They, no doubt, were feeling my support, and benefiting from it, when, suddenly, I realised I'd been barracking (admittedly only subtly) for the wrong team.

The reason for the error was the damned jumpers! The colours were in reverse.

It's far too easy to be confused as to who's who these days.

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St George used to be a white jumper with a red V. It was the best jumper in the world. If you were wearing that, back in the day, you were one of the greats; if you were looking at it, from the front, you knew you were in for it... and there was never, ever, any confusion among the punters as to who was playing.

Maitland was a black jumper with a white M on it. Newcastle was blue with a white N. Country? Maroon with a gold V. Your number goes on the back. Simple. It was a good system.

Now, everybody has six different versions. The colours are still there, sort of, but they're covered in sponsors' ads. And that's the crux of it, really, I suppose: the jumpers don't really matter anymore; cover them in ads, it's all just a spectacle anyway.

The players don't care who they play for; loyalty to colours and clubs has gone entirely out the window.

And coaches ... McGregor is the latest one to go. It's all just a game of musical chairs.

It's weird. Everybody seems to think that they should be winning, all the time, and if they're not then they sack the coach. There's no unity, there's no building, and no acceptance, seemingly, that being beaten a fair amount of the time is part of the game.

It's like a grown-up version of this trend for giving all the kids trophies for participation regardless of whether they win or not. Everybody has to win, all the time ... It's nonsensical.

And referees ... Panthers coach Ivan Cleary has been fined $20,000 for saying out loud what everybody knows to be the truth.

Cleary said after last round's match that his opposing team (Canberra) were "managed back into the game by the referee". We all know that the referees are manufacturing "entertaining football".

And the other thing is the arbitrary nature of these fines. Doing something truly dangerous, like texting on your phone while driving, will cost you a few hundred dollars. Cleary's questioning of questionable refereeing is a tens of thousands of dollars offence? Really?

It's seat-of-the-pants stuff from an administration attempting to deal with an impossible situation, making it up as they go along, pulling rules, and fines, out of their bums.

Wayne Bennett has been been fined for having a public lunch. Alfie Langer's in trouble for being snuck into the back of a Brisbane pub for his birthday. (I wonder, how do you "sneak" the likes of Alfie Langer around anywhere in Queensland?)

There's now a whole bunch of Broncos "under investigation". They're football players; it's like herding cats.

The whole situation is untenable.

What's interesting though is, who's tracking and reporting this stuff? Everybody's now got a camera.

Whose interest does photographing and publicising Wayne Bennett having lunch serve?

With the extent of gambling in our sports, and the connotations accompanying accusations and potential standing downs of prominent performers, you do have to wonder at the possibility of sinister machinations in the background ...

Snooker great, Ronnie O'Sullivan has been in the news this week for candidly describing the newer generation of snooker competitors as "half-decent amateurs".

O'Sullivan said that, "I'd have to lose an arm and a leg to fall out of the top 50."

It was a brash statement, but then, when considered in light of achievement, O'Sullivan most definitely has license to an opinion.

And it made me wonder. Is there a sport where the modern competitors are better than in the old days?

In football it seems to me that the only interesting stuff is happening with the acrobatics of the wingers, and that's only because the corner post has been deemed to be no longer 'in-play.'

In other sports the progressions have mostly been about technology and better 'gear.' Golf, tennis - even athletics.

A recent study compared Usain Bolt and Jesse Owens in light of the differences in the shoes they were running in and the surface of the tracks and, with those factored in, found that there was barely a whisker, if that, between the two.

So, having asked, I can't think of one. Readers, let me know. In what sports are modern competitors better than the previous greats, without the advantage of technological advancement in their equipment?