CTV> Watch Eddie McGuire and Mick Malthouse address the media at Gosch's PaddockCTV> Heath Shaw, Scott Burns and the leadership group face the mediaCOLLINGWOOD defender Heath Shaw says he is feeling "empty" and "embarrassed" after crashing his car while under the influence of alcohol.
Shaw ran into a parked car in Hawthorn East around 11.30 on Sunday night, and subsequently returned a positive blood alcohol test of 0.14.
He denied reports teammate Alan Didak was in the car, but conceded Didak, along with brother Rhyce, had been drinking beer with him at the Geebung Polo Club before the incident.
"I've let a lot of people down. Not only myself but the club and supporters," Shaw said at the Lexus Centre.
"It's something you don't want wished upon anyone, and to find myself in this situation is pretty embarrassing."
Shaw offered no explanation for the incident, which occurred despite past alcohol counselling from the AFL.
"You're not really thinking," he said.
"You couldn't say I was really in the state to make a decision, and I obviously put myself in that situation and then chose the wrong one.
"I thought [driving] would be easier. I had my car there, and you don't really think of the repercussions of what you're doing. You just think about doing it, and obviously now I'm paying for it, and it's all fair for me."
The club denied Didak was involved in the incident, despite the forward being sighted at the scene shortly after the collision.
"[Didak] got a phone call from Heath, because he knew he'd done the wrong thing," leadership group member Nick Maxwell said.
"Heath rang and said, 'I need your help', and Alan came straight away. He wasn't in the car – this is about Heath.
"Alan hasn't done the wrong thing in terms of drink driving. Heath has."
Shaw said Didak walked from the venue to the accident scene, but gave his teammate instructions to leave once a crowd had started to build.
Shaw will be allowed to play against St Kilda on Saturday night, with captain Scott Burns saying he hopes the 22-year-old "comes under the pump".
"We want to put him on display," Burns said. "The easiest thing is to avoid all you guys as much as possible and try and protect him, and put him back in the twos for one or two weeks.
"In the last three weeks, he's had two pretty poor games and he's going to playing with a lot of pressure Saturday night because if he has another poor one, he might not be playing a week or two later anyway.
"We just want to say we're not happy at all with Heater. We wanted to put him up here and make sure he's got to do the press conference here today and tell everyone exactly what happened.
"We're going to put him up Wednesday for the normal mid-week one where a player has to get up, and he's definitely playing on Saturday night.
"We want him to be in the papers for the next two or three days, be on talk-back radio every day.
"I hope he gets tagged if he plays in the midfield on Saturday night, I hope he gets dragged to full-back if he's playing in the backline.
"He's going to be under the pump, and he's got to respond. He's let us down as a leadership group, he's let the players down, and he's let his coach down, who's copped a fair bit about him in the last three or four weeks in terms of his position and how he's been dragged out of the play.
"Mick sticks up for him a lot and he's done the wrong thing by Mick as well, so we're all disappointed."
