The Eagles in crisis

Did anyone read Robert Walls comment in the Saturday SMHerald? He believes the Eagles 2006 Premiership flag is "tainted". Appears more commentators are starting to believe this to be so. His article is well worth a read as he was allowed 2 days access to the Eagles establishmet/team. He summarised by posing a series of questions and then answered them. His final question was "Is last years premiership cup tainted"? Response "absolutely". While in the departure lounge at Perth Airport last Thursday night he was approached by a chap who made following statement. "Whatever you do" he said "don't go easy on the Eagles". "Why?" Walls asked. "Because everyone here has known for years that the Eagles had a drug problem and the club didn't act on it." Maybe he was a Dockers supporter but if the knowledge of the problem was common knowledge for "years" then this a further indictment! Perhaps the Cats/Eagles result yesterday is a more realistic result now that they are under the microscope?

Changing tack a bit. If memory serves me correctly the AFL players Association has had too much say and influence in AFL drug testing proceedures and penalties? If so it's a case of the farm yard animals taking over the farm? Reminds me of some senior Wallabies approach to former ARU CEO which led to his demise after the 2003 RWC. Hopefully both problems will be resolved quickly so that both codes can continue to prosper and fill a neccessary void in our hearts.

Guys I have a couple of friends in policing in WA and they all say that knowledge of drug taking, without absolute proof, was widespread .... which is why Worsfold directly questioned several of his players without specifically asking them if they were taking any substances not sanctioned by the club. Certainly the Eagles administration knew of the rumours and took no action. During the end of season trip, they went even further and actively denied drug taking. I beleive that it is now too late to take action over the 06 premiership flag and I also believe that the AFL's drug policy has been proven to be a total and outrageous flop. They admitted that players could go through a whole season without being tested .... simply not good enough. Bovine excreta to 3 strikes, one proven strike and your out for 2 years ala Sailor is the only way to go, regardless of the type of drug. The Weagles players are big fish in a little pond .... the Club should recognise this, plus the fact that they have too much money and too much time. Part of player management for the Weagles must cover helping players manage their public profiles without getting too big for their britches.

Bob, As an offer of an olive branch, let me say we probably agree more than we disagree. Perhaps we disagree mostly in the detail. I think what is happening is good for both WCE & the AFL, even if it brings short-term bad publicity. These huge sporting organisations - AFL, ARU, IRB, CA(ACB), ICC, FIFA, etc - aren't going to change while things are moving along "swimmingly". It's only when continued adverse publicity hounds them, that they find the motivation to do "what's right" apart from the usual avaricious "money grabbing".

Sheek etc I do not have any inside information on the Cousins' controversy. My sources of information are articles written in the Sydney daily and weekend papers. If my memory serves me correctly the Eagles coach admitted to one of these journalists that he became aware something was amiss with Cousins mid 2006 season. This prompted Chip Le Grand to analyse Cousins stats prior to that period and compared them to his stats for the second half of the season. He found there was a significant improvement. See also my posting of Apr28. As to what the AFL and Eagles management/Board knew about this controversy at the time will become public knowledge in due course as most public entities tend to "leak" over time. One thing I do know, is that the longer the AFL/Member clubs fail to confront the problem and take transparent remedial action the greater the problem will become.

Bob, You say the WCE "knowingly presented one/more of their players with 'illicit' substances in their system" [for the 2006 Grand Final]. How do you know the WCE board knew this? Suspicion by the WCE board is not the same as absolute knowledge. Do you have inside info? Apparently WCE coach John Worsford asked several of his key players (Cousins, Kerr included) if they were doing anything they shouldn't be doing (off the field). All lied to his face that "everything was cool", or words to that effect. Did the AFL conduct tests leading up to & after the 2006 GF? Did they find irrefutable evidence of drug use by WCE players? Getting back to your Olympic relay analogy, yes you're right in the way you described it. But AFL is played over 2 hours between two teams of 22 players (including interchange). Using the relay anlogy, of 1 in 4 players being a drug cheat, or 5-6 players out of 22 in an AFL team, then gee, there's still so many variables. Sure, a "souped up" player can run all game, but he might be tactically stupid. And he mightn't be able to kick straight. And being souped up, he might concede plenty of free kicks. He might actually be a hindrance to his team. Anyway Bob, it's also true about drug testing that you have to catch the culprits "at the time". Raelene Boyle should have won two gold medals ahead of the East German 'tank' in 1972. But it was many, many years (20 plus) later before that particular runner was exposed for being a drug cheat. The records still stand. The AFL didn't catch the WCE players at the time. That's assuming that they might be guilty of something! End of story. Whether they change their modus operandi in the future, we'll have to wait & see.

