It is disappointing that Gold Coast Suns' chiefs have chosen to adopt the AFL's line about Karmichael Hunt. Both the competition's governing body and its young club have continued to suggest that the code-hopper has done so much good for the game in placing it on the map in foreign territory and that his sorry parting gesture should be judged in that context.

No one is asking them to publicly savage Hunt's character, but this is misguided spin. No one, least of all the Gold Coast community, would be hoodwinked by it. And it is distasteful to extol the promotional value of a sportsman, then almost 28, who in 2014 deliberately purchased illegal drugs to be shared at an end-of-season celebration involving significantly younger players, including impressionable teenagers.

It is understood that three of the current Suns footballers named by Hunt to the Queensland Crime Commission last week self reported their illicit drug use. They will not be charged or further investigated as a result of Hunt's evidence, but now face ongoing target testing.

Either way it is that self-reporting loophole in the AFL's three strikes drug code that riles so many clubs including the Gold Coast. Club president John Witheriff has been silent throughout the public fallout from the Suns' drug revelations but is reportedly determined to push for reform. He has been debating the key elements of the proposed changes with AFL boss Gillon McLachlan over the past week.

Even the AFL medical directors Peter Harcourt and Harry Unglick appear close to accepting the self-report mechanism may be removed given its potential for abuse. While advocates of the system say it was working as intended until a group of Collingwood footballers took advantage of it three years ago, the appetite for a tougher approach is expected to see it removed as part of the illicit drugs review. That review moves further towards its final stage next week when the AFL Players Association take the review to footballers across every team around Australia.

Witheriff was reportedly scheduled to publicly address his club's issues and proposed reforms on the eve of Saturday's clash in Cairns with the Western Bulldogs. However the precarious nature of Harley Bennell's circumstances, sensitivity surrounding Bennell's current emotional state and the fact Gold Coast has not yet formulated a full program for his rehabilitation nor an official return date saw the president, shell-shocked and angry at various stages over the past fortnight, postpone press conference plans.

All of that along with proposed reform at the club will be outlined by Witheriff next week. With the players union and Bennell pushing to return in round 16 against GWS, the process-driven Witheriff is expected to next week announce as much, along with a series of preventative mechanisms put in place by the club particularly surrounding the players' downtime, Mad Mondays and post-season trips and other celebrations. The Suns have a poor post-season reputation largely thanks to Campbell Brown.

Serious problems remain but a series of investigations at the club over the past fortnight have supposedly satisfied both the Suns and the AFL that drug abuse within the team was neither systemic nor widespread. Fairfax Media has no reason to disbelieve this. The Gold Coast listed players were individually interviewed by AFLPA staffers and lawyers in the week that followed the Hunt revelations and over recent days the club has been investigated by the AFL's integrity unit. Both players union bosses and AFL integrity chief Brett Clothier reportedly told Witheriff and his executive the Gold Coast had work to do but did not boast a playing group with a drug culture.

But it would be misguided of Witheriff to back away from his club's annus horribilis by focusing upon improved infrastructure at Metricon or point to corporate, government and community support by way of whitewashing the matter at hand. The club has already failed the competition, itself and its pioneering mission by failing to see the wood for the trees.

And Hunt? He has made a fool of some of the AFL's most respected executives from Andrew Demetriou down. David Matthews, Travis Auld and Scott Clayton must all now be questioning the due diligence — or lack thereof — which went into the multimillion move to headhunt him. The competition looks even more foolish now given that its initial response after Hunt was charged was that the alleged actions took place after Hunt had officially departed the AFL system.

To continue to defend Hunt's value to the game is embarrassing. He worked hard to achieve his 44 AFL games but the AFL and the Gold Coast paid him $5 million over five years to do so. Given that the large proportion of that money was ambassadorial, it was surely not too much to ask that he stayed away from illegal drugs while fulfilling the role.

Meanwhile the Suns are right to be regarding a future without Bennell and Charlie Dixon. Both will find plenty of suitors and both would benefit from a new home and the tough love thrust upon them by a new leadership group. Both are repeat offenders now with attitude issues and the stakes are too high for the one-time "community club" to accommodate them.