Adelaide Crows football boss Adam Kelly has defended the club’s handling of Tyson Stengle’s drink-driving incident.
Stengle recorded a blood alcohol reading of 0.125 after being pulled over by South Australian police in the early hours of April 9 but the incident only became public on April 17.
Kelly admitted the club’s investigation took “longer than expected”, contributing to the delay in informing the public about what took place.
“I guess in this instance Tyson wasn’t involved in any sort of accident, there was no property damage or harm to anybody else so we prioritised looking after Tyson and ensuring that we were fully aware of the circumstances,” Kelly said on Sportsday.
“As I said, it took as longer than what we’d expect top be informed of that but then we investigated the circumstances around it and took our time to make sure that Tyson’s welfare was put first.
“That being the case, by the time we’d sort of done that and informed all relevant parties including some of our corporate partners and board members, we decided it was really important that Tyson inform his teammates and we had a scheduled team meeting on the Friday morning at which Tyson informed his teammates and then we released it publicly on the Friday afternoon.
“It certainly was never any intention to keep it away from the media, it was always planned that it was going to be released on the Friday afternoon, that was the plan we that had throughout the week.
“There’s certainly no suggestion that we were trying to hide any of this away. We informed the AFL Integrity department on the very day that we found out so that was never the intent it was just the way that we planned our week off.
“Obviously with the incident involving Lachie Hunter happening at or around the same time as our announcement there’s no connection whatsoever there, that was always our intent to release it on Friday afternoon.”
Kelly said Stengle had “regret and remorse” following the incident and acknowledged the error in judgement not immediately informing the club about what took place.
“Tyson was pulled over in the early hours of the Thursday morning and we became aware of that on the Saturday afternoon,” Kelly said.
“So that’s certainly not in meeting with our expectations of our players if they are involved in incidents such as this so Tyson’s aware of that and we’ve discussed that with him and he acknowledges that that’s not in meeting with our expectations.
“We were disappointed in that regard that it took the time that it did for us to be informed, more importantly we’re really disappointed in the decision that he’s made to get behind the wheel of a car and that’s certainly a regret and remorse that Tyson shares with the club.”
You can listen to Adam Kelly on Sportsday in the player below.