Honest, we’re done here!

The AFL must now realize that it’s claims about the integrity of the game being paramount, must be as “grey” as the AFL tribunals “the head is sacrosanct” claim – completely laughable!!!

the supporters of the “game” have to outweigh the supporters of particular clubs, who obviously live in Egypt, next to river known as “deNyle”, who continually flap there gums about how innocent their club and players are! Yet when you ask them about a player like Ahmed Saad and a sports drink, or Ryan Crowley and a painkiller, they go ape!

James saying that the players will be a “bit nervous”, with the verdict hanging over their heads! What about him ………. he seems to think he’s in the clear or something? What? How’s he come to that – bizarre, to say the least!

Saad got 18 months and Crowley looks set for a long stint. That doesn’t sound good for either the Essendon Football Club and 34 players, or if the AFL and ASADA go weak, it doesn’t look good for them.

Integrity of the competition, versus the Bombers being a patchwork team for a couple of seasons – I think the NAB Cup and Essendon’s recent recruitment of Gwilt, Giles, McKernan, Chapman, etc., should give most AFL fans a fairly good hint as to what season 2015 brings for the bombers fan!

Well, perhaps rather than leave me in my ignorance, you could just answer my last post – do you think Collingwood and Essendon are outside the rules that the other 16 clubs abide by?

That seems to be the point you are making…………am I wrong?

Are you saying Collingwood and Essendon should be outside the rules that apply to the other 16 clubs, because you believe they’re propping up the AFL???

Wow – that’s arrogance on James Hird level!!!

Let’s hope for your sake, the rest of the Bomber faithfuls and especially the Essendon players, that you’re not flogging a dead horse!

Another commercial aspect to consider is sports betting.

The AFL through it’s media / TV rights and so on, have given the bookies a very big interest in the sport, including the Brownlow, Coleman, as well as the Premiership and individual games, etc.

Where are these people going to sit, if the whole thing suddenly blows up?

How many Sam Mitchell punters will line up for a refund, if Jobe Watson is stripped of his Brownlow Medal?

How would the AFL handle that issue?

I guess the closest comparison you could make is horse racing – and what happens there if a horse has been nobbled? The trainer is banned for life, the horse is disqualified for an indefinite period and the punters get a refund.

Which is why I think the major parties to this whole affair – the AFL, ASADA and the Essendon Football Club – have dragged things out for so long.

The addition of Goddard, Chapman & Cooney, along with the disbursal of Monfries, Crameri, Ryder and probably a few more going in and out, has got things to a point where the Bombers will be seriously damaged by the upcoming suspensions, but not unable to put a team on the park. Zaharakis apparently wouldn’t be part of the programme and that in itself, underlines why the players will most likely cop a whack – they had the option to say NO!

I see a season, maybe 2, where Essendon could be uncompetitive and the AFL has to weigh that up against the “integrity” of the game. ASADA needs to weigh it up against being relevant, or not relevant and if their attempts to prosecute this case amount to nought, then we should disban ASADA and just open the floodgates!

Story Breaks – around Christmas time in 2012, early 2013, when Damien Barrett interviews Kyle Reimers who has returned home to Perth. The fact Barrett was alerted to the possibility of a story means Reimers spoke to someone that brought it to Damo’s attention and you can bet London to a brick, whoever that person was, wasn’t the only person Reimers spoke with. Accordingly, the details of what was happening at Essendon came to the notice of ASADA and perhaps also the AFL.

What happened next? Andy on the phone to Bomber land, around early February, 2013, followed by the hastily convened presser by the Essendon Football Club, at which point James Hird clearly stated, that he would be “shocked and appalled” if this sort of thing had been happening at the EFC. Lock that one in!!!

Then everybody grabs a parachute and heads for the door, leaving The Weapon without a seat. He goes a little public with some info and eventually, the Bombers settle “out of court”, with Mr. Weapon and we haven’t HIRD from him since.

Jackson resigns, Dank’s not talking to anybody (yet) and Charters & Alvi after initially co-operating, all of a sudden don’t wont to talk to anybody, anymore???

Hirdy goes on a fully paid years study tour and then AD throws in the towel down at AFL House.

Then Hird appeals against the manner in which the evidence was obtained. Which means he’s not denying the validity of the info, purely the process. So, we should read that as the info ASADA has is correct and James wants it tossed out, because it doesn’t paint a good picture for him, the club, or the players.

