Kurtley Beale may join the Australia squad on their European tour next month if he proves his fitness, despite the utility back being fined nearly £25,000 last week after an independent disciplinary panel found that he had breached the union’s code of conduct by sending an offensive photograph to the then Wallabies’ business manager Di Patston.

On the same day as Beale was told that he still had a career with the Wallabies, a sporting body on the other side of the world was taking a less tolerant view of insulting behaviour. Ted Bishop, the president of the PGA of America, was fired after referring to the golfer Ian Poulter as “Lil girl” during a heated exchange between the pair on Twitter.

Beale will be given another chance. “Kurtley was given a fair hearing,” said the Australia assistant coach, Nathan Grey. “The Australian Rugby Union was very diligent about the way it went about the process. He received the fine and accepted that.” No doubt he did, considering that many were calling for his contract to be ripped up.

Patston, who resigned after Beale’s text message became public, broke her silence this week. She said she had hugged Beale and forgiven him for inadvertently sending her an image of an obese and naked female crossbow hunter, accompanied with the caption “Di??” in June. She said he had assured her that he had not sent the image to anyone else.

In his hearing, Beale admitted that he had sent the text message to “some Waratah mates” six days before Patston received it. The allegation was that he had been trying to send it to another team-mate when he used Patston’s number by mistake.

“It was his decision to lie to me when I gave him the opportunity to tell the truth,” Patston told The Australian. “It’s like he played me for a fool. If he had said to me it was the second time he did it in the matter of seven days, no way, absolutely no way, would I have just said ‘That’s OK’. If it was one image or two or 20, what does it matter? They were both of very obese women in a very derogatory way. I am overweight and they were both naked with everything exposed.

“I said to my dad I felt bullied into not telling anyone about the photos because I was embarrassed. I sat at a table and cried for an eternity because I didn’t know who to tell because I’m so embarrassed by this. Is this what people think of me? People don’t see that side of it. They don’t see there’s a level of feeling degraded, feeling like you’re worthless. And he actually admits to sending it twice.”

There was a time when Australian rugby looked to lead the way when it came to standards. Back in 1991, on their way to winning the World Cup for the first time, Australia entertained Wales who, it is not unfair to say, did not prove to be model tourists on or off the field.

After the Test match in Ballymore, which Australia won 63-6, the Wallabies sat with their partners in the after-match function nursing soft drinks while their opponents opted for something a little stronger. The tourists quickly fell out among themselves, with one of their number suffering a cut hand before they were spirited out of the function room.

Rugby union was amateur then, but Australia regarded themselves as professional in attitude. “If any of our players behaved like that,” said one ARU official, unwilling to be named because the Wallabies were facing Wales in their World Cup group in Cardiff later that year, “they would be out of the squad. Immediately.”

Times change. Beale has survived a number of misdemeanours and his failure to control what was described as the brat pack was cited as one of the reasons why Robbie Deans lost his job as Australia’s head coach, even before the Lions had boarded the plane home after winning last year’s series.

It is perhaps a measure of their relative weakness – out of the top three of the world rankings and also-rans in the Rugby Championship, and its precursor the Tri-Nations – that since the last World Cup Australia have not dealt with Beale more severely. There was a time when the ARU would have taken a different course, and not because it wanted to be seen, as some in the United States have argued was the case with the PGA, to be acting politically correctly.

As Patston, who is reported to be on high doses of medication, surveys the wreckage of her career, Beale can look forward to being welcomed back by the Wallabies ahead of next year’s World Cup. Earlier this year, the ARU imposed a $200 levy on senior and junior clubs to help balance the books. Saving Beale’s salary would have made a difference.

In a year when one of rugby union’s highlights has been the Women’s World Cup, it leaves the taste of day-old beer. “Rugby union is dying on its arse in Australia,” says the New Australian website. “There is no young talent coming through … the problem isn’t that kids don’t want to play sport, they just don’t want to play this one.”

• This is an extract taken from the Breakdown, the Guardian’s weekly rugby union email. To subscribe just visit this page, find ‘The Breakdown’ and follow the instructions