Luke Hodge fined $5000 for drink driving by Hawthorn but free to play finals

HAWTHORN will regain Luke Hodge for its qualifying final after the club elected to fine him $5000 rather than suspend him for drink driving.

AFL Round 23. Hawthorn vs Carlton at the MCG. Hawthorn skipper Luke Hodge talks with CEO Stuart Fox after todays game. Pic: Michael Klein. Saturday September 5, 2015.

HAWTHORN will regain Luke Hodge for its qualifying final against West Coast after the club elected to fine its skipper $5000 rather than suspend him for drink driving.

The Hawthorn leadership group, coach Alastair Clarkson and football manager Chris Fagan all met after Saturday’s 57-point win over Carlton to discuss a penalty for Hodge, who was caught driving with a blood-alcohol reading on 0.068 on Thursday night.

“They’ve requested that Hodgey make a donation of $5000 to a charity of his choice,’’ Clarkson said, “It’ll probably have something to do with road trauma and Vic Roads I’d imagine.’’

Clarkson said that Hodge’s contribution to his club and his sport, coupled with his shame and remorse over the incident, meant that Hawthorn did not believe he deserved a club-imposed ban from playing finals.

“We’ve got a whole raft of approaches that we could take to this particular incident and our leadership group and the executive of our football club didn’t think it was at the level to warrant a suspension,’’ Clarkson said.

He said Hodge had made “a significant error of judgment’’ and hoped the “social and moral police’’ would now show some empathy towards the 31-year-old. He felt being penalised by the police (a $450 fine and loss of 10 demerit points) and Hawthorn Football Club protocols should be the end of the matter.

Luke Hodge is free to play the qualifying final. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

“We were all pretty disappointed obviously,’’ Clarkson said. “He’s the captain of our club, he’s been a first-class leader of our footy club, too, for a long, long period of time.

“It’s just so out of character for Hodgey.’’

Clarkson acknowledged that the penalty might have been different if the incident involved a young Hawthorn player, or one who was injured rather than serving a two-match tribunal suspension.

“Quite possibly, because when Hodgey was a second or third-year player I threw everything at him because he missed a training session after a 21st (birthday party) and that was nearly the last time he had any trouble at our footy club.’’

Asked whether he was concerned that his captain was even drinking beer on a Thursday night, Clarkson said Hawthorn had an “alcohol game plan’’ that related to guidelines for footballers who were playing or are injured.

“This is a peculiar set of circumstances given that he was on suspension,’’ Clarkson It sits outside of that. So we’re just disappointed that it’s so close to the finals and he’s the captain of our footy club, so we’d expect that he would have been stronger in his compliance to it than he was.’’

Originally published as Luke Hodge fined $5000 for drink driving by Hawthorn but free to play finals