Former Magpies skipper Scott Burns believes bad boys Alan Didak and Heath Shaw will remain at Collingwood next season.
The retired Collingwood captain, who has signed on as an assistant coach at West Coast for the next three years, said he couldn't see either player being traded to another club this week despite their past misdemeanors.
Didak and Shaw received an internal suspension from the Magpies following a Sunday afternoon drinking session late in the season that ended when the pair were involved in a car crash on the way home.
Shaw initially told the club and Burns he was the only player involved but when it became apparent Didak was there too, the pair were hit with an internal suspension for lying that lasted from Round 19 until Collingwood was dumped out of the finals by St Kilda.
But Burns believes the internal suspension was the best thing that could have happened for both the players and the club.
"When they (Shaw and Didak) were out over the weekend, that particular time I think it was Round 18 and we'd lost three in a row and we were just clinging in to the eight," Burns told Perth radio station 6PR.
"We were really spiraling downwards (and) I think that really gelled the group together and we won the next three."
"(But) the fact (they were) having a bender on the weekend when we had an eight day break and the opposition had a six day break (was unforgivable)."
"We'd worked that hard for six months, the group and then you have two or three of your leading players doing that, well it's not a great example and just certainly, I guess, showed to the group that they really didn't care about the rest of us."
"(So) I personally believe that Didak and Shaw, it was probably the best thing that could have happened to them (and), no, I can't see them going anywhere either."
Burns also said he wasn't angry with Shaw for lying to him, despite the former skipper appearing foolish after he strongly defended Shaw's honesty just hours before Didak's involvement became apparent.
"I went over to their place that night when it all came out and they called me over and to be as honest as I can be, I went into the house and I just said, 'you idiots'," Burns recalled.
"Don't worry about me, the media are going to have a field day with you fellas now'."
"I think you understand at the time, when you have the boys looking out for each other ... there's nothing wrong with that at all I don't believe."
"But the next day when you have time to think about things and we tell them the media are coming at us, they're saying this, this and this, and they just dug the hole a little bit too deep."