Kangaroos wild night
03 December 2007 Sunday Herald Sun
Sam Edmund and Michael Warner
POLICE used capsicum spray on Kangaroo premiership player Shannon Grant as teammate Aaron Edwards lay unconscious during a wild night at a Lionel Richie concert.
The footballers, with teammate Hamish McIntosh, were involved in a confrontation with police and security guards just after 9pm on Saturday.
The trio had been partying hard at a Drysdale winery, near Geelong, for the A Day on the Green concert, promoted as "the Big Day Out for grown-ups".
Witnesses said Edwards was staggering and falling over.
One onlooker told the Herald Sun the 23-year-old was skolling from bottles of white wine before he collapsed among the crowd of more than 10,000 people at Scotchmans Hill winery.
"Edwards was just lying on the ground. They couldn't get him off the ground he was that far gone," one man said.
"McIntosh was trying to get him up. He was probably the most sober one out of the three of them. They were terrible. Grant was falling over everywhere as well."
Trouble started when police, alerted to Edwards' state, went to investigate.
Kangaroos football manager Donald McDonald said Grant thought Edwards was going to be arrested and tried to defuse the situation.
"Shannon said, 'No, don't worry, he's with us, he'll be all right', and then Shannon said the police capsicum-sprayed them and led Aaron away," Mr McDonald said.
"They escorted him around the back to the winery and let him and his girlfriend go. No charges were laid.
"Then the police came back and put water in Shannon's eyes and the other party members and off they went.
"Shannon had his whole family there. Even the dad got sprayed because they were all sitting there."
Several witnesses took photos as the incident erupted.
McDonald said Edwards would face disciplinary action this week.
"It's a code of conduct issue for us," he said.
"We haven't got a problem with Shannon, we've got a problem with Aaron.
"Our leadership group will discuss it with me and we'll go about an appropriate form of action, whether it's a fine or community service.
"He has pulled up all right. He's very apologetic."
Edwards, who was caught on police phone taps in 2003 talking to convicted drug trafficker Shane Waters, had vowed to bury his party-boy reputation.
In an interview on Saturday, Edwards vowed he was "just going to focus on my football".
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,22858950%255E20322,00.html