I think if you just look at the way doors are being closed in an effort to withhold the full story (I won’t use the word truth, but you get the feeling that could be an option). It all just smacks of a cover up and manipulation, in an effort to protect the games integrity, as well as the Essendon Football Club and James Hird’s reputation.

The problem here for the AFL and ASADA is, if they go weak on penalties – and you have to think they are coming and are no longer a maybe – then they risk ASADA becoming irrelevant and the AFL looking like a competition riddled with impropriety.

The test case could be the Ahmed Saad case, in which a player was suspended for 18 months, for drinking a sports drink, unwittingly. If he had consumed the drink the previous evening, he would have been OK.

It must fill Essendon supporters with dread, to think a guy gets 18 months for that and the concern is what will happen to their players, who were receiving injections over an extended period, that are outside the ethical and moral code of Australian Rules Football!

Yeah – and also the real worry, will be that other clubs, AFL and down through the grades, will say bugger it, lets have a crack at this. “The worst that can happen is a back-dated suspension, if we drag it out, like the bombers did.”

The AFL, ASADA and WADA, need to come down hard – I’m sorry Essendon supporters but that is the reality of what your club has done and how they’ve tried to dodge the bullet for the last 2 years. If they copped a whack 2 years ago, we’d be over this and everyone would have moved on.

James decided his reputation was bigger than the game and your club didn’t have a big enough set to say NO, to the golden child.

Time to pay the price!

“In that case the tribunal can take all the evidence into account in reaching its decision. This includes the evidence obtained from the interviews to which Essendon players and staff were subjected under the AFL’s coercive powers. That is the testimony Hird went to court to have thrown out on the basis that they’d been misled into relinquishing their common law protection from self-incrimination.”

What that says to me, is that “We did it. We know we did and we know you know we did. But now we are going to try and dodge the “cost” of going outside the moral and ethical boundaries of sport in Australia, plus putting at risk the integrity of Australian Rules Football, because we don’t want to damage our reputation”.

Too late she cried – James Hird and the Essendon Football Club will be tainted by this whole episode and dragging it out over 2 plus years has only made the smudge on the game (and themselves) bigger!

Aransan, you really are clutching at straws. A typical Essendon manouvre. “We’ll get the Switowski report” = Smokescreen. We’ll pay off Dean Robinson, out of court – hide away. We’ll pretend Kyle Reimers never existed and Paddy Ryder is just a worry wart when it comes to players and their families immediate heath

Legal toing and throwing in an attempt to doge this witness, or that point of law. Dob this guy in and back up that one. Dispute that finding and wave this one. James is a legend and Steven Dank and the other “black ops” guys where just trying to improve the health and lifestyle of the players and add to the overall enjoyment of the Essendon football fan.

They certainly weren’t doing anything against the “spirit of the game” or undermining the “integrity” of the competition, by injecting “players” in their employ, with substances that hadn’t been fully tested, or ultimately, sanctioned by a recognized sporting authority, in this field of sport science!

But hey, let’s get hung up on who Andy supports!!!

I wouldn’t care if he followed the Toledo Mudhens – the points he makes are on the mark and only dilllusional bombers fans seem to take exception to this sort of critique – why?

The only conclusion I can come to, past loyalty to a club who clearly sought to gain an advantage outside the letter of the law (AFL style) is a lack of intelligence (IQ) or a willingness to be suckered along with the supporters who have no idea.

Which are you?

Hi Jeff,

I’m sure there is a lot more evidence to come out. The point I’m making is that you can see by the actions of a number of people around the Essendon Football Club, that there was a great deal being done outside the “spirit of the game”.

I’m fine with the umpires decision, whichever way it goes. If the EFC is found to have acted outside the rules and cops a proportionate sentence to the one imposed on Ahmed Saad for consuming a sports drink (18 months ban and decided after just 3 weeks deliberation and sanction accepted) I would at that point feel the deterrent had been set and the game would return to some level of propriety.

If Essendon and its players avoid further sanctions, then I would be encouraging my club to get into the action as well and start injecting our players, as I’m sure every other club will do much the same and if you want to be competitive and successful, that’s what you’ll have to do.

Otherwise we might as all just stop following our second rate teams who abide by the rules and just go off and watch the soccer, or something.

Is that what you are saying your hoping for, Jeff???

