Hegarty Stood Down by Peers
1st March 2008
South Sydney teammates of former international Shannon Hegarty have axed him to reserve grade for failing the club's zero-tolerance breath test by the narrowest margin possible. Selected for a random test during last Sunday morning's recovery session after Souths' trial win the previous night, Hegarty returned a reading of just 0.01.
The one-time Australia star will instead turn out on the wing for the Rabbitohs' Premier League feeder side, North Sydney.
In a unique development, Hegarty's fate was left in the hands of senior Rabbitohs teammates - and not team officials. The Redfern club's "core player group", comprised of co-captains David Kidwell and Roy Asotasi, John Sutton and Dean Widders - decided he should be stood down from the traditional clash.
The group was established at the start of last season to provide player input into off-field incidents that occur within the team. The handling of dramas involving third parties remain in management's hands.
Rabbitohs CEO Shane Richardson confirmed Hegarty had been judged and punished by his peers. "The core group have set a standard for breath tests and it is usually 0.05," Richardson said. "However, in the lead-up to this game it was decided that it be nil. "The senior players wanted to enforce that and they came up with what they thought was a fair punishment. "They made their decision, passed it by us, and it was established they had good cause for the decision." Richardson said the club had been conducting breath tests for some time, and that the subjects were selected randomly at each session.