HARLEY Bennell has been fined $10,000 by Fremantle and told to undergo counselling to deal with his personal issues following a club investigation into his behaviour at Peel's match on Saturday.
Bennell met with senior coach Ross Lyon, CEO Steve Rosich and football manager Chris Bond on Tuesday to discuss his conduct at the WAFL game.
Bennell under investigation for WAFL behaviour
The 24-year-old interrupted the Thunder's three-quarter time huddle and pulled cousin Traye aside in a strange incident, which comes after he was asked to leave a flight to the Gold Coast when he was intoxicated while on leave following his latest calf injury.
Bennell has struggled to deal with his latest setback, and the Dockers have mapped out a plan for him to adress his personal issues and return to the field.
"We have an agreed action plan as how to best assist Harley with his personal wellbeing and his return to playing football," Bond said in a club statement.
"With respect to football, we have a rehabilitation and training program in place for Harley to return to playing, initially for Peel, in the next five to six weeks.
"Given Harley’s previous commitment to rehabilitation and training in accordance with his program, we are confident that he will give himself the best chance to get back to playing.
"The agreed off-field action plan includes Harley working with an external expert counsellor to assist in dealing with personal issues.
"With regard to his off-field conduct since his injury setback, it has been made clear to Harley what expectations the club and his team mates have and the standards and behaviours that need to be maintained.
"We also imposed a $10,000 financial sanction on Harley, $5000 of which is suspended for 12 months."
Bennell is yet to debut for the Dockers since he was traded at the end of 2015 from Gold Coast, where the damaging midfielder played 81 games and booted 92 goals.
Persistent calf issues have dogged him at Fremantle and Bennell's latest two-month setback was tough to take given he was closing in on a highly-anticipated return to football.
Speaking to Channel Seven on Tuesday night, coach Ross Lyon said the Dockers would continue supporting the former Sun but didn't reveal what Bennell was doing at the Peel huddle.
"It wasn't ideal. It wasn't exactly pleasing. He certainly caused no harm to anybody and wasn't putting his best foot forward," Lyon said.
"We've sanctioned Harley, but we'll always challenge that behaviour and support the person, and work really hard to get Harley back to his best.
"It would be a terrible shame, wouldn't it, to lose a young indigenous footballer in this country of this level of talent.
"We've seen too much of that occur, so we'd really like to support him and let him shine.
"If anything it's been self-harm that Harley's been involved with … it's not great for Harley more than anyone else.
"We all slip up and obviously he's had a couple but it's all been based around devastation (from his calf injury).
"He needs to pick himself up off the canvas, dust himself off and recommit and show the reasons why we got him here in the first place.
"He's been able to earn – over a fair period of time – a level of respect but obviously that has slipped.
"He needs to earn that back."