Hi Paul,

I guess it would have been a combination of the following, that would give the umpire enough pointers towards his decision;

1. Hird coming clean and admitting he was getting injections, after previously stating that he would be surprised If players were getting injections.
2. The Switowski report, that the Essendon Football Club commissioned – noted a severe lack of governance.
3. The fact that nobody has ever gone back to Kyle Reimers after he initially blew whistle, to refute his account of the events at the Esssendon Football Club – other than Spike McVeigh, who sledged him and ended up with egg on his face when it hit the fan.
4. Jobe Watson’s admission, live nationally on Fox Footy that he and the players had been injected with AO…… whatever? Which was confirmed as a banned substance.
5. The sus emails and text messages between Hird & Dank – “black ops” programme and so on.
6. The payout that the Essendon Football Club made to Dean Robinson to keep him quiet and out of the spotlight, after his little interview with Luke Darcy.
7. The continuing efforts of the Essendon Football Club to out manouvre ASADA and the AFL, legally, rather than just thrashing it out, head to head.
8. Paddy Ryder’s desire to get out and his concerns over the effect on his family and his future.
9. Essendon Football Club accepting fines, Hird’s ban for a year, draft pick losses and suspension from the 2013 final series.
10. Anyone of a number of other pointers that you can probably point at, along the way to the big top at the circus that this whole sad affair has become.

Most fans want a “clean” game, where both teams are on an equal footing. As such, globally, the general public through popular opinion, got the message across to sports administrators, that drugs weren’t something they wanted in competitive sports and WADA was established.

The AFL through it’s CEO, who we will refer to as Mr. AD, publicly declares that the AFL is the cleanest competition in the world, so far as drugs go (or words to that effect) and signs up with WADA / ASADA. This all seems to work really well and a number of players are dealt with and accept their penalties and we all move on.

The problem we now have is if this case falls over, where do we go from here?

The Bulldogs decide to ramp it up a couple of notches and those perennial misfits down at St. Kilda say bugger it, lets get on the gear as well, or Richmond hire Dank and Co. in a couple of years time – I mean why not, if you get caught out, what’s the worst that can happen? We drag out for 3 years, turn the whole bloody thing into a joke and at worst we get a slap on the wrist and at best, we could snag a flag!

Or we could just throw the rule book out all together and commence the Chemically Enhanced Football League. We could have a Go-Go Gadget version of Dustin Fletcher, with 8 foot long arms, a stealth version of Scott Pendlebury roaming around the midfield with his reflective skin and jumper, unable to be seen and a cheetah version of Cyril Rioli, able to run at nearly 90 kmh for sustained periods! Wow, what an exciting freak show that would be!

Then we having all the bookies laying and paying out big dollars on games / results, that could be drug effected. What do they do in those instances in the horse racing world??? Ban the trainer, usually for life and I’m pretty sure the horse is out for an extended period and this an animal that doesn’t have free will, or the ability to say NO!

The amount of sponsorship from these guys may explain why Mr. AD was very keen to promote the AFL as a “clean” sport. How will they react to all this, if all of a sudden the AFL turns around and says, screw it, not worth being signed up to WADA / ASADA, as the clubs and the players don’t want to abide by the rules that we all agreed to, previously?

Are they going to want a refund from all the punters they paid out on Jobe Watson’s Brownlow win?

Bottom line here is, if Essendon do the right thing and accept the umpires decision and we then move on, that would be good and the integrity of the game remains in tact. If all this fancy legal footwork and some dodgie witness maneuvers go their way, then the face of the game is possibly changed forever!

Well, if they stopped pushing the “self-destruct” button every time things looked to be on the up, that would help!

Ken Sheldon – 4 seasons for a 55% success rate and got them into the finals in 1991 & 1992 and was subsequently sacked in 1993
Stan Alves – Grand Finalists in 1997 & played in the Qualifying Final in 1998, contract not renewed and we went off and got Tim Watson, then the very reluctant Mal Blight. Genius type moves???
Grant Thomas – takes over in 2001 and the club is heading in the right direction and finals appearances in 2004, 2005 & 2006, suggest the ultimate glory could be at hand (certainly, 2004 was a dodgy umpiring decision in favour of the eventual premiers, away from the GF and a big chance for that elusive 2nd flag) but we ditch him a few weeks after the 2006 finals and grab Ross Lyon.
Ross Lyon – 2007 through to 2011 and the Boa constrictor game plan from Sydney arrives and the club is within reach of the ultimate glory, but Ross doesn’t draft for the long term, sees the writing on the wall at the end of 2011 and bails.
Scott Watters – 2012 & 2013, saw a guy stick up his hand and have a go and in his first year, the team finishes 9th, with the 3rd best percentage in the competition and as he starts to re-sculpt the list in 2013, he gets the bum’s rush (nothing against Alan Richardson, but not sure if Scotty Watters would have done much differently and probably would have ended up with a similar result – so why sack him and pay out his contract, etc?)?