Most appear to be clutching at straws as to why the Eagles - as an entity - should not be "punished" for knowingly presenting one/more[?] of their players with "illicit" substances in their system. If a relay team won an Olympic medal and upon drug testing after the event one of the team was found to test positive - then are some of you trying to say the Olypic movement would not disqualify the whole team? Of course they would. Am I labouring under the misaprehension that the standard accepted world wide is to apply to all sporting codes except the AFL? I believe it's time they were brought kicking and screaming into the 21st century!

Sheek, I fully agree. As I have said it is the club and the AFL who should share the blame. Bob, I am assuming you are a little naive on the whole "recreational drugs" scene - I don't condone the use of drugs, but these players who are using recreational drugs do not use it to enhance performance, they use them to get a high on their off time. They do not take them before a game, they take them when they go to clubs after a game. Their motives are not to improve performance because the effect of the drugs would have well and truly worn off by the time they get onto the field. Only traces that stay in the system and can be picked up by lab tests remain.

Bob, You appear touchy about this subject. The analogy of racehorses is illogical. Horses are a single entity, Football teams are made up of many individuals. Unless the AFL can prove more than a handful of Eagles players were on the "juice", performance enhancing or recreational I don't care, it's difficult to strip them of the title based on the suspicion of a handful. In any case, the opportunity has passed the AFL by for now. They should look to getting their act together in the future. I read the article relating to Ben Cousins, & yes, it's damning. Again, the AFL let the opportunity pass them by. All the Football codes, not just AFL, do & will continue to have increasing problems related to young players earning too much money, having too much free time, being molly-coddled too much, & generally living in an unreal world, totally unrelated to the reality of most of the rest of us. They must either learn to deal with it, or expect more damning publicity in the future. My sister's boyfriend is the uncle of one of the Eagles' top 5 players. So far this young man has attracted nothing but complimentary reviews. However, my sister's boyfriend tells of the unreal world he lives in - massive money, a penthouse, living the high life, investments, etc all done for him. He has to think about little apart from training & playing Footy, chasing girls, & enjoying himself. Instead of directing your anger at the West Coast Eagles players, it is the WCE board & AFL Commission you should be targeting. Bad news will catch up with them eventually, if they fail to be pro-active on the drugs issue.

It rankles that people on both the West Coast Eagles board and their management team were not only aware of this problem , but also acquiesed , resulting in the offender proudly showing the AFL Premiership Cup to the world on grand final day. What do these people have to say for themselves ?. Ben Cousins' addiction neither happened overnight nor in a vaccuum. Even though I have no opinion about what might be construed as a fair and reasonable penalty in this matter ,I do however think that whatever punishment is meeted out to Cousins when he is finally brought to book , should equally apply to those culpable club executives who knew of the problem ,did nothing, and just sat pat. The law of probabilty suggests some people at the West Coast Eagles must have been aware of the likelyhood at times that Ben Cousins played football for the club whilst under the influence of drugs. .

Seems like I've stirred up a hornets nest with my realistic statement that the West Coast Eagles should be stripped of the 2006 flag. Horse race results are overturned where "specimen irregularities" are detected after the event, as are medalists in the Olympics who failed "drug tests". People can play with symmantics about whether an illicit substance is "recreational" or "not performance enhancing" . But it doesn't alter the fact it is illegal. Perhaps thats why the AFL won't have a bar of the Olympic drugs charter and testing?! If consuming "illicit drugs" makes one relax more, perhaps they will kick strighter and this could make the difference to a one point loss. Think of the easy shots that Jude Bolton & Barry Hall missed in the 2006 GF and last Sat in Adelaide where the Swans couldn't kick straight to save themselves. West Coast knew they had a problem mid 2006 and did nothing about it - certainly not publicly. Australian AFL writer Chip Le Grand analysed Cousins statistics from that time to the GF and compared them to period before the statement was made by the Eagles. He concluded that Cousins stats improved significantly. Where others also in the same boat? The condescending attitude of some to illicit drugs astounds me. Remember it's like a little pregnancy - it has a "habit" of getting bigger and eventually out of hand. Imagine the screams if say Ian Thorpe was stripped of his Olympic medals. This is highly unlikely as he was tested more than any athlete. We all know Raeline Boyle was deprived of gold by East German Stricher[?] - because adequate testing of athletes prior/during meets did not exist in the sixties. But today it appears everyone except AFL players are subjected to drug tests with significant penalties - usually a 2 to 4 year ban!

