OF ALL the multitude of images which resonated from Collingwood's week of horrors, it was Heath Shaw's confused and devastated face during last Monday's misguided media presentation that has stayed with this column.

As it soon emerged, Shaw not only looked shattered and — as he said — felt empty, but the 22-year-old must also have been saturated by a well of sheer terror knowing that he had lied to the very teammates and captain who, during the press conference, were insisting he had told the truth about who was in the car the previous night.

And of all the pertinent questions, perhaps the most relevant is whether the club should have seen this coming. Those close to the young footballer have been concerned about his emotional state for about a month and knew there were some lingering issues relating to both his private life and his football that probably needed addressing.

They are beating themselves up about that now. Should Collingwood and its massively manned football department be questioning themselves as well? Certainly AFL Players' Association chief executive Brendon Gale questioned the manner in which Shaw had been rolled out.

The Magpie executive explained after the event that one of the reasons neither of the Shaw brothers was suspended in the first instance related to their very different but respective fragile emotional states. Which only makes Monday's public ordeal for Heath Shaw all the more open to question.

One of Collingwood's most talented players, the younger Shaw seemed on the verge of tears and later on Monday dissolved completely when the truth came out. The Magpies' hierarchy had said Shaw would continue to face the music all week and would face the media again just to ram home the scope of his crime against the club.

Later, when the crime was expanded to include lying, Shaw was shut away and became the star performer alongside Alan Didak in a massive policy shift by the Magpies. Rhyce Shaw was also suspended as part of the shift, although the previous day his crime had been no different and Rhyce's decision to hit the grog while injured appeared to have gone unpunished.

Collingwood did the right thing on Tuesday, but you have to wonder at the mixed messages along the way and the impact to the footballers concerned.

Despite Collingwood's wealth, its superb training facilities and the relatively high level of funds invested in football and recruiting, the Magpies have no full-time player development manager in charge of player welfare. The job is filled part-time — 1½ days a week — by a young psychology student.

It is true that the club employs the highly regarded Simon Lloyd as a high performance manager. Lloyd is a sport psychologist whose job description has been widened to include the Magpies' coaching staff and its executive.

Chief executive Gary Pert denied the club was under-resourced as a result and stressed Lloyd was more accessible to the players since his assistant coaching role had been removed.

He said the club believed it was well-equipped to handle the kind of issue that emerged last week — a crisis that was not enhanced by the media's saturation coverage but in fact was a watershed time for the Collingwood Football Club.

The insinuation all week has been that Didak is a lost cause where Collingwood is concerned, but surely once that has lessened, there will be some serious soul-searching regarding the talented transgressor. The club tried to trade Rhyce Shaw last year and probably will again.

The Heath Shaw situation is equally intriguing given the brothers' heritage at the club. Collingwood's last premiership captain, Tony Shaw, a dual Copeland Trophy winner, Norm Smith Medallist, former coach and 313-gamer, has criticised the culture of the club, which some senior Magpies found galling given the heavy involvement of his two nephews.

In the past when Tony Shaw has had a dig at the club, coach Mick Malthouse retorts, throwing up Shaw's four-year coaching record at the club. To his credit, Shaw was shattered when the club delisted his son Brayden, but while he privately let the Magpies know what he thought of their treatment of his son, he was far more measured publicly.

Nathan Buckley recently suggested to Tony Shaw on radio that he should think twice about his criticism where Collingwood and, specifically, players by the name of Shaw were concerned.

And then last week Buckley did the unthinkable and criticised Eddie McGuire's handling of the situation, and even widened that criticism to suggest that too often McGuire's very presence in the midst of a controversy did not help the club.

McGuire, too, has had his moments publicly with Tony Shaw, but the Magpies' president understands better than anyone the significance of the legacy this complicated, but supremely gifted football family, has had on his club. He is also aware of the tragedy Ray and Tony continue to live with following the death of their brother 14 years ago, undiagnosed with depression, who took his own life.

Earlier this season, Collingwood inducted Ray Shaw — like his brother a club captain and best-and-fairest winner who famously played in 20 finals for no premiership — into its Hall of Fame. McGuire, who played a part in that decision, thought enough of it to call Heath and Rhyce at their training camp in South Africa to let them know.

Now the high-profile president will play a part in the club's handling of the most sensitive dilemma of how to rehabilitate Heath Shaw, the 22-year-old star sidelined through punishment until 2009 and who has harboured ambitions to captain the club — ambitions which look depleted now.

Hopefully Tuesday's tough love will prove a turning point for Collingwood and hopefully it is right when it says it has the human resources in place to deal with the ramifications of its decision. Not only is the club's immediate future but also its rich and occasionally tragic heritage at stake.