PAUL Kent has revealed the timing couldn’t have been worse for the Bulldogs’ Mad Monday furore.

Addressing the club’s drunken antics on NRL 360 on Tuesday evening, Kent said ARL chairman Peter Beattie is currently trying to secure a funding deal with Western Australian premier Mark McGowan.

But his negotiating power has taken a big hit since pictures surfaced of nude, vomiting and passed out Canterbury players.

“I understand the whole boys being boys thinking, and that argument quickly hijacks the real argument here, which is we’re trying to sell the game and every time we do something like this as a game, it’s one step forward and two steps back,” Kent said.

“I wrote in my column [today], Peter Beattie the ARL Commissioner is in Perth as we speak. Today he met with the Premier of Western Australia trying to get them to commit funding to the NRL.

“And his words to me were, ‘It’s embarrassing, I look like a goose’. He walks in asking for money and when they say, ‘Oh rugby league, let’s see what’s happening in rugby league?’, they see this.”

He said the arguments that it’s the result of the “intrusive media”, or just players letting off steam, only serve to hold the game back.

“Look there’s a whole range of arguments here, [but] we can’t be hijacked by the arguments,” he continued.

“One against the intrusive media. Whether you like us or not we’re the reality. Same as if you’re a Canberra politician, same as if you’re a Hollywood actor, the reality is you have to deal with us, good and bad.

“And the other argument, ‘Ah look they’re just guys letting off a bit of [steam]’... The RLPA came out with a statement today which was embarrassing, saying that they’re entitled to let their hair down at the end of a long season.

“Well hang on, first they finished 12th right, so you want to celebrate? Celebrate doing something, not finishing 12th. Second, there are ways to let your hair down without offending people in your general vicinity.

“Now I don’t know who was at that pub but I’ll tell you now if I’m sitting there having a beer and some bloke next to me decides it’s fun to pull his gear off and start waving around in the breeze... If I did it in a pub the bouncer would grab me by the ear and toss me on the road.”