NORTH Melbourne rookie Majak Daw's indefinite club suspension stems from his decision to go out while undergoing rehabilitation following knee surgery, and then lying to coach Brad Scott when confronted.

The Kangaroos punished the 20-year-old on Wednesday for what they described as a breach of "rehabilitation protocols and internal codes", and sent him to train with VFL club Werribee until further notice.

While the club initially declined to detail what forced the sanction, Scott took to Melbourne radio station 3AW on Wednesday evening to clarify why Daw had been suspended.

"Trust is everything, not only in football clubs, but everywhere so when that trust is breached, you've got an issue you have to deal with," he said.

"The reasons for making a generic statement about cultural expectations and training standards is because … we feel an obligation to protect Majak and support him through these things.

"We've been forced to clarify that, which is unfortunate, but the bottom line is Majak is in rehabilitation because he has an injured knee at the moment and he went out when he shouldn't have.

"When I asked him about that, he was untruthful.

"They're the facts. Could we have come out and said that from the start? We could have but we feel an obligation to look after Majak."

Sports Today host Gerard Healy said he had spoken to Daw's manager about a rumour that suggested money had been involved in the incident, and was told the allegation was false.

Scott said there wasn't anything untoward about why the Roos initially decided against detailing the situation, and that they had simply been trying to protect the Sudanese recruit, who is yet to make his League debut.

"We're not interested in cover ups, in sweeping things under the carpet. That's why we made the press release," he said.

"We could have quite simply dealt with this in house and suspended Majak and sent him back to Werribee to train there until he earned back the respect of the playing group and the coaching staff.

"Majak's profile is one that these things don't stay quiet.

"We released a statement simply saying that Majak has failed to meet cultural expectations and training standards. We were pretty clear about that.

"Unfortunately in the world we live in, people want to speculate and assume that other things are afoot. I can categorically say that now I'm being forced to come on radio to defend one of our players because people engage in scurrilous and defamatory rumours."

Scott said Daw had been close to making his AFL debut late last year but missed out due to team balance and the return of ruckman Hamish McIntosh from injury.

He said Daw was still considered to have an enormous amount of potential, and while he had learnt some lessons "on and off the field", he had a way to go.