The off field stuff reads similar to the coaching history – constant chopping and changing, with contradictory messages left, right and centre.

What the club needs in big buckets is STABILITY!!!

Choose a path, knuckle down and stay the course. Stop making knee-jerk reactions to situations, because you’re worried about what some other club is doing. Settle on a structure, a plan, a system. Then implement it and don’t budge from it.

I’m tired of this mob being the biggest basket cases in the entire Australian sporting community!!!

Ahmed Saad – Essendon Football Club (including 34 players, plus coaches and other support staff)

AS: 1 sports drink, which if he had consumed 12 hours earlier, would have been fine – EFC: A series of injections of TB4, or possibly any number of substances (likely some legal and you would have to think, a lot illegal- ie. banned) over an extended period of time.

AS: Saad fesses up immediately, admits drinking the sports drink and is found guilty in a 3 week period – EFC and James Hird turn the whole ting into a circus and drag it out over 2 years, raising serious questions about the integrity of the game.

Ahmed Saad gets an 18 month ban – 34 players and others at the Essendon Football Club get …………………………………………?

I can’t see this being a slap on the wrist. If the Essendon playing group get 6 months or less and I was Ahmed Saad, I would round up my legal team and head straight down to the AFL / ASADA and start speaking with local realtors in Toorak!!!

Well, my final say on the matter is by way of relating a personal recollection.

I played in the early ’80’s for a team and we won our first 3 games of the year, comfortably, but then one of the teams in our competition folded. Given we were only 3 rounds in, the powers that be, decided to restart the season, split up the kids from the folded team and merge a couple of other teams.

All of a sudden, we were back in the pack, losing regularly and struggling to beat these super teams that had been created out of mergers and propped up with surplus players from the folded team. We battled on manfully and finished 3rd. The top 2 teams certainly had our number and despite having beaten only the second team on one occasion out of 4 attempts and losing all 4 head to heads with the top team, we felt hardened by the way we had been “unsupported”.

You can guess the rest – we beat the 2nd place team by 19 goals in the prelim final and after jumping the minor premiers early, held on to win the GF by 6 points.

The real stunner out of all that, is we got no hand outs or leg ups at all from the guys running the competition and that made it a very special win, that nobody could point at and say, you won because of this, or because of that!

Which, I’m afraid, is the way it should be!!!!

Deadwood – you mean like South Melbourne, back in the early ’80’s, Terry???

Let’s hope the Saints can develop another Lockett, or Barry Hall for Sydney? Oh, no they don’t need another key forward, they’ve grabbed Kurt Tippett from Adelaide and Buddy Franklin from Hawthorn!

So far as “turns” go – what do you want the supporters of the clubs that seem to get overlooked each year (so far as a decent crack at it goes) to do? Just all wander off and support Collingwood? Then the AFL could chop the league down to 12 teams and 6 games instead of 9 per week. Then instead of giving the Swans an extra 10%, they can cut them back 30%, due to the reduced revenue through the TV rights, sponsorships and attendances.

Very poorly thought out argument, Terry.

Hi Cooper,

In regards to the Lions – yeah, probably!

Has that or the COLA helped the Bulldogs, St. Kilda, Melbourne or Richmond – probably not. It’s possibly “reduced” their chances.

How do you view the Carlton salary cap cheating incident back in 2001? The constant favourable draw that Collingwood seem to get every year? The Essendon supplements saga? The ability of GWS and prior to that, Gold Coast, to scoop the pool of all the best draft picks in 2011 through to last year? Are you cool with Collingwood playing potentially 9 Friday night prime time games, compared to Sydney’s 3, despite the Pies finishing 11th on the ladder last year, compared to Sydney who played off in the GF – wasn’t it supposed to be a reward to successful teams, according to AD?

Give me your thoughts on those issues Coops and we’ll see how we go from there!

This is the whole problem with the COLA – conjecture!

Did it help the Swans win 2 flags and be the club that has enjoyed so much success over the past 20 years, as Cooper points out? Is the work done by Eade, Roos, Longmire and Barassi, plus Colless and others on the Sydney board, over shadowed by the 10% bonus in the salary cap? Is Sydney a giant going forward, or will losing the COLA result in them falling back into the pack?

