Bad boys, whatcha gonna do?

SOME athletes have been known to have disciplinary problems early on during their career but mature as they grow older, rising to become big stars and befitting the skills they have.

Think football's Eric Cantona, Nicholas Anelka and some say Wayne Rooney.

But there were also those who could never quite get away from issues which curtailed their development.

Stan Collymore was one and from what we have seen, also the likes of Joey Barton.

Rugby has had its fair share of bad boys and the latest to fall by the side is Welshman Gavin Henson.

Having turned 30 barely two months ago and with so much baggage following him, the speculation is that Henson will find it tough to find employment with a big club anywhere in the world.

Exceptionally brave indeed would be the coach who agrees to sign him on.

He has been given enough opportunities to try and turn his career around but Henson's playing record in the last few years, both for club and country, has been patchy.

Since April 2009 Henson has started only 12 games for Saracens, Toulon, Wales and the Blues.

He left Saracens just after a couple of months after joining from Ospreys.

Some of his off-field indiscretions, almost all caused by his inability to hold his drinks, included being banned from a Cardiff bar, a fight with team-mates while celebrating a win, cited for an assault and causing mischief on a train.

The last straw which forced Cardiff Blues to terminate his contract two months before it ended was after he misbehaved on a flight to Cardiff earlier this month after a game in Glasgow.

According to reports, Henson threw ice cubes at the other passengers.

The airline, Flybe, also banned him from flying with them for six months.

Henson was reported to have gone out to town after the game, to return to the hotel only at 5am to get on board the flight two hours later.

Those who know Henson all say that he simply cannot control himself if he has had one too many.

Carianne Barrow, a latest ex-girlfriend he met on a reality TV show, remarked that "he can be an absolute idiot when he's drunk".

When he showed some brilliance several years ago, particularly when playing with the Wales sides which won the Six Nations Grand Slam twice within four years, Henson was seen as the future poster boy of Welsh rugby.

It has also been a gloomy time in the far south, to be exact in Auckland, where the Blues franchise have been doing badly in this year's Super Rugby.

It is in fact their worst performance so far since the competition, then known as the Super 12, started in 1996.

The team that won the first two competitions and finished second in the third have now lost six of their seven matches, the latest being Friday's 29-23 at home to the Sharks.

Last year the Blues finished fourth after the round-robin, before losing to eventual champions the Reds in a semi-final playoff.

The man targeted by fans through social media, radio talkback shows and the team's own website was Pat Lam, who started as their coach in 2009, when the team finished ninth out of 14, followed by seventh the following year.

The racially abusive nature of the condemnation, linking his lack of success as coach to his Samoan ancestry, caused Lam to breakdown at a press conference.

Lam's parents moved to New Zealand many years ago but Lam was born in Auckland.

His leadership qualities became apparent when he was made captain of NZ Schools and then NZ Colts.

He also played Sevens for New Zealand. Lam also played in 34 Tests for his native Samoa and appeared in three World Cups.

The record shows that after a great start to the competition, the Blues, despite always having some senior All Blacks, have mainly under-performed, except for their title-winning team in 2003, even under Caucasian coaches.

This year there's also the question of the physical condition of a few All Blacks, particularly an over-weight Piri Weepu.