And finally tonight to a former sports star caught in the media gaze.

And I'm not talking about Grant Hackett and his painful public struggle.

James Hird of Essendon fame and infamy was also back in the spotlight earlier this month - and while The Australian had him on the front page, it was the Daily Mail, again, who really went to town.

A slim and smiling James Hird leaves his home in Melbourne to go for a coffee with a friend at a local cafe as the AFL legend is seen for the first time since his drug overdose — The Daily Mail, 9 February, 2017

The Daily Mail, which has an insatiable thirst for celebrity tales posted no less than 13 photos of Hird walking near his house, most of them with this mystery woman.

The former Essendon AFL coach looked trim as he left his family home in Melbourne's upmarket Toorak with a female friend — The Daily Mail, 9 February, 2017

A female friend, eh? So who could it be? Well, as the Daily Mail told us, it was not his wife.

Hird's wife Tania, who has remained tight-lipped about his overdose except to ask the media for privacy, was not pictured as the pair caught up — The Daily Mail, 9 February, 2017

Yes, they're clearly close. And are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Well, don't, because that is not his lover.

As a furious Hird family member told us:

If it is so important that James' companion must appear in 13 photographs, surely the public has the right to her being named as his sister so there is no doubt about details of James' personal life. — Hird's Family Member, 12 February, 2017

Yes, it's Hird's sister Amilia. As the Mail could have discovered.

And after all that James Hird and his family has been through over the last four years, surely it's time anyway to give the guy a break.

James has paid an enormous penalty, he has suffered illness that has threatened to kill him. His family has endured years of their life being considered public property. There is little that should be of any interest left for the public. The Hird family is entitled to retreat to a private life and protect itself from invasion of privacy. — Hird's Family Member, 12 February, 2017

We agree. And especially protection from nasty suggestive stories like that.