Collingwood midfielder Brayden Sier has avoided a ban after playing basketball under the fake name ‘Phil Inn’ while injured and lying to the club about it.
Sier has instead been fined $5000 and will do community work one night a week for the rest of the year.
The 21-year-old has addressed Magpies coach Nathan Buckley as well as the playing group about the incident.
"We've spoken to Brayden and he's spoken to the group (about) what is quite a marginal action (that) has got a lot of coverage," Buckley told reporters after Collingwood’s 66-point win over Adelaide yesterday.
"He's been sanctioned and he understands what he did was not a great decision.
"He's been fined $5000 and he's doing some community work, one night a week, each week for the rest of this year.
"We'll put our support behind him now and he's still part of our campaign and needs to get back on track, train well, play well in the VFL next week and continue to push to be a positive impact on the rest of our 2019 campaign.
"Brayden's got a bit of work to make up in a very short space of time, but we don't know where the twists and turns of the next hopefully five weeks, six weeks for us, we don't know where that's going to take us, so we're not going to leave anyone on the side of the road.
"We need all hands-on deck and Brayden will be part of that."
Sier is expected to be available to return from a calf injury in the VFL next weekend when Collingwood takes on Box Hill.