Suspended Sydney Swans players Isaac Heeney, Nick Blakey and James Jordan have been spotted in public for the first time since the Melbourne hotel party scandal broke as they returned to the club to discuss their futures.
Swans coach Dean Cox previously confirmed to reporters that Heeney, Jordan and Blakey would return to headquarters for exit meetings from Wednesday, alongside the other two suspended players, Chad Warner and Riley Bice.
Warner and Bice arrived together first at the club’s base at Moore Park late on Wednesday afternoon, followed by Heeney, Blakey and Jordon in the same car.
Only Heeney and Warner spoke to media, and the players were brief in their comments.
‘I’m looking forward to addressing the playing group,’ Heeney said.
Asked if Heeney had a message to fans, the Swans vice-captain did not answer.
Sydney Swans star Issac Heeney was seen outside the club’s HQ on Wednesday afternoon
James Jordan (left) and Nick Blakey (right) flanked Heeney as the trio returned for player exit meetings now the Swans season has concluded
Warner, flanked by a silent Bice, said he was ‘just here for my exit interview’.
Asked if he was going to say sorry or anything at all, Warner said: ‘I don’t know.’
The five have not spoken in public since the club suspended them for staying out late, drinking and calling strippers to Melbourne’s Pullman Hotel after last month’s final game of the home-and-away season against Essendon.
The club stressed the suspensions were for breach of team rules of behaviour and did not include sexual assault allegations made by the strippers against the players.
Victoria Police said further news on their investigation into those accusations is not expected until late October.
No charges have been laid, and any wrongdoing on the part of the five suspended players is not suggested.
Steffie Waters is pictured with Isaac Heeney, who appears to have been scrubbed from her social media
Police subsequently said Bice was not being investigated and would only be questioned as a witness.
Chad Warner is the only one of the five players to have previously been spotted in public since the drama, stepping out in Sydney with his girlfriend Alice Hughes.
Heeney’s fiancée Steffie Waters has in recent days appeared to scrub Heeney from her social media, where she has a significant following.
Swan coach Cox had arrived at HQ earlier on Wednesday morning, before chief executive Matthew Pavlich briefly spoke to media.
‘It’s a natural thing that the players will come into the club over the next period,’ Pavlich said.
‘And the players at some point will have a chat to the broader group and the club.’
Asked what he would want the five to say in their address, Pavlich said: ‘I want them to be themselves.
Riley Bice, Chad Warner and Isaac Heeney arrive at Swans headquarters for regular season-end player exit meetings and to address their teammates after completing their club suspensions.
‘I want them to come in and do what we’d normally do at the end of a season, which is player exit meetings.
‘If they’ve got something to say to their player group, if they’ve got something to say to the club, then we’ll hear them out then.’
Blakey was reportedly seeking a trade away from the club, with Geelong and his dad John’s former team North Melbourne mentioned as potential new homes.
The future of the other players was complicated by the fact the investigation into the sex assault allegations was unlikely to be concluded before the end of the upcoming player trade period.
That meant any suitor clubs would be taking a risk that the players could face lengthy league suspensions if they are found guilty of a criminal offence.
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
