'Not thinking straight': Nathan Buckley blames Jordan De Goey phone breach on concussion

Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley has blamed a concussion for Jordan De Goey grabbing both his and teammate Jeremy Howe's phones during the team's loss to West Coast.

De Goey and Howe, who had both come off the ground due to injuries, were seen with their phones in their hands in the changerooms during the second quarter.

Collingwood has received a 'please explain' from the AFL due to the injured pair's actions, but Buckley attempted to clear up the controversy himself.

"All I know is that the bloke we're talking about that grabbed the phones had just been omitted from the game from concussion," Buckley told Fox Footy. "So he's not thinking straight."

"The main issue there is that we had a couple of injured players and the bloke that went and grabbed the phones, he wasn't deemed well enough to continue to play a game of footy because of a knock to the head.

"We are human and we do make blues … We're assuming the worst here. We make all these rules on the assumption that someone's going to pick up the phone and ring someone and say 'hey put a million bucks on this'.

"We do (protect against the worst) and I understand that and we do as a football club as well and we take full responsibility for this situation. But Jordan De Goey was concussed."

Buckley's comments came after Collingwood captain Scott Pendlebury revealed that locking the phone box is usually the duty of operations manager Nick Maxwell, who wasn't in attendance.

"If we get a warning it's a little reminder but if we cop a financial sanction it's a fair warning to the whole league that we shouldn't be doing that," Pendlebury said.

"I'm not too sure of what those guys did – I think they just sent a text back home just letting their family know that they were OK.

"But obviously we know we're not allowed to do that and I dare say (across) the whole competition now that box will be locked right through to the end of the game."