Benji Marshall

On school visits, Benji Marshall has a fun and disarming way of introducing himself. He says “my name is Benjamin Quentin Marshall” as the kids look on with bemusement. Marshall will no doubt introduce himself with similar formality, minus the cheeky grin, when he fronts court on assault charges on April 20. But regardless of what happens that day, I’d still invite him to my kids’ school.

Marshall, who launched the 2011 NRL season last week, was allegedly racially taunted in the most vulgar possible way on Saturday night. This, after he’d MC’d a charity function for the Children’s Cancer Institute which raised $244,000, then stayed out in town for a few drinks, and a fateful 3am burger, which all made sense as he had a room booked in town.

Obviously, The Punch wasn’t there. But let me say this: in five years at Australia’s biggest sporting magazine Alpha, I met numerous topline footballers in all codes. And Benji Marshall was right at the top of the list of the players who struck me as intelligent, wholesome, and thoroughly unlikely to turn feral without the severest provocation.

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