If the Swans had achieved the 2 flags and sustained success, without the COLA – then no arguments. The club could stand by its record and point to its achievements. By contrast, the COLA has been seen as an advantage (rightly or wrongly) and as such, the flags and success, no matter how much Swans fans would argue the opposite, are tainted and clouded by an allowance that was maybe, maybe not, justified.

They have the 2 flags and I’m happy for their success – I Love the fact that a club that hadn’t saluted for 70 years, finally got past the post first. But it has had its turn and we need to now work on “evening / balancing” up the competition.

Cheers Chris – thanks for all your insults and your latest attempt to ignore the truth – “Clutching at straws aren’t we?” You challenged me to check my facts and when I do, “I’m clutching at straws.”

Honestly, ffs I’ve provided stats all the way and all you come back with is hear-say and “I know what I’m talking about, blah, blah, blah…………”

Honest mate, you’re the guy bereft of facts and being ignorant. Your arguments are flawed and lacking substance and ultimately, just passionate support of what is obviously your team – good on you for that!

Most clubs have interstate draftees on their lists these days and in most situations, they share accommodation amongst 2 or 3, sometimes 4 to a house. Surely, Sydney would be no different and I would be staggered if 2 or 3 guys, let alone 4, on $85-90K p.a. couldn’t afford to scrounge up enough between them, to pay the rent.

I look forward to your “facts” and my “pig ignorance and irrational hatred” will be only to happy to receive your own hard evidence, without insult.

Chris – “In Perth on the other hand, the metro are is much smaller………….”

“In its latest audit of the populations and densities of almost 1000 cities, US website Demographia ranks Perth as the world’s 59th biggest city in geographic size.”

Chuck on top of that the comment below from the “Penster” and guess what, I know who’s ignorance is really showing!

Look it this way Chris, you’re on $85-90K a year and you want to live close to your work.

Do you –

A.) Find some accommodation that you can afford and meets your other requirements?

B.) Share a house with 2 or 3 team-mates and split the bills evenly?

C.) Rent something you can’t possibly afford and go ask your boss for a 10% pay rise?

D.) Some of the above?

“People who want to bag the Swans should at least get their facts right and stop showing their pig ignorance and irrational hatred of Sydney and the circumstances there” – we are getting a little precious, aren’t we!

My reply was to Chris, who seemed to be validating the reasons for the COLA..

You jumped in on my comment about the cost of living in Sydney, compared to Perth.

Yes – by the figures it’s “CHEAPER to live in Perth than in Sydney” You would also possibly have enough intelligence to work out from the numbers provided, that it’s not 10% cheaper – is it?

I’m glad you agree with the switch to the rent subsidy.

I concede I’m not supportive of the trading ban, but as alluded to in a couple of other posts above, something was obviously underway, that would have caused a major stir and the end result was Gill putting his foot down, before it hit the fan.

Again – where do you want these guys who are on $$$’s p.a. to live? The Taj Mahal or Buckingham Palace?

If you are on a budget, rent in an area that is a little cheaper – simply common sense.

Honestly, people pushing this case for the retention of the COLA are very good at skewing the story. If it’s a “Living Allowance” then it revolves around the overall cost of living, Hence the comparison provided is fair when discussing the COLA.

The AFL is bringing in a “rent” subsidy system in 2016. Happy with that!?!?!

Hi Chris – Hypothetical means “in theory”. So the 3 flags comment doesn’t have to match or be relevant to what the Swans have achieved – no correlation is required. That’s your first nonsense!

Secondly, I did look up the cost of living in Sydney and Perth, prior to posting my comment and included rent costs, as per the exert below;

“You would need around 6,970.75A$ in Perth to maintain the same standard of life that you can have with 7,100.00A$ in Sydney (assuming you rent in both cities). This calculation uses our Consumer Prices Including Rent Index.”

Bottom line here is if you’re on a rookie contract and earning something like $80-90K p.a., let alone $1M a year, you reckon these guys are sleeping rough or something???

Honestly Chris, you’re kidding yourself!

If they want to live in Bondi, so be it. I don’t see why they have to spend $7 for a latte done the strip, when they can buy a whole jar of Moccona for $20!

And by the way, the WA teams have had the same problem recruiting Vic kids, or SA draft prospects.

The final point you want to contest is the timing of the COLA and the Swans success – I really don’t think I have to say anything. The proof is in the pudding!