Horton bluntly accused his rival Sun Yang of being a drug cheat at the Rio Olympics and then, famously, refused to share the podium with him at the world championships in South Korea last year.

The Yang camp have cleverly manipulated Horton's position to be seen as not only disrespectful towards Yang, but an insult towards all of China. Nobody wants too much trouble with China these days - it's just too big a market - and so the result has been Horton losing important sponsorship deals and, now, his school, Caulfield Grammar, have decided that naming their new pool in his honour, as was the plan, might not be all that good an idea after all. Caulfield Grammar has strong ties to multiple Chinese interests.

It's an unsavoury look - Horton calls out a cheat, then beats him (in Rio) for a gold medal only to find out the rival has better connections.

There is, though, the slightly water-muddying fact that Yang's infractions, officially at least, are quite minor. He was once found guilty of using a stimulant, but the stimulant had been prescribed by his doctor, supposedly for a heart condition, and had only very recently made its way onto the banned list.

And his latest - the destruction of the vial containing his blood sample - he claims occurred because he doubted the veracity of the testers' credentials. Controversially (particularly among athletes), FINA bought this explanation and found him not guilty. WADA disagreed and took the matter to appeal, the results of which are still pending.

On the surface at least, we're not talking Lance Armstrong here.

Or maybe we are. You get the impression that certain athletes with the required resources are somewhat gaming the system - staying one step ahead of the testers - and that the other athletes all know about it. Horton's treatment hardly encourages people to speak out. Better to keep your head down.

I once, in the mid '80s, played a pro-am event at Newcastle Golf Club with the great Bob Shearer.

It was a great day. One of the things that struck me though was, as I arrived at the course quite early, how many pros I saw climbing completely dishevelled out of their cars, having slept in them. It took away whatever perceived glamour I had of the idea of being a golf pro in Australia. They can't afford hotels? It was even more confronting when you saw how good they were. The difference between them and the champion that was Shearer? It was far from obvious.

There's something intangible about winning at golf at that level that goes beyond being able to hit a ball. It also takes enormous self-belief.

Local club champion Owen Beldham won the NSW Open at Newcastle in 1972. He was the first amateur to have done so and such victories remain extraordinarily rare. I have no idea how much Beldham was tempted, if at all, to turn pro - but he never did.

Which brings us to Stephanie Kyriacou. Competing as an amateur Kyriacou has just won the Australian Ladies Classic, scoring an incredible 22 under par at Bonnville to win by 8 shots (due to Kyriacou's amateur status it is the person who lost by 8 shots who pockets the $59,000 prize money ... that's golf.)

The win earns Kyriacou a qualification for the European Ladies Tour, a potentially very lucrative string of events where, you'd imagine, there is very little sleeping in cars. Kyriacou has turned pro and competes in her first tournament as a professional at the NSW Open this week in Dubbo. She was tied for 58^th after the first round. What a difference a week makes.

The Knights v Dragons at Maitland was a tremendous success with a big crowd. The numbers were such that the vendors ran out of stuff, including my beverage of choice, forcing me to nip to the pub at half-time. Still, a good sign. It has to be said - St George looked good.

What doesn't look good, to me, are these 40-minute pre-match "warm-ups" of players and officials as some form of entertainment.

Do people really want to see this? I certainly don't. How about a local game - Maitland playing Cessnock or Kurri or something. Or a competition perhaps? "Kick a goal from halfway wearing slippers for a car ...?"

Anything but a bloody "warm-up".