4 Players Stood Down, Kidwell loses co-captaincy
29th April 2008
5 South Sydney players, including co-captain David Kidwell, will face disciplinary action after returning a positive alcohol test in their Saturday morning recovery session. Kidwell has been stripped of his co captaincy, and the other 4 players Jaiman Lowe, Fetuli Talanoa, Ben Rogers and Eddie Paea dropped.
Under the players' code of conduct, they are not allowed to have a blood-alcohol reading of more than .05 at any training session. But, on occasions, the players have agreed to have a zero-tolerance policy the day after a game, as was the case after Friday's match.
"It's not professional for blokes to go and have two big nights after a game," Taylor said. "The players can have a drink after the match but the circumstances change. On this occasion, they were free from Saturday until Monday morning, so they had enough time to enjoy themselves. When we put this in place at the start of the season, we didn't say it was zero tolerance right throughout the year. "But there are standards that were put in place for a reason and sending the right message. In this case, it was agreed to by the players and the captain. And they broke it."
Rogers, who had "a couple of beers" with Lowe and his family, said he believed he would have no alcohol in his system the next day. "I thought I'd be right. The rule was you had to blow zero and we didn't," Rogers said.
South Sydney half-back Eddie Paea has apologised for drinking after the team had been given orders to stay off the booze. "Yeah, (I did the wrong thing)," Paea said. "I'll just put my head down and make up for it."