Its odd that the players are appealing to clear their names in a way that will not clear their names.

No matter what the swiss court says, what we heard cannot be unheard. I know there remain doubters (such as Mr Football) but for me, and many others, the WADA case at CAS was damning and the behaviour of the players reprehensible.

Wriggle and squirm as much as they like but no matter what this court finds about the niceties of whether the evidence should have been re-examined, the simple fact is that the evidence came out and those players played dirty, hid it, and far from being sorry for what they did to the competition they are determined to make everyone pay for their mistakes but them.

Frankly, win or lose this case I dont care anymore, the truth is already out its not going back in.

In short completely agree. Some thoughts

1. Every year 100´s of 17 and 18 year olds leave home and travel across the country to join the ADF, either as troops or officer cadets. They have nothing like the level of support or pay that footballers get but they suck it up or leave. If you cant cut it you have no business trying to in the ADF:

2. Every year, thousands of kids from country areas leave home to go to university, or even just high school. They suck it up or give and, go home and surrender their dreams.

3. There are dozens, if not hundreds of professions where there are only limited employers (perhaps limited to 1) and people who want to follow that profession have limited options. Fighter pilots, air traffic controllers, soldiers, police, regulators, judges etc etc. There´s absolutely nothing unusual or inherently wrong with this as long as the employer isnt abusing it market position. For a 18/19 year old to volunteer for this knowing what was coming, to be accept the contract, be assured of a wage far in excess anything he could expect for any other job he´s qualified for and then try and present as being abused it a bit rich.

4. Finally the slavery thing. Silly, undergraduate semantics. Being required to do something you´d rather not in order be rewarded so that you can do the things you want to do isn’t slavery, its part of being sentient.

1. Peter Gordon – at least in the article you linked – hasnt úncovered´anything.

2. I fail to see anything I ´need to get my head around´.

3. I didnt see anything that even hinted the integrity of WADA or CAS is compromised.

4. Again all I see is legal maneuvering hoping to find a loop hole to set aside a verdict, zero effort to refute the evidence presented or the presentation of evidence on behalf of the defence.

Here´s a different take. This article makes a bold assumption, that somehow getting the players off a doping suspension using competition and trade practices law will magically make those players ´clean´.

Here´s my take.

1. The players freely admit to having been involved in a comprehensive supplements program.

No one disputes this.

2. There is considerable documentary evidence to this effect also (although a shocking lack of any detail in that evidence).

This is the first point of departure of the pro and con camps. Can this reasonably be inferred as a deliberate attempt to hide an illegal program, simply poor management or a bit of both?

3. There is considerable, though circumstantial, evidence this program involved involved a banned substance. IE TB4.

The strength of this evidence is highly variable and its assembly into a ´narrative´is controversial for some. However, I note that the vast bulk of the controversy is in the legal weight of the evidence, not its ´common sense´ie most realistic interpretation.

That is many people have expressed the view that this circumstantial evidence is a dodgy basis to convict, but I dont think I´ve read anywhere some saying that on the basis of what we know the program probably didnt include TB4.

4. There is, conversely neither evidence that the supplements used were in fact legal nor a credible alternative theory which may indicate that all these drugs were legal. IE that the supposed TB4 was in fact the ´legal´variant.

Hird and Dank aside almost no one seems to be seriously positing that the ´thmyo´referred to over and over again was the legal variant. The only credible (though probably very unlikely) scenario I´ve read is that Dank was so bent its possible he was simply injecting the players with saline and charging for ´real´drugs.

Now this next bit seems to be the crucial piece in peoples argument.

5. There is no evidence that links any particular player to any particular TB4 injection on any particular day.

For some people this critical – they need this to be ´comfortably satisfied´. Note, again, few people seem to be saying this lack of a hard ´link in the chain´means the players probably werent given TB4, instead the debate is whether its met a procedural, legal bar.

For others (and apparantly the CAS) the length and intensity of the program, renders them ´comfortably satisfied´that at some point in the program everyone of the Essendon 34 got at least one TB4 injection.

