COLLINGWOOD yesterday defended the amount of "due diligence" it conducted in getting to the bottom of just who was the passenger in Heath Shaw's Ford utility.

When asked yesterday whether the club had done such simple things as check Shaw's or Didak's mobile phone for evidence that Shaw had, as he claimed, called Didak immediately after the crash to ask him to attend the scene, CEO Gary Pert defended Collingwood's actions.

He claimed the club merely acted on the evidence presented to them by Shaw on Monday morning which was that he had been driving home with a "mate" not connected with the football club.

"Did we do enough due diligence? We did, based on the information that we initially got and we've got to keep in mind that we deal with feedback from the public at different stages and from radio stations and we talk to players about instances," Pert told yesterday's media conference.

"There was nothing in the communication from Heath when he flagged to us on the Monday morning that (indicated Didak was the passenger). In a lot of ways, who else was in the car, and we were told that it was mate, didn't have a major bearing on it."

Pert said that once information started to reach the club suggesting Didak was the passenger, the club sought more information from the police and from the players concerned.

Once the club had gained confessions from the players it then decided to hand out the season-long suspensions to Shaw and Didak as well as a two-week suspension to Rhyce Shaw for drinking heavily with the other two as well as on the previous day.

Which brought up an interesting scenario that to many made the initial decision to allow Shaw to play in Friday's match against St Kilda look decidedly cynical.

The club had spent Monday claiming the best way to deal with offences such as drink-driving was for Shaw to not be suspended from playing but instead take the field against the Saints.

Asked yesterday whether the move to suspend the players signalled the club held lying as a more serious offence than drink-driving, Pert said the revised stance was not out of kilter.

"When you have two of your players looking the president, the coach, their own teammates in the eye and actually lying to them it really destroys the essence of the club."

The players did not deserve to wear the Collingwood Football Club jumper.