Jordan De Goey, Heath Shaw among Collingwood players caught lying in recent years

Brayden Sier made a bad situation worse when he played basketball while on Collingwood injury list then failed to tell the club the truth. But he’s not the first Magpie to make that mistake.

Collingwood star Jordan De Goey.

Collingwood youngster Brayden Sier is waiting to learn his punishment after filling in for a local basketball team while on the club’s injury list.

He made a bad situation much worse by trying to dodge the heat by reportedly claiming he was only shooting some baskets at halftime of a Diamond Valley Basketball Association Division 3 match.

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He eventually confessed to donning a singlet for about 20 minutes under the pseudonym “Phil Inn”.

“He made a couple of errors in the situation. One to play the game and two, to try to sweep it under the carpet,” Magpies coach Nathan Buckley said today.

Buckley described the incident as “a blue from a young player”, but it is the latest in a worrying pattern of less than truthful behaviour at Magpieland. Here are a few high-profile examples.

HEATH SHAW AND ALAN DIDAK

The Pies came down on the star pair like a ton of bricks after they lied about a drink-driving incident in one of the biggest footy stories of 2008.

Shaw and Didak were banned for the rest of the season and fined a combined $15,000 when their fibs came to light in August that year.

“When you have two of your key players looking the president, the coach and their own teammates in the eye and actually lying to them, it really destroys the essence of the club,” then chief executive Gary Pert said.

“It was decided by the leadership group that these two players actually don’t deserve to wear the Collingwood Football Club jumper and that’s why they’re not playing for the rest of the season.”

Shaw blew nearly three times the legal limit after he crashed his car into a stationary vehicle with Didak in the passenger seat. Both lied to the club about Didak’s involvement, denying the forward was in the car.

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Heath Shaw faces the media alongside then Magpies captain Scott Burns.

Magpies president Eddie McGuire initially stood by their story, rubbishing suggestions his players weren’t being entirely truthful: “Didak will be accused of the Kennedy shooting next,” he declared. Days later he was forced into an awkward backflip.

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Shaw said: “I’m pretty embarrassed, I’m pretty empty. I let a lot of people down.”

Collingwood was knocked out of the 2008 finals in the second week by St Kilda.

A year earlier, Didak was threatened with the sack after a wild night out with notorious criminal Christopher Wayne Hudson, which he did not initially report to police.

JORDAN DE GOEY

The rising superstar was suspended for three matches at the start of last season and fined $5000 after lying to the club about how he broke his hand.

Jordan De Goey explains how he broke his hand on a Collingwood video.

De Goey initially told the club he suffered the injury playing with his dog, but later confessed he was hurt in an incident at at St Kilda bar.

“It could be a long-time (before he regains the club’s trust),” footy manager Geoff Walsh said.

“That could be two months, it could be two years. In some people’s eyes, in our organisation … some people are tough markers and they might say, ‘You’ve lost me’. We hope that’s not the case, but how long’s a piece of string?”

De Goey’s story had embarrassed coach Nathan Buckley, who told the media his star forward hurt himself when he caught his hand on a door while throwing a toy for his dog.

DANE SWAN

Swan had a long and colourful history at the Magpies that included brilliant on-field performance and off-field drama.

In 2012, there were calls for the Pies to sack Swan after he was suspended for breaking a team alcohol ban, an incident that followed explosive drug rumours during the pre-season.

In February, Collingwood captain Nick Maxwell said he had asked Swan directly if he was using illicit substances and declared the rumours “110 per cent” not true.

Dane Swan in full flight for the Magpies in 2012.

In his book Dane Swan: My Story, published in 2016, Swan set the record straight.

“I have experimented with what some people call recreational drugs, but have never taken performance-enhancing drugs or what you might call ‘heavy’ drugs,” he told the Herald Sun.

Fair to say not the first time number 36 from Collingwood has tried to cover something up. Nice to see I left a legacy at the pies. #floreatpica

— Dane Swan (@swandane) August 15, 2019

And one more story that probably looks worse than it was in light of the others above...

JEREMY HOWE

De Goey’s dog wasn’t the first to be part of an unusual pre-season Magpie injury.

This incident is in a different category to those above because Jeremy Howe will go to his grave insisting his broke his finger playing frisbee with his dog during in February 2016, and not in a suburban cricket match. But the timing was extremely awkward.

After Howe suffered the injury, which required two screws to be inserted in his middle finger, it emerged he had filled in for the Koonung Heights Cricket Club in a local Twenty20 game earlier the same day.

The Pies grilled Howe repeatedly about his story and ultimately accepted his version of events.

“I can only believe what he tells me and I choose to do so,” then-Magpies football director Neil Balme told SEN radio. “I’ve only asked him three times about it and each time he’s told me the same story.”