MELBOURNE is confident it has taken the right path by electing to suspend Aaron Davey for a week, after the forward was late returning home following a recent trip to Darwin.

Davey was told to take a week off owing to what the club has officially described as "unprofessional behaviour" in the lead up to last weekend's clash with the Brisbane Lions after missing a flight to Melbourne after attending a funeral in the Top End.

Club football operations manager Chris Connolly agreed that the motion to suspend Davey following the forward's admission he was out drinking the night before the missed flight was an appropriate one to take.

"I think it was, for where we are at as a club," Connolly told SEN on Tuesday morning.

"We bought 11 new players into the club last season, we'll probably bring six or seven new players into the club after the next national draft, and we've got to make sure we've got the right culture, the right values, and are bringing our players through in the right way.

"We're a very young club, and once a few of our senior players move on in the upcoming years, we'll be the youngest club in the AFL."

While Connolly said it was pleasing to see Davey admit to the indiscretion, it was unsatisfactory behaviour for the 25-year-old.

"It's a very disappointing time at the Melbourne Football Club," he said.

"Bails (coach Dean Bailey) had let Aaron go to a funeral in the Northern Territory, it was on the Thursday prior to the Brisbane game, and after the funeral Aaron has gone out and had some beers with his mates. How many, we're not sure.

"He missed an early flight back to Melbourne the next morning, and that put his preparation for the game under pressure because he needed to go and have some medical therapy in the afternoon.

"No one at the club knew, and it was Aaron who got on the front foot and owned up, and that's an endearing quality.

"He went to the coach and said, 'This is what I've done and I'm not comfortable with it'. It was handed over to the leadership group, and the leadership group don't tolerate bad behaviour."

Connolly also paid tribute to retiring Docker Peter Bell, who he coached for five and a half years between 2002 and midway through 2007.

"Peter was always going to do it his own way, in his own time," he said.

"He's one of the greats. There's one statistic I tell people – for nine years in a row, he has come top two in the club champion at the Kangaroos and Fremantle, and I don't know any other player that has done that."