Support: Alex McKinnon has been working with the Newcastle Knights in player recruitment. Credit:Getty Images

McKinnon is not playing the game. He is turning his back on his mates. He hasn't let what happened on the field, stay on the field. He is not being a big boy about the whole thing, not taking his lumps like everyone else. He is not treating the NRL like a friend, a group of mates, but like, well, like a multibillion dollar industry that can well afford to compensate him beyond their promised "job for life", but have not yet done so.

To all those who so bitterly criticise McKinnon, can you get a bloody grip? And then give yourselves an uppercut? You have not the first clue how difficult his circumstances, what the financial drain on him is, just what his needs for him and his fine partner Teigan are, just what his daily life is like.

I have noted this before, and I will note it again. In the first place, the whole notion that whatever happens on the field has no place in the courts has been blown away for the last three decades. It was back in 1985, that the Steve Rogers v Mark Bugden case established that while players accept risks that go with the game when it is played within the rules, they really can successfully sue when sustaining damage for actions that are well outside those rules – as when Bugden broke Rogers' jaw.

I brought that up after the tragic tackle on McKinnon, and – once the NRL judiciary decided that the tackle was indeed outside the rules – posed the question: "With that ruling, the question begs: would a court of law decide that Jordan McLean is liable for the damages done, and that McKinnon could sue for them? In the case of Rogers v Bugden, the court decided that, in 1990 dollars, a broken jaw was worth $68,154, and Canterbury had to pay, as they were ruled vicariously liable, as the employer of Bugden. Just what would quadriplegia be worth in damages in modern dollars?"