An \u201cashamed\u201d Mykelti Lefau has been suspended, fined and will undergo counselling for his drunk driving charge at the weekend. <\/p>\n
CODE Sports first revealed the Richmond forward was caught driving with a blood-alcohol level of .108, double the legal limit. <\/p>\n
Lefau will miss two matches, including a practice game on Friday, pay a $2500 fine to an applicable charity and take counselling sessions. <\/p>\n
Richmond chief executive Shane Dunne spoke to media on Monday afternoon. <\/p>\n
\u201cMykelti is incredibly remorseful, he\u2019s ashamed and, as a club, this type of action we can\u2019t condone,\u201d Dunne said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think we\u2019ve made a strong action in this behaviour.\u201d <\/p>\n
Lefau has accepted the sanction \u2013 which was meted out by the leadership group, captain Toby Nankervis and the club board \u2013 and will front his teammates on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n
Lefau did not immediately inform Richmond when he was charged and the club learned about the incident after media inquiries.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe found out about it this morning, some of our staff told us there was an issue and throughout the day we pieced together exactly what happened over the weekend,\u201d Dunne said. \u201c \u2026 we received some media inquires and that\u2019s part of our disappointment with Mykelti, we would\u2019ve preferred he rang us first.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s another learning for him, he was more ashamed of his actions and was hoping it wouldn\u2019t see the light of day. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe would have absolutely preferred he came to us first but we understand that it\u2019s a difficult time for him as well but it doesn\u2019t excuse that.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Lefau incident follows Noah Balta\u2019s drunken bar fight this time last year. Balta was also sanctioned by the club and later convicted by the courts. <\/p>\n
Midfielder Dion Prestia is also fighting a charge following an alleged incident at a Mornington Peninsula pub, but he and the Tigers have maintained no involvement throughout.<\/p>\n
Dunne denies Richmond having any cultural issues with alcohol and rejects the need to address it as a club. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no issues with this football club, we\u2019ve had two issues 12 months apart and they\u2019re completely unrelated,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Lefau, 27, was sidelined for majority of the 2025 season with knee and soft-tissue injuries.<\/p>\n
But he featured in the Tigers\u2019 match simulation on Friday afternoon against Essendon and booted three goals.<\/p>\n
Lefau has played 11 games at AFL level for 14 career goals after he was recruited as a mature-age player out of Casey\u2019s VFL program in 2023<\/p>\n
Victoria Police on Monday said Prahran police had stopped a male driver for a random breath test on Wattletree Road, Malvern East about 3am on Saturday February 21.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Surrey Hills man returned a positive preliminary test before returning an alleged evidentiary reading of .108,\u201d the police statement said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe driver is expected to be issued with an infringement notice for drink-driving.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An \u201cashamed\u201d Mykelti Lefau has been suspended, fined and will undergo counselling for his drunk driving charge at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,689,55,639,250663,230497,34155,2105,250661,250662,611,218846,43961,677,187493,250664,7981,85,51303,64414,660],"class_list":["post-499214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-blood-alcohol-reading","tag-career-goals","tag-drink-driving","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-infringement-notice","tag-malvern-east","tag-mark","tag-match-simulation","tag-newswire-sport","tag-oceania","tag-police-statement","tag-positive-preliminary-test","tag-random-breath-test","tag-sports","tag-stewart","tag-tyler-lewis","tag-victoria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}