Crikey

Today’s front page of The Age showed Collingwood player Alan Didak in mid-tackle.

Unfortunately, folks, we’re not talking footy here. The image tag “Not allowed out” is searing in its irony. Oh and Daks might need bigger ones if he wants to avoid the embarrassment in future. OK, that’s enough wink-nudge from us.  

As for The Age  — which was reporting the serious issue of Collingwood’s resolve to ”not fine or suspend Didak for his late-night drinking binge at a strip club that culminated in a hell ride with former Hells Angel and accused killer Christopher Wayne Hudson” — looks like it’s also spotted the boo-boo; the picture is cropped on the paper’s website.

Perhaps Didak could seek counselling and legal advice from Fremantle star Paul Haselby. The West did the same thing to him in 2003 — and were forced to issue an apology as well as reportedly pay him a pretty penny in an out-of-court settlement to counter the emotional damage. 

Meanwhile, must be the day for these things — find the fly in the Coles catalogue, as first spotted over at 3AW.

The Age communications director, Nigel Henman, writes: We checked that photo of Alan Didak thoroughly and our pictorial team is satisfied that the photo was a straightforward depiction of the player. The blurred hand in the foreground appears to have thrown a flesh color onto his shorts. Crikey also made a false allegation about The Age cropping the photo for its online version. The position is this: at 10.30pm on Monday night the story was moved down in terms of priority and the photo became a horizontal shape, not a vertical one. This is normal. It was only moved because of the priority of story and was not cropped for any other reason. If Jane Nethercote had bothered to check with The Age she would have found this out.