Hird starts appeal process on Thursday

Really well written, non emotive fair piece Danny D. Hird is showing a great deal of courage and resilience.

conchie, my take on Dank is that he is a con-man. He is a very intelligent fellow who has taken short cuts and the easy road through his professional life. The hardest target for a con-man is an honest person, the easiest target is someone prepared to take short cuts themselves. There has been a recent case in the racing industry, the greedy and the corrupt were at most risk of being taken down. Let us hope that this continuing nightmare will soon come to an end before any further damage is done to the EFC.

It is Monday evening and Lord Jim is still "ships captain". EFC should change its name from the Bombers to the Goats, such is the 'herd' mentality prevailing at Windy Hill.

My take is that Hird did not know the players were getting injected with anything banned. ( if they were) And I am not 100% sure Dank was injecting them with anything banned but I am 100% sure the players thought they were getting unbanned legal substances, so if they were getting banned , they were duped. Hird as senior coach must take some responsibility, even if nothing banned was injected, because the governance was poor and those blokes should not have been pin cushions with no records kept. IMO Dank was some snake charmer who led Hird and others down the garden path. Even if no banned substances were used Hird IMO should pay the ultimate price of losing his job, unless he can prove that ASADA and the AFL completely exaggerated the Governance problem. This has been completely blown out of proportion by the thousands of |Hird haters and FWIW we could look at any work place or football club and find a complete myriad of problems and dirty laundry where people would be losing their jobs every day for discretions.

Great to see the EFC players (Ryder, Howlett, Winderlich) finally starting to realise they have to cut loose from EFC. Bit of luck Hurley, Carlisle and Zaharakis will follow. Diehard Essendon supporters with their head in the sand still protest that Hird is entitled to a legal defense, but conveniently overlook the fact that all he's trying to do (and EFC until recently accepting defeat) is deny evidence from being accepted as admissable in court. If I had nothing to hide I'd want all the facts presented so the courts could make that judgement. Hird and the club have both been constantly looking after themselves. Well overdue for the players to start caring about themselves and play the same self-serving game that everyone around them at Essendon is doing. Seriously, why would the players want to stay now, given the uncertainty around their coach, trades, player exodus, pre-season, show cause notices and impending legal action? They should have jumped ship a year ago (or earlier, like Monfries and Crameri).

Not really RedB. They mean bugger all in isolation, but I think you should look into what powers ASADA actually has when it comes to handing out infraction notices. They don't need to prove anything 100 per cent. So when you say they mean nothing - I beg to differ. They mean quite a lot when you couple them with all the other evidence that we know of and I'm betting there is even more to come. Once this entire smoke screen from Hird is over then we will just see how much trouble those 34 players are in. The text messages in the context of this discussion, however, are meaningless. I merely mentioned them from a personal stand point when it comes to whether I actually think Hird has anything to worry about. As mentioned in my main body of text above, I'd say he is fu**xed, along with Dank when the time comes.

And that is why circumstantial evidence has to be challenged. The text messages mean bugger all. A coach communicated with the sports scientist on injured players and their recovery. Did the text messages explicitly say give them banned drugs.

Well I never said Hird was the brightest spark :) It's the text messages for me that gave the game away for Hird. He is basically guilty until proven innocent now when it comes to this ASADA investigation and that's exactly how this is going to play out from here on in.

Try this:http://sociallitigator.com/ Nothing is certain, but some believe Middleton glossed over a key point, one which would open a can of worms perhaps why he didn't go there.

No such thing....the events I speak of predate any Colllaborative investigation......the meeting took place before any of this took place. It WAS raised in the AFL charges and is a clear example of Hird and EFC's cavalier attitude toward the supplements program........What Gaul! To be called in and warned and then proceed regardless.

No I see your point, but I just see it from a different perspective. I don't think many people believe ASADA and the AFL are after the EFC or Hird. They are just doing their job to try and find the truth. These events you mention highlight the collaborate effort between ASADA and the AFL when it comes to the investigation of this mess. It's precisely these events that the EFC are challenging as ASADA is suppose to be an independent investigation unit - well that's what Hirds' lawyer will have us believe anyway. Even if what you are saying is true, it has no place in this court hearing, because all they are interested in are the facts, not whether this is some witch hunt. Hird will have his day in another court if he wants to take that issue up and he may well do it if he successfully wins his appeal.

You miss my point Rick. My point is that even before the alleged offences took place.......ASADA and the AFL tried to nip it in the bud by warning Hird, Corcoran and Hamilton. It doesn't look good that the advice was not heeded and it certainly shows that ASADA and The AFL DO NOT have it in for Hird and EFC , they actually took steps to try to stop them before they started.

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I would suggest the clubs board is terribly split (hence the 2 meetings to do nothing) and there are enough on the board who are worried about being sued by Hird for wrongful dismissal should he win the appeal and also worried about spending another $1m on top of the $6m they have already paid to pay him out. But I do agree with you it seems the tail is wagging the dog.

I would have thought that with Hird being an employee of the club he would be expected to toe the club line. That line is to accept the court's decision. If Hird goes ahead with his appeal, isn't he disobeying the club's decisions? Wouldn't his deliberately flouting what the club wants to do entitl the club to sack him, he is the one who has broken ranks.

The board has just announced Hird will survive for the "immediate term", says a lot about the fractures of the board that they have now had 2 meetings in 4 days and they have no plan beyond the "immediate term". I tnk Essenodns problems are only just beginning,

Thanks Rick.

Great explanation as usual Rick. Hopefully Hird will lose the appeal and this doesn't get any worse.

No problems. There are quite a few other intricacies within the case it self, but that is the nuts and bolts of it and the logic behind why he went to the Federal court to begin with and why he is appealing the decision by Justice Middleton.

Aransan In answer to your first question. I don't know, no one does, but ASADA has said it would just reissue the show cause notices within 24 hours if Hird won. Whether this stops them gathering the same evidence again...well again I don't know, but I suspect it would, otherwise why on earth are they doing this to begin with? People get off on 'technicalities' all the time both in criminal and civil proceedings. The second part of your question relates to him submitted an application with the Federal court in 2013 because he claimed he had not received 'natural justice'. The AFL then made an emergency meeting with Hird and the EFC following this and within 2 days they had come to an agreement on sanctions, which both he and the EFC agreed with. This resulted in no court action from either the EFC or Hird. This court action was clearly as a result of further evidence coming to light and ASADA then handing out the show cause notices. So what you are saying is true, but to my knowledge this case is not about Hirds' reputation. However, should he be sacked by the EFC and win his appeal then he is going to be in a very strong position to sue the EFC, the AFL and ASADA for damages relating to his 2 million plus contract and any future earning capacity due to defamation. This of course would be played out in a different court and potentially drag on for years.