6. Finally, now all the evidence is public, many people have been really shocked at how little the players did to try and understand what was happening. Indeed, many are buying the ASADA viewt now that at best the players were pretty cavalier about making sure they were clean, at worst they were complicit in its secrecy and therefore its illegality.

So what the point this run down?

Its this. Having lost the case at CAS all this information is now public and the most favorable thing anyone can say is Ím not comfortable with the legal verdict´. Very few people are looking at the evidence and saying based on this they are confident the essendon players were clean.

So, its quite possible that the Essendon 34 could get off their suspensions, but no matter what, many, indeed most, people will probably think the players played dirty.

No matter what happens now, they´ll always be drug cheats.

Ok, granted youre a lawyer in the field so automatically one up on me but here goes with my problems with your analysis:

1. Its clearly emotive and partisan, this isnt so much an analysis of the legal situation as a piece of advocacy. As a lawyer feel free to talk to me about your opinion on the state of the CAS decision wrt Australian law, however, leave out the unnecessary appeal to your personal sense of justice.

2. It is arguable that the players have a case, but its equally arguable that they dont. In particular the public policy implications of undermining the entire anti doping regime in this country for all athletes and the potential to impact every level of professional and amateur sport would must be considered. Similarly, the very finality you are claiming is against the publics interests could instead be argued to precisely the reverse.

Mike, she could only be charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice if she was involved in the legal process, since she avoided involvement with the police by refusing to make a statement that charge is off the table. The very best Dusty could hope for would be a civil defamation case.

However, after reviewing the footage and getting other statements the police made a statement of fact ´no criminal action occurred´. Thats pretty much as good as it gets for a finding of innocence.

Mister Football, do you realise the ´stands of a cable´form of legal argument is a well established form of judicial thinking used in civil and criminal trials around the world for decades.

This is not something dreamt up by CAS at all.

For me, the rest of your argument fails after this tremendous display of ignorance (or did you know this and were just being dishonest?)

Axle, if the players had failed a drugs test would you be happy with that evidence? Before you answer that remember that a drug test is, in fact only circumstantial (or more correctly indirect) evidence?

Or what about eye witness accounts from say a nurse saying ´i adminstered TB-4 to the players´ however before you answer that remember this sort of evidence is wrong more than any other form of evidence in any trial or investigation.

There isnt good evidence or bad evidence. There is just evidence, its all valid. Indirect evidence is perfectly ´solid´´ got enough of it and there´s no need for any more.

I´m not a lawyer but I work as a regulator and deal with legal issues routinely. From my experience, the case I read would go pretty much exactly the same in any independent tribunal.

train, that is simply not true. 1. No charges were ever brought therefore they cannot be dropped. 2. The statement from the police and subsequently from the afl and the club is that having actually spoken to people that were there and reviewed the video `no criminal act´´ occurred´. 3. Martin did not acknowledge the specific events, he´s said the entire time he doesnt remember what happened, he has been very clear however that he was drunk and that ´´íf´´ he offended someone he was sorry.

There are massive questions over just what occurred and the notion that Martin actually threatened anyone is not accepted by the police, the afl or the club.

you have the right to your own opinion but not to your own facts.

In this discussion people often make the mistake of talking about sport and sportsman as though they live in a separate world, divorced from the rest of us but the truth is that thats really only true for the very short period of their professional experience. After that (often as little as just two years) they rejoin the rest of us.

I´m an aging but still competitive age group athlete, I go ok for my age even against a lot of blokes who played elite and professional sports in their younger days. I know they´ve got years more training than me but that I can cope with. But what if they´d spent all those years ón the juice´? The evidence is now emerging that time spent on steriods, HGH etc can give benefits for many many years after their use.

If the AFL left the WADA code that means hundreds of footballers leaving elite levels moving back to local comps, club bike rides, age group triathlons that will have had long periods on performance enhancing drugs.

