RECRUIT Brian Lake begins planning on Monday to aid victims of the Tasmanian bushfires as the Hawthorn leadership group hand down its sanction to the backman.

Lake faced his peers ahead of training on Monday morning after he was arrested for being intoxicated in a public place in Sorrento on Saturday night.

A repentant Lake addressed the media following training at the Ricoh Centre on Monday to apologise for his actions.

“I’d like to apologise to everyone at the Hawthorn Football Club, supporters, players, coaches for my behaviour on the weekend,” he said.

“As a mature player for Hawthorn Football Club, I should know better about times of leaving places as I did on Saturday night.”

The 30 year old met with the Club’s leadership group, headed by Captain Luke Hodge who believe assisting the Tasmanian community is appropriate under the circumstances.

“The leadership group has put onto me to come up with some things I can do to help the (victims) of the Tasmanian bushfires,” he said.

“We have our Community Camp down there in early February but it’s now my responsibility to sit back tonight and tomorrow to think of some things I can do to help the guys down there when we get there. “

The Club became aware of the incident in Sorrento when Lake informed General Manager – Football Operations, Mark Evans on Sunday.

Head of Coaching and Development, Chris Fagan says the Club is disappointed in Lake’s actions, but expects the veteran to earn back the respect of his peers quickly through hard work on the training track.

“We are very disappointed with what happened, we don’t expect our players to be in situations like that,” he said on Monday.

“We expect it to be a once off for Brian, we think he has learnt his lesson.

“His performance since he’s been at the Club in terms of the way he’s trained has been exemplary and until this weekend we’ve had no reason to question him.

“He has a little bit of respect to earn back from the rest of the group now, which I’m sure he’ll do.”