4 St Kilda players suspended following incident in NZ

[SainterK]

What's intriguing me most is why the Club has said anything about prescribed drugs.
I would have thought that purely stating that 'breaking curfew' was enough substatiation for handing down a penalty to the 4 players?
Why the need to be so public about the 'prescriged drugs'?

What am I missing here?

Did these players do something whilst out that was seen and reported to authorities/media?
Did somebody tell a journalist the whole story forcing the Club to make a statement?
Were the Club thinking that the AFLPA would 'kick up' if they suspended players for 6 weeks over 'only breaking curfew' and therefore needed to publicly tell of a worse infraction?
Were they obliged to tell the AFL and therefore felt that the story would get out?

I'm just trying to understand why a Club, so 'disciplined' in trying to hide everything, would publicly give these details out?

I would say the drugs needed to be described as prescribed so the threat of WADA intervention for illicit recreational drugs is averted.

The playing group have got a severe culture problem and a lack of leadership. Ross Lyon down. Everyone needs a kick up the backside.

That, or the fact Damien Barrett seemed to know everything already.

[SENsei]

Is it culture?

Or is it just moron players?

Same thing. Culture in the playing group perpetuated by moron players.

Let's look at the incidents since last year:
1. Recruit Andrew Lovett ( due diligence my backside)
2. The photos in Miami
3. Lenny involved in a pub scuffle
4. Bakes involved in an online abuse investigation
5. The pregnancy with a school girl story
6. The publishing of the photos from Miami kept by a dishonest player
7. Drugs and alcohol on an overseas trip

That's an impressive twelve months.

[markp]

What's intriguing me most is why the Club has said anything about prescribed drugs.
I would have thought that purely stating that 'breaking curfew' was enough substatiation for handing down a penalty to the 4 players?
Why the need to be so public about the 'prescriged drugs'?

What am I missing here?

Did these players do something whilst out that was seen and reported to authorities/media?
Did somebody tell a journalist the whole story forcing the Club to make a statement?
Were the Club thinking that the AFLPA would 'kick up' if they suspended players for 6 weeks over 'only breaking curfew' and therefore needed to publicly tell of a worse infraction?
Were they obliged to tell the AFL and therefore felt that the story would get out?

I'm just trying to understand why a Club, so 'disciplined' in trying to hide everything, would publicly give these details out?

Interesting question MM....

Who knows, it may even be partially due to them wanting to demonstrate to the players that they are not a protected species who can muck up and expect the Club will clean it all up or cover it up if they catch them?

I'm sure we haven't heard even a fraction of what's gone on in the past... and that sort of expectation and culture can lead to a Fev.

[Dr Spaceman]

What's intriguing me most is why the Club has said anything about prescribed drugs.
I would have thought that purely stating that 'breaking curfew' was enough substatiation for handing down a penalty to the 4 players?
Why the need to be so public about the 'prescriged drugs'?

What am I missing here?

Did these players do something whilst out that was seen and reported to authorities/media?
Did somebody tell a journalist the whole story forcing the Club to make a statement?
Were the Club thinking that the AFLPA would 'kick up' if they suspended players for 6 weeks over 'only breaking curfew' and therefore needed to publicly tell of a worse infraction?
Were they obliged to tell the AFL and therefore felt that the story would get out?

I'm just trying to understand why a Club, so 'disciplined' in trying to hide everything, would publicly give these details out?

Interesting question MM....

Who knows, it may even be partially due to them wanting to demonstrate to the players that they are not a protected species who can muck up and expect the Club will clean it all up or cover it up if they catch them?

I'm sure we haven't heard even a fraction of what's gone on in the past... and that sort of expectation and culture can lead to a Fev.

I think you may be onto something there markp.

Are they drawing a line in the sand?

[SENsei]

What's intriguing me most is why the Club has said anything about prescribed drugs.
I would have thought that purely stating that 'breaking curfew' was enough substatiation for handing down a penalty to the 4 players?
Why the need to be so public about the 'prescriged drugs'?

What am I missing here?

Did these players do something whilst out that was seen and reported to authorities/media?
Did somebody tell a journalist the whole story forcing the Club to make a statement?
Were the Club thinking that the AFLPA would 'kick up' if they suspended players for 6 weeks over 'only breaking curfew' and therefore needed to publicly tell of a worse infraction?
Were they obliged to tell the AFL and therefore felt that the story would get out?

I'm just trying to understand why a Club, so 'disciplined' in trying to hide everything, would publicly give these details out?

Interesting question MM....