Wow - did anyone see the comments in today's paper from Eagles coach John Worsfold? - "We've got a really talented group of players that are forming a brand new culture," he said. "There needed to be a cultural change and that started at the end of 2004 leading into 2005. "We took bigger steps when Ben Cousins lost the captaincy, and even bigger steps last year leading into this year. "The players have a lot of respect for Ben, how hard he prepares, plays the game, pushes himself, but I think they were getting to the point that Ben's behaviour was wearing very thin. "We're making massive changes with Ben not there at the moment . . . he isn't a part of it." How things change!!

Bob, It's going a bit too far to say the Eagles should be stripped of the 2006 title. However, agree the AFL should be tougher on drugs. The real culprits would be the Eagles board, management & coaching staff. They had a good idea what was going on & they are responsible for setting the boundaries of behaviour standards at their club.

Fair point about illicit drugs not being performance enhancing. However, the AFL, like most sporting bodies in Australia, have made it very clear that they treat illicit and performance enhancing drugs as equal evils. In fact, the AFL corrects journalists and others when they say 'recreational' and make sure these drugs are refered to as illicit. PS. When all this drug stuff started coming out recently, did anyone spare a thought for the former Swans player Dale Lewis, who three or four years ago dared to speak the truth by saying that there was a drug problem in AFL? He was basically driven out of Sydney and ostracised from AFL. How ironic.

Bob, You have to understand the Sailor was never branded a "drug cheat" and neither have any of the Eagles players - in fact due to the illicit nature of recreational drugs there have been no conclusive tests done as to whether cocaine or amphetamines (ice, speed etc) actually increase performance. I am not condoning players taking drugs, but you must realise that all or at least the vast majority use these drugs for recreation, not to enhance performance on the field. So before you say the Eagles should be stripped of the flag, you must acknowledge that these drugs, while illegal, do not nessacarily increase performance. I do agree that the AFL should be doing more, this 3 strikes policy is outrageous - the club's doctor gets told but the coaches and trainers dont get told until the 3rd strike! The fact that a player is allowed three strikes is stupid - by the time they use all of their chances the player could potentially be in serious trouble with drugs. Cousins didn't even get up to 2 strikes and he had major problems. It does also seem at times that the Eagles club seems to be diverting attention away from the fact that many of their players have been in trouble recently. I think the club should take a harder line and even release a disiplinary directive to the players and public to show that they are serious in solving the problems they currently have. This directive could list in black and white what the consequences are for certain offences. I think this could be an AFL initiative because all clubs need harsher punishments - if anyone thinks these cases are isolated to the Eagles then they are very naive. The Eagles players just seem to be the ones who get caught! All clubs would have problems like this, they just haven't made it into the press yet. The AFL is not doing enough about this, it should be putting more pressure on the clubs so this kind of thing does not happen again, part of the blame must go to the AFL too. I am not an Eagles supporter by the way!

AFL clubs keep promoting themselves as a "family" for the players. And, it's true, the players spend more time with their teammates and coaches than probably anyone else. So, of course, the club must take responsibility for the behaviour of the players. Effectively, they are the players' parents!!

To think the Swans were beaten by one point in the 2006 AFL Grand Final by a team which has since been reported to have included some players on performance enhancing drugs, makes a mockery of the the AFL's inaction and response towards drugs. The West Coast Eagles should be stripped of the 2006 flag - like a winner of a horse race found to be presented with illegal substances or an Olympic athlete who was latter stripped of a medal - such as Ben Johnson after the 1988 100m mens final - for having illegal substances present at prior/time of event. The Adelaide Crows must be agrieved as well given their results over the Swans! But what makes the matter worse was the Eagles inaction when they knew what was going on. I'm a Rugby supporter first and an AFL supporter second, who even shelled out $2600 going to the 2006 AFL grand Final. If I'd known such a taint was over the Eagles I'd have never gone! At least the ARU did the correct thing in standing down Wendell Sailor when testing showed him to be a drug cheat and sacking him when his B sample proved the A sample analysis was correct. It may have cost the Waratahs the flag but at least justice was and was seen to be done. Sailor was then subjected to a 2 year ban - the accepted International punishment for drug cheats in sport. How the AFL can sit on it's hand and do nothing to uphold accepted International standards must cast a slur over all clean Aussie athletes everywhere.