For me, if the AFL dropped WADA I think all elite level AFL players should be banned from all other sport for life.

Nice article. I agree that we tend to pick and choose the ísm´s we´ll condemn and condone. Racism bad, Feminism good but good old fashioned Classism go your hardest and the herd will join in. Get a bad haircut and a neck tattoo and suddenly missing a training session and giving someone the finger is a long history of trouble deserving of instant dismissal with no need to even check out any claim made against you. On the other hand, driving drunk (Hodge), putting a guy in hosptial with a cowards punch (Williams) or kicking a cabby in the head (Hurley) is just a little boyish high jinks, quickly forgotten and certainly not worth a suspension or anything.

Frankly something about this entire event has felt wrong. Someone from the media, complaining to the media, being defended by the media refusing to have it investigated but demanding punishment. If the AFL investigated it was covering up, if it referred it to the police it was avoiding its responsibility. If anyone here called for a little calm we were accused of hating women and supporting domestic violence.

Conspiracy theorists will no doubt still be out there but for me its this simple, there´s two possibilities:

a. a media worker, sniffing a story over egged a confrontation with a drunk footballer a bit turning a rude encounter into something altogether more serious for a bit of click bait or

b. the richmond football club, the AFL and the victorian police are engaged in a massive conspiracy involving secret payments to or intimidation of perhaps dozens of restaurant staff and patrons, the doctoring of video and various other criminal offences to cover up a serious crime, going so far as to say ´no crime was committed´when in fact a horrible assault occurred.

I reckon (a) is more likely.

So these rules shouldnt apply to the Chinese swimming team, the East German athletics team, a wide swathe of olympic weightlifting teams? Of course it should, and it applies to a football team.

This requires zero philosophy, its very, very simple – you are a professional footballer, your body is your responsibility.

more strictly, there is in fact no such thing as circumstantial evidence, just direct and indirect evidence. All those things are indirect (commonly referred to as circumstantial) evidence. Even more curious is people saying they wont accept ´circumstantial´evidence but want a postive drug drug, which is itself indirect (or circumstantial) evidence.

1. If the AFL broke with WADA there would be no government funding at any level.

2. Every AFL player would be banned from every sport that is affliated with WADA, not just at the AFL level either, probably every elite level. So no cycling, triathlon, cricket, basketball, at any level, possibly ever for the rest of your career at any level.

Got to say I´m kind of ambivalent on this one. Why? The fact is that even at the height of the salary cap rorting the Storm team didnt cost any more to put on the park than the Brisbane, Parramatta, St George etc sides. The only difference is that being in league home towns those clubs (and others) could arrange for third party payments that conformed to the technical rules of the nrl salary cap. Storm could not meet the technical requirements of a legit third party payments but if they couldnt get the money they´d lose all their players to NSW and QLD. So they simply ignored the rules, paid the money directly and fudged the books.

Waldron had two choices, cheat and have a chance to win or resign to losing, he rolled the dice won for a while then lost.

If he hadnt done this and Melbourne lost their stars (as was inevitable) and then the Storm finished mid pack or lower (equally inevitable) would their still be a Melbourne Storm today?

Also, their is absolutely no way the players didnt know exactly what was going on. If you are really principled about this surely you would apply the same strict standards to them, right?

Completely agree, in the outrage olympics in the media (and here on the roar) men of a certain age have been desperately trying to prove they have the biggest and whitest charger on which to ride in and save the ladies. If they´d had their way Martin would have already been kicked out of the game for an offence we now know he didnt commit.

Completely agree, tying the coaching position to one game is simply stupid. Actaully, to make it sillier, in the last final the tigers were actually in front at half time, so in effect you’re saying you´d sack a coach because the team lost a half of football to a side that went on the make a prelim final.

Putting that aside, frankly if I were running the club I´d make the coach position a `rolling wave´ contract where providing you dont completely screw up the contract simply continually extends so there´s always 2 years to go. Worse come to worse you have to pull the trigger a year early and pay out 12 months but so what? It would be pretty easy to structure the contract so that the clubs exposure was limited.

