While waiting for a coffee in the northern Victorian town, I heard a guy at a nearby table whisper my name to his mate. Then, in a loud voice, he said, "I see where the Storm have contracted [former Collingwood premiership captain] Nick Maxwell. Probably to teach them how to behave."

It is true Maxwell has joined the Storm's leadership group but this is consistent with the closer ties between the two geographically adjacent clubs. To suggest the Storm, with arguably the NRL's best culture, could learn something about behaviour from the AFL club with the worst reputation, riled me.

I did not react because it would have merely reinforced what he was suggesting. A couple of months earlier, I listened to two female sports journalists discuss an invitation to the NRL's Dally M medal presentation.

Both women are regular attendees at the AFL's Brownlow but one of them had received her first Dally M invite. Apparently, women's fashion houses are very willing to lend their frocks to prominent Brownlow attendees but when our Dally M journo called and revealed it was an NRL do, she was told, "Oh, no, sorry." I listened in silence, sad that women interested in rugby league would be perceived this way.

Rugby league had four of the top five programs on TV in 2014, but it seems everyone I talk to in the frontier territories says, "Yes, but what about the poor behaviour of the players?"

This is no surprise to the NRL which, under chief executive Dave Smith, commissions considerable research. Last year, it polled 1000 people in Australia, not just rugby league supporters.

They were asked if they were aware of the Todd Carney incident where the former Cronulla player was photographed simulating drinking from a fountain, while urinating. The respondents were also asked if they were aware of the NRL's "Rise for Alex" promotion, where over $1m was raised to help fund the rehabilitation of Newcastle's Alex McKinnon, seriously injured in a tackle.

Eighty-four per cent were aware of the Carney incident, while only 66 per cent were aware of the McKinnon fund-raiser.

Sure, this is consistent with the media's "bad news sells" syndrome but the NRL can't reverse this. What the NRL can do is come down hard on every serious case of bad behaviour by players and be fair with the punishment.

Coaches are still troubled that some players are immediately suspended while others, such as Rabbitohs centre Kirisome Auva'a, who was released by the Storm, was allowed to play on and win a premiership after committing a serious offence. And coaches have to confront the inconsistency between expecting players to be extreme risk takers on the field, while demanding they be wholesome role models off it, retiring to bed with a glass of milk and an arrowroot biscuit.

As someone who coached in the Sydney competition for a decade, I was aware of incidents that would now be regarded by the media as atrocities. For this reason, I had some sympathy with the modern player being exposed by an increasingly vigilant and competitive media, tipped off from a public with access to phone cameras.

But it's all over, boys. You can't be paid $500,000 and do anything marginally offensive and expect your club to support you. Rugby league is winning the TV ratings but losing the PR war.

Rugby union, with its players who were once considered bastions of exemplary behaviour, is beginning to have its own image problem.

AFL and A-League players do not, although I still believe Melbourne views its AFL heroes with greater reverence. (The prison at Beechworth once housed an AFL player who is arguably their best ever but no one talks about it.)

Yet there are hopeful signs in Victoria for rugby league.

Every year in Melbourne, I help prepare a New Year's Eve quiz with multiple questions, including dumb quotes, such as, "I want all the kids to do what I do, to look up to me. I want all the kids to copulate me".

Every year, I include "Bert Kelly, Storm front row forward" as one of the alternative answers. There is no such person as Bert Kelly, Melbourne prop, but he has been a popular pick the past five years.

This year, no one ticked his box. Everything takes time when it comes to correcting an image.