Patrick McGinnity should, at this moment, be saying a prayer of thanks to the Western Bulldogs heirarchy for parting ways with Rodney Eade today and, while he's at it, he can send a thank-you card and bunch of flowers to the AFL as well.

For Eade's sacking, and the accompanying hoo-ha about where he'll end up and who'll take his place at the Whitten Oval, has totally overshadowed the revelation that McGinnity's sledging of Melbourne's Ricky Petterd on Sunday actually involved the words: ''I'll rape your mother.''

That brutal nature of the remark was revealed in The Age today and just as the airwaves and websites began to light up with horrified listeners and readers condemning the West Coast player for the outrage, along came the announcement that the Bulldogs were having a media conference about Eade's future.

That meant the media circus packed up its tent from Paterson's Stadium and moved en masse to the Whitten Oval where they set up camp. Until the next news story broke.

We wrote on BackPageLead on Tuesday that public opinion was divided about whether the AFL was too harsh in sanctioning the Eagle with a one-match ban for his comments which, at that stage, were known only to involve a reference to Petterd's mother.

But when the true nature of them was revealed today, bang, online readers vented their displeasure by the dozen. Supporters of McGinnity, thick on the ground the day before when they bemoaned the nanny-state AFL and wondered how their great game had been allowed to turn into netball (and many other cliched observations besides), were suddenly very hard to find. 

His cause was not helped by a blockhead manager, David Sierakowski, who popped his head up to say Petterd should be condemned for breaking the players' code of silence and helping the AFL nail McGinnity. In fact, it was an experienced umpire, Stephen McBurney, who overheard the remark, made the report and got the ball rolling on the investigation.

And why should McGinnity send the league's investigators a card and a dozen roses? Because his punishment for one of the uglier incidents we've seen in the AFL in recent times was a one-week ban and $2500 fine. (Plus, of course, the public shame and humiliation that goes along with such wanton stupidity.)  

We think back seven weeks to an on-field incident involving the Western Bulldogs' Justin Sherman and Gold Coast first-gamer Joel Wilkinson. Sherman was banned for four matches by the AFL for racially vilifying Wilkinson, who is of Nigerian descent.

And so he should have been.

But were Sherman's comments four times as offensive as McGinnity's? Did he say them twice, thereby disqualifying himself from the defence of 'oh, it was said in the heat of the moment'?

No, I'd say McGinnity got off very lightly and the AFL missed a great chance to drive footy's diminishing dinosaur population ever closer to extinction.