Swans players were filtering back to the Pullman hotel, the former Hilton overlooking Yarra Park, in the hours after midnight.
A handful of current players who had been out until early Monday morning wanted to keep partying back at the hotel. They duly moved to a playerโs room.
At one stage, a former Swans player and a further friend joined the group for at least a period of this night.
After 2am โ the exact timeline is difficult to ascertain even from the multiple sources who spoke to this masthead on condition of anonymity โ one of the players made a phone call. Soon afterwards, two women arrived at the Pullman to join the party of several of the players.
It is uncertain what happened next, except that an allegation was soon made by one of the women of a sexual assault.
The two women left the hotel room and were joined by a third woman in the foyer, where there was a commotion.
After the alleged incident, police were called.
The allegation will be the subject of police investigations as Victoria Police probe the incident. The allegation has been handed to the sexual crimes squad.
The five players who remained in Melbourne during the early stage of the police investigation as the rest of the team returned to Sydney on Monday were Isaac Heeney, Chad Warner and Nick Blakey, plus ex-Demon and tagger James Jordon and mature second year defender Riley Bice.
This masthead has contacted their representatives.
This masthead is not suggesting any of the players are under investigation by police, just that they are assisting with inquiries.
On Monday morning, at least one senior team official went down to the foyer while the five players who had been in the room with the women were instructed to return to or remain in their own rooms as police began working through the first moments of an investigation that would shake the Swans and the entire AFL ecosystem.
There is no doubt that the players will not play this weekend in what is a dead rubber anyway against North Melbourne, but the expectation of close observers โ not the Swans โ is that the five will miss a bare minimum of two matches. The penalty is almost certain to be uniform.
The Swans are working with the AFL on the matter, but the AFLโs integrity boss, former detective Tony Keane, has remained at armโs length. The league has left the questioning to the Swans and, in time, to police.
On Monday, the five players drove back to Sydney, separately from the rest of the team and travelling officials, in at least two rental vehicles.
By Tuesday, as club and competition confronted arguably the most damaging episode the Swans have faced since their breadline days in the early โ90s, the five would be interviewed by Sydneyโs senior management, one by one.
They had not been formally interviewed by police, as suggested, but police had spoken to some and advised that they would be in touch down the track. A representative of Blakeyโs says that the star running defender did not speak to the police even informally.
Heeney went down to the police headquarters in Melbourne on Monday in what turned out to be an unnecessary trip as he was not interviewed then either.
Clearly, the police had to gain witness and/or victim statements from the women before they sought answers from the players, as a matter of process.
After the Sunday twilight game victory over Essendon, the club had been forced to stay in Melbourne because of the early curfew at Sydney airport. Swans players and officials went out for drinks after the late game. Senior coach Dean Cox as well as a number of the players were on film outside the Harlow, a bar in Church Street Richmond and, according to one witness, about 15 players โ Heeney, Warner, Bice and Jordon among them โ went on to trendy Queen Street bar Her. They were, the source said, there until close to 2am.
It is not unusual for Sydney players to go out for a drink after the game, according to club insiders. The Swans, who have a mature team, tend to trust their players and especially team leaders to exercise good judgment.
Cox was back at the hotel shortly after he left the Richmond bar not long after midnight, according to CCTV footage shown on Seven.
The Swansโ hierarchy โ led by new chief executive Matthew Pavlich and their chairman Andrew Pridham โ were unsurprisingly described as โfilthyโ with the reckless decisions in those wee hours, irrespective of whether the matter proceeds into a serious criminal charge or not.
Confronted by the media avalanche on Tuesday morning outside the club, Cox said he was โobviously extremely disappointed with whatโs happenedโ.
AFL CEO Andrew Dillon who had hitherto been silent on the scandal on Tuesday night released a statement that foreshadowed strong action.
โSexual assault allegations are serious, regardless of who is involved, what time of year it is, or what they may mean for a season,โ Dillon said.
โOur first question should not be what this means for a football club. It should be whether our actions match the standards we stand for and the community expects of us.
โBeing clear about our standards also means being prepared to act when those standards are not met.โ
With Cameron Houston
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Michael Gleeson is an award-winning senior sports writer specialising in AFL and athletics.Connect via X or email.
Jake Niall is a Walkley award-winning sports journalist and chief AFL writer for The Age.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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