Who knows, it may even be partially due to them wanting to demonstrate to the players that they are not a protected species who can muck up and expect the Club will clean it all up or cover it up if they catch them?

I'm sure we haven't heard even a fraction of what's gone on in the past... and that sort of expectation and culture can lead to a Fev.

I think you may be onto something there markp.

Are they drawing a line in the sand?

Not before freaking time if they are. About two years over due.

[Zed]

Question - why does every incident large or small involving St Kilda make the back page headlines, yet with other clubs so little is heard ? Do we have a problem with keeping things quiet and managing them in house ?. Example - Collingwood players recently cleared in court for alleged rape charges, however there was no lead up stories in the paper ?. If these were 2 Saints players, would we have been reading about it for weeks in the papers until the final court decision was made ?. There will always be incidents that will be reported - and suspending 4 players for 6 weeks is always going to make the papers, but surely we can do a better job of minimising the amount of press on some of these stories.

Oh and by the way, yes I'm pi$$ed off at these 4 players for putting the club in this position. Especially Zac - after all he has been involved with over the past couple of months.

[jonesy]

At least supercoach is back...

[SaintSimmo]

IM SO SICK OF THE SH*T! WHAT THE F**K IS WRONG WITH THESE GUYS FFS!!

but keeping this in mind channel nine news said "it is believed the players left their rooms to drink alcohol and after took sleeping pills" hardly warrants being labelled a drug controversy, just a controversy.

[SainterK]

I'd actually like to know who was with who in NZ, a small issue, but I'd be disappointed if all the core group (the ones that have been together for a long time) paired off together and the kids were on their own.

How would 3 youngish players have slipped out if they were each with someone older/responsible?

Just curious.

[Bevan Shorluey]

I'd actually like to know who was with who in NZ, a small issue, but I'd be disappointed if all the core group (the ones that have been together for a long time) paired off together and the kids were on their own.

How would 3 youngish players have slipped out if they were each with someone older/responsible?

Just curious.

I'd say Dawson would have been with Riewoldt, while Dal was with Mrs Palmer.

[joffaboy]

IM SO SICK OF THE SH*T! WHAT THE F**K IS WRONG WITH THESE GUYS FFS!!

but keeping this in mind channel nine news said "it is believed the players left their rooms to drink alcohol and after took sleeping pills" hardly warrants being labelled a drug controversy, just a controversy.

lol - SaintSimmo you sound distressed with all the shouting, I know some footballers who can help you with some medication

[markp]

Question - why does every incident large or small involving St Kilda make the back page headlines, yet with other clubs so little is heard ? Do we have a problem with keeping things quiet and managing them in house ?. Example - Collingwood players recently cleared in court for alleged rape charges, however there was no lead up stories in the paper ?. If these were 2 Saints players, would we have been reading about it for weeks in the papers until the final court decision was made ?. There will always be incidents that will be reported - and suspending 4 players for 6 weeks is always going to make the papers, but surely we can do a better job of minimising the amount of press on some of these stories.

Oh and by the way, yes I'm pi$$ed off at these 4 players for putting the club in this position. Especially Zac - after all he has been involved with over the past couple of months.

We were the second most watched team on tv last year... the papers now know exactly how many people read/click which articles on-line.

I'd suggest they have worked out that positive collingwood stories are the most popular, followed by negative St Kilda ones. We give them plenty of ammo, too.

[SaintSimmo]

St.Kilda and Hotels just don't mix, time to find some place else to stay!!

[philtee]

This one time at band camp...
Seriously, no excuses for the players this time, this one is self-inflicted.

One of the rules of a corporate PR crisis is to come clean ASAP. That way, you manage some of the flow of information, using your own terms.
And in this era of social media, this was gonna break at some stage. Imagine if the Club had kept it quiet - we'd have accusations of concealment,
and posters on the forum complaining how they had to find out from the HS or Hinch.

Kudos to the Club's marketing and media relations people, who must be heartily sick of these dramas igniting over Summer, and the phone ringing at 1, 3 and 5am.

[spert]

At this stage in proceedings, the club has lost much credibity, and the hard work to overcome the terrible culture of failure it had through the 70s and 80s, is all coming undone. Once all this crap starts going on in the background, it will have a negative an effect on the field..respect gets lost, players minds are elsewhere etc etc. This season will be a huge test for Lyon, Reiwoldt and a few other more senior players, as they will need to lead by example more than they ever have.

[InkerSaint]

The question is - do we have a culture problem? Is this a long way out from the norm of other clubs?

I'm not convinced.

I think St Kilda has a culture problem, and I care little what other clubs are doing.

