Brendan Fevola’s career lies in tatters after he was sacked by the Brisbane Lions but he received little sympathy from veteran coaches Kevin Sheedy and Mick Malthouse, who suggested the troubled forward had no one to blame but himself.
“Do I feel for him? I think you are responsible for yourself,” Malthouse said. “You make your bed you have to lay in it.
“In our court system we tend to say we blame our parents, we blame the alcohol, we blame drugs.
“The reality is there is a certain person responsible and you have to take that responsibility.
“I take on my full responsibility as coach, and as a player, as a human you have to take responsibilities on it and if you can’t deal with you have to so something about it but you can’t keep blaming people.”
Former Essendon mentor Sheedy, the foundation coach of expansion team Greater Western Sydney, said Fevola would be the last player he would attempt to lure to GWS.
Sheedy sent the former Carlton spearhead home in disgrace after a bar-room incident in Ireland during Australia’s 2006 International Rules tour.
“I cleared Brendan Fevola out of the Aust team five years ago,” he said.
“To me perhaps he has not learnt enough yet what is expected from top-class AFL players.
“At the moment we’ve just got our minds set on getting these (young) guys careers off on a good start and having nobody in there maybe taking them down the wrong path.”
