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February 13, 2007
The Review: Week 11 (January 4th - January 10th)
The dominating news of the week was of course still the troublesome Steve 'Dog' Johnson. On Monday the 8th of January the playing group took a step in the right direction, suspending him from the senior playing group indefinitely. He will train with the VFL side.
“The club has not taken this decision lightly,” Geelong’s general manager of football operations Neil Balme said.“Steve has been given numerous chances and it is fair to say that he is now down to his last opportunity to prove that he wants to stay with the club.
“We understand that young people make mistakes in all walks of life. This includes AFL players. We do believe in allowing people to grow, learn from their mistakes and mature.
“We have provided ample opportunity for Steve to display the behaviour that we expect from all of our players. The ball is now firmly in his court to prove that he is worthy of a return to the senior group.”
Meanwhile Tom Harley revealed that Johnson was shocked at the severity of the punishment;
"He's a remorseful guy and he spoke to the group really well on Monday when he explained his actions and accepted the sanctions," Harley said at Skilled Stadium on Wednesday."As far as a character-building exercise for him, I think it may be a good thing. I thought it (the decision) was handled really well. We actually had a leadership meeting on the Friday and bounced around a few ideas and we're really happy with the result."
"It's been dealt with and there has obviously been some speculation as to whether it was too hard or too soft, but we're really happy with it and Steve's accepted it and it's time to move on from it now."
"The best thing about it is that it gives Steve another chance and if he's fair dinkum about his footy he'll come back and get himself right and get himself in good nick and then we'll assess it from there."
Posted by Sammy D at February 13, 2007 07:19 PM