Not really a time to measure themselves against others, it's a time to decide what they want to be about.

Fair enough, that's your opinion.

For the record I agree with Michael Nettlefold's comments on SEN this morning. I think some people are overreacting.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/s ... 5997683047

"I don’t see it that way... if you have a look at what this group has achieved on the field in the last three years... If you have cultural problems, you can’t deliver what this group has delivered on the field. It’s impossible.

"We are a mirror of the broader society. We don’t have all the answers, all we can do is rethink how we approach these issues...

"The AFL has some outstanding programs in use for respect and responsibility and drug issues. It’s come out of left field for us and we haven’t put our head in the sand about it."

[matrix]

bulls***


culture prob
4 blokes out on the turps with one if not all popping some kind of legal pills to get a high

not farking good enough

culture prob
zac should know better, he should really know better and wants to start thinking about what he is doing
cahill gone, F*** him off.......ya on ya last lifeline and you F*** about like this?
must really have the passion to play afl for us...fcuk him off

steven and stanley not good enough, should be pushing for selection all year in the ones.....idiots

[saintdooley]

Question - why does every incident large or small involving St Kilda make the back page headlines, yet with other clubs so little is heard ? Do we have a problem with keeping things quiet and managing them in house ?. Example - Collingwood players recently cleared in court for alleged rape charges, however there was no lead up stories in the paper ?. If these were 2 Saints players, would we have been reading about it for weeks in the papers until the final court decision was made ?. There will always be incidents that will be reported - and suspending 4 players for 6 weeks is always going to make the papers, but surely we can do a better job of minimising the amount of press on some of these stories.

Oh and by the way, yes I'm pi$$ed off at these 4 players for putting the club in this position. Especially Zac - after all he has been involved with over the past couple of months.

the club has turned into the same as the school i went to. every tiny little thing one person does wrong will make front page, and the players have to learn that.

[saint_winston]

bulls***


culture prob
4 blokes out on the turps with one if not all popping some kind of legal pills to get a high

not farking good enough

culture prob
zac should know better, he should really know better and wants to start thinking about what he is doing
cahill gone, F*** him off.......ya on ya last lifeline and you F*** about like this?
must really have the passion to play afl for us...fcuk him off

steven and stanley not good enough, should be pushing for selection all year in the ones.....idiots

i could not agree more. on the eve of the season, at a camp where they are supposed to be preparing physically and mentally for the season, they serve up this crap. totally unacceptable is putting it mildly. we are a complete laughing stock at the moment amongst afl ranks

what grates even more with me is the fact that our CEO has come out and tried to dfefend the club saying there is no culture problem. there very clearly is a very major culture problem, one that has been allowed to fester for some time

as for stanley, from what i hear he has a pretty fair opinion of himself and conducts himself accordingly off the field. that is completely 2nd hand information so could be completely wrong. but if it's on the money then it's pretty rich behaviour for a bloke who's done zilch in his career to date. how about he just tries working hard and getting a regular senior game before he starts living the off field life of an afl star?

[Dr Spaceman]

This one time at band camp...
Seriously, no excuses for the players this time, this one is self-inflicted.

One of the rules of a corporate PR crisis is to come clean ASAP. That way, you manage some of the flow of information, using your own terms.
And in this era of social media, this was gonna break at some stage. Imagine if the Club had kept it quiet - we'd have accusations of concealment,
and posters on the forum complaining how they had to find out from the HS or Hinch.
Kudos to the Club's marketing and media relations people, who must be heartily sick of these dramas igniting over Summer, and the phone ringing at 1, 3 and 5am.

I think that's definitely one side of it, ie damage control.

The other side is the distinct possiblity that like most of the posters on here, the club is sick of it. It therefore has to impose severe penalties. Those penalties will be there for all to see (someone is going to notice Zac, Jack & Rhys training with the Zebs and not playing NAB Cup). It therefore has to say something.

The club simply can't keep it in-house and impose those penalties.

And the club is apparently through with letting players stuff up and rightly so.

[Solar]

when I heard it break on the way home from work last night I was pretty pissed off. Especially as steven and zac have been in the system long enough to know better.

But though the club had dealt with this VERY well.

They actually set a curfew (don't be suprised but not all clubs do that). Players were not arrested, brawling orany otheroffence. They were caught outside this curfew taking sleeping pills and alcohol (not a great combo but could be worse.... speed anyone?).

They could have kept it in house, told the boys to do the right thing and pretend it never happened. Instead they released the details, a very heavy suspension (good rehab idea of getting them into work).

