Former Hawthorn president and current AFL commissioner Andrew Newbold has offered Western Bulldogs advice on how to deal with Lachie Hunter following his drink-driving incident last week.
Hunter blew 0.123 in the hours after crashing his car into four park cars in Middle Park on Thursday night.
Newbold, who is current chairman of Golf Australia, dealt with a similar incident as Hawks president in 2015 when Luke Hodge returned a blood alcohol reading of 0.068 after drinking at a social function in the week before finals.
He said Hodge’s openness about his error of judgement contributed to him avoiding a club-imposed suspension for the incident while also forecasting the Western Bulldogs would be having extensive conversations with Hunter in private.
“Clearly Luke (Hodge) was open and honest about the mistake he made,” he said on Sportsday.
“We had some pretty open and honest conversation and we moved on from there. They’ll be a lot that goes on behind closed doors that will never seen the public light of day and that’s fair enough because clubs need to look after their assets and staff.
“That’s what we tried to do at Hawthorn.”
Newbold denied the club dealt with Hodge differently because the incident occurred just weeks before they eventually won the 2015 premiership.
“I don’t know we necessarily made a different decision because we were going into the finals,” Newbold said.
“What we look at is contrition and his record in terms of abiding by the rules set by the players themselves. When I was at Hawthorn, the players very much drove their owns standards of behaviour.
“At first instance, Hodge would’ve had to have fronted up to the players and then we would’ve to step in.
“It was a culture very much driven by the playing group and I’m sure that will apply to a lot of clubs today.”
You can listen to Andrew Newbold on Sportsday in the player below.