No plans for five suspended Swans to attend qualifying final

Sydney Swans coach Dean Cox says he remains in contact with the club’s five suspended players, but has not spoken to them about attending Saturday’s qualifying final against Brisbane at the SCG.

Cox also said while the club complies to the AFL’s illicit drug policy, he was unaware whether the players had been independently tested.

“We adhere to the illicit drug policy, so that’s one thing that the footy club always do, you know, with the testing of that, I’m not privy to any of that information,” Cox said.

On August 19, five Swans AFL players – James Jordon, Chad Warner, Isaac Heeney, Riley Bice and Nick Blakey – were stood down for breaching club standards for their actions earlier that week including drinking, staying out late and bringing women back to a Melbourne hotel.

This masthead has previously reported that two sources familiar with the police investigation, but not authorised to speak publicly, confirmed that drugs were involved in the hotel incident. However, both said the Swans teammates had denied being responsible for the drugs being there or taking them.

After being asked whether he was concerned about allegations of drug use, Cox again said he was unable to comment further.

“I can’t dive into any of that sort of stuff,” he said.

The five have denied any criminal wrongdoing, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.

A separate police investigation into an alleged sexual assault is ongoing. This masthead reported on Wednesday that Bice had been cleared of any criminal conduct in that police investigation into the alleged sexual assault of exotic dancers at the hotel last month.

Cox said Bice will remain stood down.

“All five will remain stood down from the football club, so that’s one thing that we spoke about at the start, the police investigation and then the behavioural nature of it,” Cox said.

Cox said he remains in contact with the players, but hasn’t raised the prospect of them attending Saturday’s qualifying final against Brisbane at the SCG, a match the club hopes will be a sell out.

“My first part of the conversation (with the five players) has only been about how they’re going, I haven’t touched on anything to do with the investigation,” Cox said.

“I think that’s the best way to go forward with that. And then from that, what can we do? What can I do to help you through this period?

“Because as I mentioned before, there is an investigation still going and we need to get all the facts. We need to make sure that before anyone makes any assumptions of what it looks like.”

Victoria Police confirmed on Wednesday three women had made a report about the night at the Melbourne hotel and detectives had this week travelled to Sydney to speak to four people.

“Investigators also spoke to or will speak to three men believed to be in the hotel room at the time of the incident, who are being treated solely as witnesses at this time,” police said in a statement.

“Police now believe they have now identified all parties who were in the room at the time of the alleged incident and are not looking for anyone further.”

Cox confirmed the Swans will look into cultural learnings from the hotel incident.

“I think there’s something that Pav (chief executive Matthew Pavlich), the board, will look through,” he said.

“Also, as a football club, we want to become a better football club, we always strive to be that.

“There will be an opportunity to work through what happened. From there, it’s about trying to make sure that we can go forward in a better, more sustainable way.

“From that, the last couple of weeks has been about regrouping the playing group with a focus on what we need to turn our attention to.”