of corruption, not to mention jeopardising the intregrity of the competition, he has been guilty of the most thick-headed, numb-skulled foolishness. He wasn't even smart enough to get a third or fourth party to put the bet on - CCTV cameras caught him at the TAB, as plain as day.

How often does the AFL have to say it doesn't like players or officials betting on matches? How many times at media conferences can Adrian Anderson bang on about the need to safeguard the sport from any link to fraud and graft?

First, North Melbourne's David Hale and Sydney's Kieren Jack were held up to public ridicule early in 2007, when they had bets of no more than $10 on matches that did not even involve their teams. Yet they were publicly named and shamed by the AFL at a time when the league's rules about players' gambling were not widely understood.

Then, last May, four league officials, a club director and an assistant coach (Matthew Primus at Port Adelaide) were also exposed by the AFL for placing bets as small as $5 on matches, but again not matches that the six were directly involved in.

The AFL at that time was criticised by many, including BackPageLead, for its heavyhanded treatment of the offenders - one of whom, timekeeper Matthew Hollington, was hit with a five-week suspension for a $5 bet even though he was only a trainee at the time and did not even officiate in the game - and the almost mediaeval way it paraded them through the streets in stocks and invited the public to throw rotten fruit at them.

But this time, who can seriously quibble with the punishment? Shaw can't claim ignorance on this one. The league has made its position abundantly clear, over and over again: betting on matches by players or officials is verboten.

At a media conference this afternoon, AFL operations manager Adrian Anderson announced Shaw would be suspended for 14 weeks (six of them suspended) and fined $20,000 for betting on his captain, Nick Maxwell (normally a defender) to kick the first goal in the Round 9 match against Adelaide this year. 

Maxwell did start the game in the forward line but did not kick the first goal. His odds as first goalkicker plummetted from $101 to $25 in the days leading up to the game, prompting bookmakers - under an information-sharing agreement with the league - to report the plunge to the AFL's integrity commissioners.

Maxwell himself was also sanctioned by the AFL because some of his family members had three bets totalling $85 on him kicking the first goal. Because he claimed to know nothing of the bets, Maxwell was considered to have committed a lesser breach: he was fined $10,000, half of which was suspended.  

Shaw's bet then must stand as the worst ever placed on an AFL match. For his $10 outlay (as part of a $20 shared bet) has won him not the handsome dividend he was hoping for but a $20,000 fine, major public embarrassment and the serious displeasure of Eddie McGuire, Mick Malthouse and co.

For this is the sort of incident that can derail premiership campaigns. The publicity and controversy that will inevitably accompany this breach will go on for weeks and threatens to become a major distraction for the Magpies, as they chase back-to-back flags.

Other clubs have been wondering how to bring the Pies unstuck, given their dominance of the competition for almost 12 months, and might secretly have been hoping for injuries to strike down some of their premier players in the lead-up to the finals.

But, no, the Pies have been hit by friendly fire, and brought down from within, Shaw's stupidity and Maxwell's recklessness in telling his family about his positional change combining to produce a serious roadblock for the Pies' juggernaut.

(Interestingly, Shaw's ban - assuming he has no more bets - ends at Round 24, meaning the back pocket will be available for the finals series.)

The match was brought to the league's attention in May after a corporate bookmaker was approached to take bets on the Collingwood skipper kicking the first goal at Etihad Stadium, although there was no suggestion Shaw was involved at the time.

The league then launched an investigation, followed the money trail and that trail ended up at the doorsteps of Shaw and Maxwell. So the two fellow-defenders who played such important roles in Collingwood's grand final triumph last October - who could forget Shaw's diving goalsquare spoil of Nick Riewoldt? - will now stand accused of undermining the campaign to retain that hard-won premiership cup.