The Heath Shaw Incident

Xavi6

So it looks like the Pies have finally done the sensible thing and banned Heath Shaw, as well as his partner in crime Alan Didak -

http://wwos.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=609323

Magpies ban Didak, Shaw for rest of 2008

15:30 AEST Tue Aug 5 2008

AFL club Collingwood today suspended forward Alan Didak and defender Heath Shaw for the rest of the 2008 season for lying about a drink-drive accident.

Didak has also been fined $5000 while Shaw's $10,000 fine remains in place.

The suspension includes the remaining four games of the home and away season and potential finals matches.

Shaw, 22, blew nearly three times the legal alcohol limit after crashing his car on Sunday night. Didak was in the passenger seat.

Both lied to the club about Didak's involvement, denying the controversial forward was in the car.

After believing the pair and defending Didak all day yesterday, Collingwood was forced into a humiliating backflip last night when it was revealed he was in fact in the car.

Didak was last year threatened with the sack from Collingwood over a wild night out with Melbourne CBD murderer Christopher Wayne Hudson, which he did not report to police.

Didak was with Hudson when the bikie fired shots out of his car, days before killing one man and shooting two others in the city centre last July.

He last month signed a new $800,000 two-year contract, keeping him at the Magpies until the end of 2010.

It removed behavioural restrictions including an alcohol ban and curfew which had previously been in place.

Shaw's brother Rhyce has also been suspended for two matches and fined for $5,000 for excessive drinking on Sunday night.

Collingwood chief executive Gary Pert said the club's leaders decided Shaw and Didak did not deserve to play for the club.

"When you have two of your key players looking the president, the coach and their own teammates in the eye and actually lying to them, it really destroys the essence of the club," Pert told reporters.

"It was decided by the leadership group that these two players actually don't deserve to wear the Collingwood Football Club jumper and that's why they're not playing for the rest of the season."

Pert denied there was a drinking culture at the club and said the behaviour of two or three players did not suggest there was a widespread problem.

"Do we have a cultural issue on that? Absolutely not," he said.

"We have a playing group that lives every day disciplined and focussed on winning a premiership."

It is the latest in a handful of alcohol-related incidents to have plagued Collingwood, whose former star Darren Millane was killed in a drink-drive accident in 1991.

In 2006, then-Magpie Chad Morrison was charged with drink-driving, and later that year teammates Ben Johnson and Chris Tarrant were involved in an alcohol-fuelled brawl outside a nightclub.

In January this year, Collingwood lost their sponsorship deal with the Transport Accident Commission after young midfielder Sharrod Wellingham was charged with drink-driving.

Had to be done really after the two lads made the club look like a right bunch of idiots by lying to them!

hanton12

feck sake! 2 players gone off my fantsy footie team now!

on the serious matter of it all tho, right decision made. cant be acting the prick like that. not on as a paid sportsman, or just as a person. No matter who you are, your work life would be seriously in doubt if you acted like they did. its always such a shame to see talented great players be dickheads and make a mes sof their career because of outside influence and behavioural problems (eg see Ben Cousins)