The crisis at Western Force Super 14 club escalated yesterday when a Rottnest Island witness, who says a friend was hit in the face by a player swinging a quokka, gave alarming new evidence of player nudity and harassment.

The beleaguered club, which had vehemently denied any player wrongdoing early in the week, yesterday fined two players a total of $16,000 as a result of Herald reports detailing a night of mayhem on November 23, in which quokkas were terrorised for more than a hour.

In developments yesterday, Western Force chairman Geoff Stooke revealed:

- A club binge-drinking culture where a player drinks "six months' worth of alcohol in two hours"; - Former vice-captain Scott Fava threw a quokka two to five metres; - Player Richard Brown ran naked with a quokka, urinated in front of four female tourists and was diving with a milk crate to try to trap the marsupials.

Stooke said he was not comfortable with the penalties imposed, which were restricted to a percentage of the players' contract income under a collective bargaining agreement with the Rugby Union Players Association. He said he would rip up their contracts if further evidence of quokka mistreatment emerged.

"I am a quokka lover, I am disgusted, if we had substantial evidence of any player hammer-throwing a quokka I would not hesitate to tear up the contract," he told the Herald.

Fava was fined $11,000, to be paid to the Rottnest Island Conservation Foundation, and ordered to undertake seven days of community service and undergo counselling for alcohol abuse. Fava said he apologised for abusing quokkas after admitting to swinging one by the tail and throwing it "two to five metres".

Brown was fined $5000 and ordered to do seven days' community service.

Stooke said Fava's penalty was higher because of his higher salary and because he was proved to have thrown a quokka. However, he said Brown's level of antisocial behaviour was much higher than that of Fava's.

"Brown started drinking around 4.30pm. After three or four beers, he is anybody's," Stooke said. "Fava does not drink much at all, but when he does he catches up. He'll drink six months' worth of beer in two hours."

A woman has made a separate complaint to police, Western Force and the Rottnest Island Authority that a couple of Force players invited themselves into a dormitory she shared with three girlfriends.

"[They] would not get out until we went up to another Western Force player and asked him to help us out," she told Perth radio station 6PR.

She also claimed a player hit one of her friends in the face with a quokka. "He was swinging it by the tail and he didn't let it go she was standing too close and it hit her in the face," she said.

Stooke said a person had been running around naked and urinating in public view but there was no evidence of a player not leaving when asked to.

The club had tried to downplay the incident earlier in the week, initially claiming players were not guilty of misconduct. Yesterday, Stooke said the players "had been drunk in public, behaved antisocially and inappropriately handled quokkas", although a misconduct committee found "that neither [player] intended to cause any harm to the quokkas".

The scandal is the latest in a series of off-field incidents involving Force players, including allegations two players assaulted a former Force employee in a Sydney bar earlier this year. The assault allegation followed separate confirmation by the club of a report that it paid $16,000 to a South African man to enable star player Matt Henjak to play Super 14 matches in South Africa.

The Herald last Saturday revealed the Force had made payments to the man and his legal firm. Rugby Union Players Association CEO Tony Dempsey, a lawyer, was also paid for acting in communications with the man's lawyers. A civil claim and assault charges from an alleged 2004 nightclub incident were later dropped against Henjak.

The ARU has given the Force until mid-December to show where the payment was disclosed in its audit of accounts - part of the conditions imposed on the club following an earlier Herald investigation which showed previous secret payments of $300,000 to lure players to the club, for which the Force were fined $150,000. The ARU has foreshadowed more fines if it is not satisfied with the audit.

The ARU yesterday said it was pleased the club acted quickly to reopen the quokka investigation.