Tim Cahill ended up on the front of Pauline Hanson fake photograph publisher, The Sunday Telegraph , in a pretty embarrassing beat up on the weekend, headlined “Socceroo Cover-up”.

Last time I checked, getting drunk was not a crime.

The paper’s editor, Neil Breen, copped a serve from Alan Jones on Monday morning. You don’t have to be a Jones fan to realise he had some pretty valid points.

Breen survived after his sloppy handling of the Pauline Hanson photo affair, but this won’t do much to enhance his reputation.

After scoring a double for Australia last night in the Socceroos’ 2-1 win over Japan to end Australia’s World Cup qualification campaign on a winning note, Cahill made his point to the Murdoch media, shunning Fox Sports in this post-match interview.

“Okay, well, interesting interview with Timmy Cahill. I think it’s perhaps clear from that, that he wants to make a bit of a statement about the media,” Hill said.

“Of course we weren’t part of the stories that were running all this week, particularly in Sydney. I’m sure you’ve read them or heard about them. Anyway he was certainly the hero tonight.”

Wrong Simon — it was a statement about the Murdoch media and the story was carried with the byline of rugby league writer David Riccio on the Fox Sports website.

And just to show Cahill has nothing against the media generally, he offered this more-participatory interview to Alan Jones — or “AJ” as he refers to him — this morning.

Declaration: Anthony Stavrinos is a freelance journalist whose stories occasionally appear in The Sunday Telegraph ’s competitor, The Sun-Herald.