Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley has addressed vice-captain Steele Sidebottom's multiple breaches of COVID-19 over the weekend.
The star midfielder faces a potential four-match ban for an incident on Saturday night involving teammate Lynden Dunn.
Sidebottom and Dunn caught an Uber together on Saturday night before the former went to ex-Magpie and club employee Daniel Wells' house.
It is believed that Sidebottom was found by police in Williamstown on Sunday morning and driven home.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday afternoon, Buckley said Sidebottom was "embarrassed" and "remorseful" about the situation.
โSteele obviously needed to get help home and, in his recollection, canโt remember a lot around what happened that evening. He ended up finding himself home earlier the next morning," Buckley said.
โHeโs quite embarrassed about the situation.
"Heโs obviously remorseful about the decisions that were made, but he is also in some way confused about what has taken place. At some point, obviously, with his drinking heโs made some poor decisions, but his recollection isnโt that great.
โHe hasnโt been drinking as regularly I suppose. In conversations with him, he probably hasnโt been consuming as much alcohol and one of the theories is that he wasnโt able to handle what he consumed at Howieโs (Jeremy Howe's) place.
"In the end theyโre all details that try to explain, in some way, what has happened in the evening or Steeleโs understanding of it. Heโs a suitably embarrassed and very contrite, as you would understand.
โThis is an event, not a pattern and weโre treating it as such and trying to support Steele through it because his major emotion is embarrassment at the moment."
The AFL is expected to announce suspensions for Sidebottom and Dunn later today.