So coming on here I just can't believe the posters who want to close up shop for the next few years. Seriously do we all forget that EVERY club has had players do this.

Players + money + too much spare time = some playing up.

Where do I start. Down here in geelong they have had players hurt themselves whilst out drunk (chapman), buying drugs and being charged (stokes)......

The pies usually hide theirs but still I can remember a couple being suspended for a whole finals series, drink driving by cloke etc. Let alon the incident th night of the replay that somehow disapeared.

Carlton...... tieing up a draftee who was totally drunk ring a bell..... fevola..... Judd must be a terrible leader.... CULTURE

Brisbane..... do I need to go there

Port adelaide..... broganhits a guy, cross dressing footballers up on charge....

richmond lost their sponsorship because of drink driving

north melbourne ..... chicken video, players getting drunk at splendor on the grass etc.

West coast ... drugs, alcohol, gardiner, cousins, etc.

Can't be stuffed thinking about it anymore...

yes it was a TERRIBLE time for it to hppen. The sun loves these stories to be about us, sells lots of papers and they get to run their "saints implode" line... much better then trying to think up nice things to say about us.

But the wrist slitting, woe is me....

I'm with JB here, disapointed but not the end of the world.

btw any chance journlists can get their new validated before posting on twitter...... disgusting in what used to be a half decient industry.

[AnythingsPossibleSaints]

We need to find a 17 year old girl to blame for this, fast.

[StSteven]

Nettlefold's comment about "all that the boys have achieved over the past couple of years...blah blah" got me.

We have achieved nothing....and aren't my mates letting me know about it!

Win a flag (or two) and maybe we can cut them some slack....definitely not before.


Can't believe how upsetting this is...

[St Michele]

I see it as this they are saying this is it you muck up we are going to punish you and well. They need to do this before we we don;t want ot end up like West Coast where the players were invincible and just did what they wanted....
I just hope these young men in their new full time work for 6 weeks have to do a job like labouring on minimum wage and learn the value of the oportunity they have been given

What's intriguing me most is why the Club has said anything about prescribed drugs.
I would have thought that purely stating that 'breaking curfew' was enough substatiation for handing down a penalty to the 4 players?
Why the need to be so public about the 'prescriged drugs'?

What am I missing here?

Did these players do something whilst out that was seen and reported to authorities/media?
Did somebody tell a journalist the whole story forcing the Club to make a statement?
Were the Club thinking that the AFLPA would 'kick up' if they suspended players for 6 weeks over 'only breaking curfew' and therefore needed to publicly tell of a worse infraction?
Were they obliged to tell the AFL and therefore felt that the story would get out?

I'm just trying to understand why a Club, so 'disciplined' in trying to hide everything, would publicly give these details out?

Interesting question MM....

Who knows, it may even be partially due to them wanting to demonstrate to the players that they are not a protected species who can muck up and expect the Club will clean it all up or cover it up if they catch them?

I'm sure we haven't heard even a fraction of what's gone on in the past... and that sort of expectation and culture can lead to a Fev.

I think you may be onto something there markp.

Are they drawing a line in the sand?

[AnythingsPossibleSaints]

yes it was a TERRIBLE time for it to hppen. The sun loves these stories to be about us, sells lots of papers and they get to run their "saints implode" line... much better then trying to think up nice things to say about us.

But the wrist slitting, woe is me....

I'm with JB here, disapointed but not the end of the world.

btw any chance journlists can get their new validated before posting on twitter...... disgusting in what used to be a half decient industry.

I take it you didn't think that the Herald Sun dedicating a good sized chunk of their editorial today to the Doc was "nice"?: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/edi ... 5997765745
They certainly didn't have to do that and I doubt they'd have done it if they "had it in for us", as so many seem to think they do.

As for the rest of what you said, the problem for me and I imagine the great majority of those who support the club is that they would have been "read the riot act", in recent times and told to pull their heads in and stay squeaky clean for the time being and they weren't even able to go away for a week and do that. That kind of indiscipline is why so many are so pissed off.
They're not 5 years old. They're very well paid "adults" and in a high-profile industry and their employers would have told them what to do and they've gone and done the exact opposite. They're lucky to still be employed.
How are we going to grow as a club (and get sponsors, etc) or win a Premiership, if they're not even able to follow very clear and simple instructions.
It also speaks volumes for the leadership (or lack thereof) at the club, that they weren't able to "keep them out of trouble" for 5 minutes, or lead them in the "right direction".
This is why many would be wondering what the f*** they're doing dedicating their time and energy and passion and hard earned money to a club that is unable to get their s*** together. Like Brisbane, with Fev.