EELS officials have defended the presence of wayward halfback Tim Smith at a Parramatta hotel early on Saturday morning and revealed the 12-month alcohol ban announced last December had been abandoned.

Under siege again after a talkback radio caller said a group of Parramatta players, including Smith, were drinking at 4am on Saturday, Eels coach Michael Hagan and chief executive Denis Fitzgerald insisted the incident was a different scenario to that of the previous weekend, when star back Jarryd Hayne and teammates Weller Hauraki and Junior Paulo were shot at in Kings Cross.

Even though the trio have been stood down from Saturday night's opening-round clash with the Bulldogs because of the shooting incident, Paulo was said to be among the players drinking at the Albion Hotel after the Eels season launch last Friday night, along with Smith, Feleti Mateo, Josh Cordoba and Ben Smith.

But after contacting the hotel management and questioning the players about their behaviour, Hagan and Fitzgerald ruled out any disciplinary action.

"At the end of the day, no one has done anything wrong so I don't have any problems," Hagan said. "The players didn't have commitments the next day and I'm sure if you ask players at other clubs what they did on their last weekend off before the competition starts a lot of them would have gone out for a drink.

"It's a place where the players go for lunch, where the people that run the hotel know them and I know for a fact that some of the players had their partners there with them, so I don't think there's any issues we need to be overly concerned about. You can't just keep jumping at shadows."

While the players didn't break any club rules, many fans would have been shocked by the fact they were out drinking until 4am days after Hagan had laid down the law about what had happened at roughly the same time the previous weekend.

More concerning would have been reports that Tim Smith was drinking after the club announced in a press release on December 7 that he had been fined and banned from drinking until the end of this year after another talkback radio caller complained the 23-year-old playmaker had abused him outside a pub.

A week later Smith agreed to an alcohol rehabilitation program after an all-night drinking session but the ban was scrapped.

"That changed later and it was decided that he would try and manage his personal issues himself," Hagan said. "Tim has been doing a good job of that and this is the first time he has put himself in this position since so it might be a bit of a reminder to him to watch himself."

Smith's manager David Riolo said the scrutiny on players was unfair and questioned the reliability of allegations made on talkback radio.

"I find it hard to believe that we've got to the stage where it's being reported that people are out," Riolo said.

"Someone's got on the radio, only with their first name given and no background, with no history, nothing. There's no indication of their own reliability or the state of their own intoxication, and they can say what they want. It's sad."

Fitzgerald said he was "disappointed" that Parramatta had been forced to answer questions about player behaviour again but was satisfied they had done nothing wrong.

"I'm disappointed that a number of players were out late however we are satisfied that they were not misbehaving and they've been warned again about their responsibilities as professional athletes and public figures," the CEO said.

"Management and the player leadership group have once again impressed upon all players that they conduct themselves in such a manner that will reduce the opportunity for this kind of attention in the future."