Steele Sidebottom has no choice but to stand down as Collingwood vice-captain after breaching COVID-19 rules, writes Jon Ralph
When Nathan Buckley and Geoff Walsh have a heart-to-heart with Steele Sidebottom in Perth, the star Pie’s best course of action would be to stand down from the club’s leadership group. Jon Ralph explains why.
Collingwood
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Jordan De Goey’s four-hour plane ride to Perth alongside Steele Sidebottom should have been a life-changing experience.
One where the veteran vice-captain imparted 12 years of experience living in the AFL spotlight to a player who in six seasons has twice been suspended by Collingwood, dumped two managers and now been charged with indecent assault.
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Instead, De Goey’s first comment as they escaped the glaze of the cameras and settled into their seats on that plane might have been: ‘They got you, too’.
De Goey and Sidebottom spent time in the company of Victoria police in remarkably different circumstances these past weeks.
Sidebottom committed significant COVID breaches but despite being dazed and confused in Williamstown by all accounts showed impeccable manners when driven home by police at dawn.
De Goey was on Saturday charged and then bailed for indecent assault for a five-year-old incident he believed was behind him.
But it underlines the high farce of Sidebottom lecturing anyone about misbehaviour this year, no matter how faultless he has been in his entire career.
When Nathan Buckley and Geoff Walsh have that heart-to-heart with him when they arrive in Perth, his best course of action would be to volunteer to stand down from the club’s leadership group.
Not because the media calls for it, or because Collingwood is besieged by issues over race and culture.
But because if Sidebottom had lectured De Goey, or been forced to sit in judgment of his position in the team, his junior would surely have been thinking: ‘Where do you get off?’.
A leadership position like that is a position of rare privilege.
Like former Western Bulldogs vice-captain Lachie Hunter, Sidebottom’s breach has been a costly bungle for his club — four weeks without an A-grade player.
Under Collingwood captain Scott Pendlebury and Sidebottom are Taylor Adams, Jeremy Howe, Brodie Grundy and Jordan Roughead in a six-man leadership group.
A finer collection of football figures it is hard to find, so if the Pies don’t have enough leadership and wise counsel without Sidebottom’s vice-captaincy no club ever will.
Say what you want about Collingwood’s conduct during Heritier Lumumba’s time there, but the decision to hire an independent consultant is a brave move given no one knows what it will find.
Critics of Collingwood could barely find fault with that decision by Collingwood’s board and integrity committee.
Sidebottom deciding to stand down — or having his arm twisted into that decision — would be a similarly effective way of the club showing it is serious about keeping the AFL’s entire season alive.
And living Nathan Buckley’s mission statement this week that everyone at Collingwood is trying to better themselves and the club.
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Originally published as Steele Sidebottom has no choice but to stand down as Collingwood vice-captain after breaching COVID-19 rules, writes Jon Ralph