{"id":373007,"date":"2024-03-05T02:03:22","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T03:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=373007"},"modified":"2024-03-05T06:05:03","modified_gmt":"2024-03-05T06:05:03","slug":"banned-demons-apology-after-cocaine-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=373007","title":{"rendered":"Banned Demon's apology after cocaine claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

Melbourne<\/a> coach Simon Goodwin<\/a> has revealed that provisionally suspended forward Joel Smith apologised to him when the pair spoke amid the ongoing investigation into his positive drug test for cocaine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fronting media on Monday, Goodwin became the latest official to deny that the club has a widespread drug problem in the wake of the scandal.<\/p>\n

Goodwin confirmed that he had spoken with Smith since \ufeffthe 28-year-old's positive match day test result was made public in October.<\/p>\n

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\"Simon<\/p>\n

Smith remains provisionally suspended, pending a resolution, after Sport Integrity Australia (SIA) found him guilty in a pre-Christmas hearing.<\/p>\n

He was also served three additional Ant-Doping Rule Violations by SIA last month<\/a> for alleged "trafficking or attempted trafficking" of cocaine to third parties.<\/p>\n

Smith is yet to respond publicly to these developments.<\/p>\n

\"Joel<\/p>\n

As a result of his ban, Smith is unable to engage in or discuss Melbourne's football program.<\/p>\n

The exchange\ufeff between the pair indicates a change of tune from Goodwin who said he was "incredibly angry" and "frustrated"<\/a> when he first heard of Smith's positive result in October.<\/p>\n

In November, Goodwin also admitted that he had not spoken to Smith\ufeff since the incident.<\/p>\n

"I haven't spoken to Joel. I am going to let that process play out because I have a level of anger, of frustration towards it," Goodwin told SEN radio.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the Demons' 'opening round' clash with Sydney on Thursday night, \ufeffGoodwin revealed that he and Smith had since been in communication, and stated that Smith was being supported by the club.<\/p>\n

"Clearly, once we get all the information we can address it. But right now, as we sit here, that's all speculation \u2026 It's an ongoing investigation," he said.<\/p>\n

"I've spoken to Joel, he's apologised in terms of his actions.<\/p>\n

"What I do know is he's got a lot of support from this footy club and has had the whole way through."<\/p>\n

Asked if Melbourne had a wider drug issue that it was trying to mask, Goodwin echoed the stance of club football boss Alan Richardson<\/a> and captain Max Gawn<\/a> in challenging any culture of drugs.<\/p>\n

"No, I don't [believe so]," he said.<\/p>\n

\"Simon<\/p>\n

"I think we've had some challenges, yes. And you know, we've been pretty open about those challenges with Joel and obviously in a different way, Clayton [Oliver], but no, we haven't got a culture in that space.<\/p>\n

"What we have got a culture of is high performance and that's what we've really gone after.<\/p>\n

"We've addressed the challenges we've had but we've also gone after what we really value and that's high-performing culture."<\/p>\n

The Demons have endured a tumultuous off-season which included embattled midfielder Clayton Oliver's period of personal leave<\/a> from the club.<\/p>\n

Alongside the club's spate of off-field issues, Goodwin trusted that his team had handled their on-field woes.<\/p>\n

"We've addressed things, we're moving forward and we're a pretty united and connected group," he said.<\/p>\n

"Hopefully we'll be able to show that over the next few weeks."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin has revealed that provisionally suspended forward Joel Smith apologised to him when the pair spoke amid the ongoing investigation into his […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":373009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373007"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=373007"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":373012,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373007\/revisions\/373012"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/373009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=373007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=373007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=373007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}