Former Collingwood great Peter Daicos believes Alan Didak is too good and too young for the AFL club to trade him away, despite his history of off-field trouble.

The Magpies have been widely tipped to trade the 25-year-old, who along with team-mate Heath Shaw, was on Tuesday suspended by the club for the rest of the season for their roles in this week's drink-driving saga.

It came only weeks after Didak was freed by the club from a curfew and alcohol restrictions, put in place after a wild night with CBD murderer Christopher Wayne Hudson last year.

He was warned at the time that he was on his last chance with the club and Magpies chief executive Gary Pert said that the club would make a decision at the end of the year on whether or not to keep Didak or Shaw.

But Daicos, the freakishly talented forward who led the Magpies' goalkicking in their most recent premiership year, 1990, said Didak, the player considered to be the nearest thing to his current-day on-field equivalent, should be retained.

"Without doubt I'd keep him. He's 25, I think he's their best player by a mile," Daicos said of the club's 2006 best and fairest, who has again been in fine form this season.

"I don't condone what he's done, but I would keep him, why wouldn't you?

"There's 15 (other clubs) that would chase him and why are they any better to think that they could probably straighten him out."

Daicos conceded he was surprised to learn that Shaw had been drink-driving, with Didak as his passenger, given the extent to which current players are taught about the potential dangers of alcohol.

"These players are so educated, that has really shocked me, they've been just told and told and told," he told SEN radio.

"Dids has ended up having to face the music over the last couple of years and unfortunately he's in that boat at the moment."

He said the pair were clearly wrong to initially lie about their involvement, but said it was unfair to suggest Didak was as much at fault as Shaw.

"Who's more to blame in this instance? The guy driving or the (passenger), is he guilty by association?," Daicos said.

"He got into the car, I understand, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but in the end if there was blame to be put on here I know who I'd be spanking moreso than the other."

Daicos admitted he was not close enough to the inner dealings of the current Magpies side to know whether the club had a problem with a drinking culture.

But he said Didak was a "marquee player" of the competition and one that Collingwood could not afford to lose.

"In the end I would keep him," he said.

"There's 15 other clubs that would take him on tomorrow and the ones that wouldn't take him on it's because they couldn't probably provide the proper trade to get him across the line," he said.

Western Bulldogs coach Rodney Eade said the Bulldogs could be counted out of the hunt if Didak was put up for trade.

"That sized player and type player we've got plenty of so I think if we're looking for a player from another club," Eade said.

"I think it would have to fit our needs or maybe some hole we've got in the team."

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP