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'Out of line': Former Crows player lashes 'disrespectful' Caroline Wilson

Former Crowe Stephen Rowe (pictured left) speaking to the camera and veteran reporter Caroline Wilson's (pictured right) talking.
Former Crowe Stephen Rowe (pictured left) disagreed with veteran reporter Caroline Wilson's (pictured right) comments. (Images: Fox Sports)

Veteran AFL reporter Caroline Wilson’s comments about how the Crows handled Tyson Stengle’s drink-driving incident didn’t sit well with former club star Stephen Rowe.

Adelaide suspended Stengle for four AFL games and fined him $2500 for drink-driving.

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Stengle was stopped by police for driving an unregistered vehicle in Adelaide's south-western suburbs in the early hours of April 9 and subsequently failed a blood alcohol test with a reading of 0.125.

But he took two days to inform the club and the Crows did not release a statement until April 19.

Wilson labelled the club’s handling of the incident and their reasoning for a late statement as ‘laughable’.

But Rowe took exception to this comment.

“I thought the three of you Monday night on Footy Classified were a little bit out of line potting the Crows on their handling of Tyson Stengle. Can you convince me otherwise,” he said on 5AA Radio on Friday.

“They’ve got new management there in Adam Kelly and Matthew Nicks and I think you, with your little team on Footy Classified, were disrespectful to the handling of them.

“I have rung the club. There are private, sensitive, player welfare considerations that they put player first is the reason it took so long.

“They were told late, you knew that, they told the AFL within two hours of the contact, it took days to get the correct details. You want them to release a press release with incorrect details do you?”

But Wilson fired back, doubling down on her criticism of the time it took for the Crows to make the incident public.

“How when a club is doing absolutely nothing at the moment but trying to save itself they’ve had the information from Saturday,” she said.

“How it took them six days to actually put together communication responses, put together a meeting with all the players.

Tyson Stengle, pictured here in action for Adelaide early in 2020.
Tyson Stengle in action for Adelaide. Image: Getty

“How it took them to Friday morning to do that but having done all of that — and it was a pretty simple clear cut case if you ask me — to still try and spin it behind the scenes with people telling them that Tyson had changed managers and that was why the car was unregistered, you don’t mitigate these situations. Drink-driving is a terrible thing to do.

“Why did they wait till Friday night to release the information?”

Rowe claim Crows took player welfare as priority

Rowe explained to Wilson that there was “player welfare considerations” that had to be put first in the situation, but Wilson compared the situation to that of Lachie Hunter.

The Western Bulldogs suspended Hunter for four AFL games and fined him $5000 over his alleged drink-driving incident, while he has stepped down from the club's vice-captaincy and leadership group.

Hunter, 25, allegedly crashed into four parked cars in Middle Park at about 8.45pm on Thursday.

The club released a statement Friday morning.

But Wilson was having none of Rowe’s view she was wrong.

“Matthew Nicks (Adelaide coach) actually went on radio two days ago, Stephen, and said with hindsight it would’ve been good if they could’ve released the information earlier,” she said.

“How can you explain Matthew Nicks saying what he said then, Stephen? I would say that his CEO hasn't looked after him in not agreeing with him and then saying ‘we wouldn’t have done anything differently’.

“You cannot spin this one and they can’t either. They kept it to themselves and they released it when they put out the trash on a Friday night.”

with AAP