UPDATE: Inside the Majak Daw Suspension

Feb 8. 2012 5:20 am
Posted by Football Nation

AS REPORTED earlier today the North Melbourne Football Club suspended rookie Majak Daw after he “breached rehabilitation protocols and internal codes”. The penalty was decided by the club’s newly minted leadership group of Daniel Wells, Drew Petrie, Andrew Swallow, Jack Ziebell and Brent Harvey.

Both chief executive Eugene Arocca and chief of football Donald McDonald are tight-lipped about the specifics of Daw’s actions but have left the door open for his return to the club.

McDonald added that “(Daw) just has to satisfy the leadership group that he’s on the right track and he understands where they’re coming from”.

Daw has apparently understood the reasoning for the suspension and is said to be accepting of it. In addition to this he will still have access to the club’s medical facilities and club director of medical services Steve Saunders. Daw is also expected to be available to play for the club’s VFL affiliate, Werribee Tigers.

When we originally wrote this post we said that Football Nation saw the club’s comments as being geared towards giving Daw every possibility of making a return to the club without having to answer questions about specific indiscretions in the media.

Since then however the club has come forward with more details.

At 7:38pm tonight the North Melbourne posted more details about Daw’s suspension on its website after coach Brad Scott went on air on 3AW and said:
“Trust is everything, not only in football clubs, but everywhere so when that trust is breached, you’ve got an issue you have to deal with,” he said.

“The reasons for making a generic statement about cultural expectations and training standards is because … we feel an obligation to protect Majak and support him through these things.

“We’ve been forced to clarify that, which is unfortunate, but the bottom line is Majak is in rehabilitation because he has an injured knee at the moment and he went out when he shouldn’t have.

“When I asked him about that, he was untruthful.

“They’re the facts. Could we have come out and said that from the start? We could have but we feel an obligation to look after Majak.”

There is no doubt that the young, 195cm tall Sudanese-born player is an intriguing and electrifying talent and that undoubtedly carries a lot of weight when it comes to getting second chances. Like all clubs North Melbourne will bend over backwards when it comes to keeping young talent on their list. Hopefully Daw uses this small setback in a positive way and develops into the type of player that in the future can use this experience to his advantage both on and off the field.

You can read more about the suspension on the North Melbourne Football Club’s website and just because we love it so much, here is is Daw’s brilliant goal for the Werribee Tigers in last year’s VFL competition. Enjoy!