HAWTHORN is comfortable youngster Jono O'Rourke did nothing wrong despite being with Sydney Swans defender Michael Talia when he was arrested for alleged possession of cocaine in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The Hawks' leadership group spoke with O'Rourke yesterday after news broke that Talia had been stood down by the Swans after being arrested outside a nightclub in Sydney's eastern suburbs.

Veteran midfielder Sam Mitchell said O'Rourke was simply caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"We dealt with that yesterday, a couple of the leaders just had a chat with him and figured out exactly what happened. Firstly, you want to have clarity around the situation," Mitchell said.

"We were pretty comfortable with it – (it's) not great where he was and all that sort of stuff – but he didn't do anything wrong himself and it's unfortunate that he's been tied up in it a little bit."

O'Rourke, who played in the Hawks' narrow win over the Swans at the SCG on Thursday night, and Talia were TAC Cup teammates at Calder Cannons during their underage careers.

Mitchell hoped O'Rourke learned from the incident, which he believed was a reminder to all AFL players to think about the situations they find themselves in.

"It's a great lesson for everyone, I think. You've got to be careful where you are, what time you are (there) and who you're with," Mitchell said.

"Late nights you put yourself at risk of bad things happening. He didn't actually do anything wrong, but now he's tied up and you're asking me about him today.

"You've got to feel for him, but by the same token it's a great lesson – not just for him.

"He might learn the lesson, he's going to be feeling pretty ordinary about it, but we've got 45 players and there's (800) AFL players, hopefully they can learn the lesson don't put yourself in this situation."

Thursday night's clash was O'Rourke's sixth game for Hawthorn after the former No.2 draft pick was traded from Greater Western Sydney at the end of 2014.