Looking just a little like you jumped the gun on this one sloshy.

Having played AFL, football, league, rugby and waterpolo its impossible to say which sport is harder as they all have different nuances (not to mention vastly different physical demands). However, having played all of these and brought three daughters thru them here´s my broad generalisations (note, these are for the basic junior, local ammo club hack – not elites) on which is the easist to hardest to get out and have a fun game and be useful .

1. For someone that knows little to nothing league is the easiest to simply get on the park and contribute. The gameplay, particularly at entry level is very structured, and the basic skills pretty straightforward. IE its possible to be a perfectly serviceable player and never, ever pass the ball in any way.

2. Rugby has a far more complex rule set but to be a basic contributer is still pretty straightforward. I played A grade (albeit in Melbourne) for two seasons and never really learned all the rules and tactics but stand your place in the line, do what you are told, dont be clever and do simple things (catch a ball, hold it when you run, release it when you hit the ground) well and you´ll be fine – not a star but ok. oh, if they´ve got the ball, find a guy about your size and if he gets the ball dont let him past you.

3. Football is a lot tougher (though coming from AFL first made it easier) because the play is fundamentally less structured. Its possible to run and run all day and never be where the ball is. Then when you do trap the ball you must do something with it, simply going to ground and releasing is not an option – my experience is that rugby code players really struggle. OTOH the field is quite small, made even smaller by penalty boxes and off side rules so its actually not that hard to find a useful place to be. I know teaching my girls to find a place to be, make themselves useful, get and dispose of the ball wasnt that hard after the first few training sessions. But overall, there´s a level of decision making and technical skill just to contribute that makes it harder than the previous sports.

4. AFL is the hardest for the beginner (and convert). Apart from the bounce there is zero structure on a truly enormous ground. I´ve seen great rugby and football players run and run all day and never touch the ball. Watching elites (ie AFL) is deceptive – they know the patterns and run to the right places, go down and watch juniors, its not uncommon for 6 six out of 18 to get 80% of possession, 6 kids get the other 20% and the last 6 never touch it. Then when you do get the ball your time to dispose of it is vastly reduced because you can be grabbed and brought to ground. Yes using your hands is easier but you have far less time to do it.

Like I said none of this applies to elites. Anyone who reckons they can say the the best player of one sport is better than the best player of another sport is smoking dope. One of the main reasons is that these are totally different body types so they´d rarely compete head to head anyway. The average AFL all-australian player is approximately 8cm taller and 12 kg heavier than the average socceroo. I think last years AFL all australian team shortest player would have been close to the average height of a socceroo. A football player has to be able to defend effectively knowing he cant simply grab his opponent – thats hard. OTOH an AFL player with the ball has to get his skills exactly right knowing a 193 cm, 92 kg, sub 3 minute 1 k runner and 150kg+ benchpresser is about to rag doll you. How do you compare those?

Utter Rubbish.

´Tracey´knew all the details of the incident on Saturday night and didnt report it to the cops.

´Tracey knew all the details on Sunday and Channel 7 (her employer) but not the cops.

On Monday morning the ´Tracey, Channel 7, the AFL, the club and Dustin all knew about the incident and done some level of thinking – no one decided to call the cops.

By midday Monday EVERYONE knew about the incident it was on every news site, TV station and radio spot. No one thought to call the cops but even they would have know something was up.

Tues, Wed, Thurs and the AFL is publically announcing every step thay are taking, they are publically announcing their intention to investigate, they named their investigators. The cops, unless they have a self imposed media blackout knew all this and elected to do nothing, Tracey knew all this and elected to talk to Channel 7 and other mates in the media BUT NOT THE COPS.

Finally, the AFL finishes a prelim investigation, so far the only people actually interested in doing anything and basically says “there´s nothing much to see” but realize they cant say that and formally ask the cops to investigate (something ANYONE ELSE could have done AT ANY TIME).

And yet the AFL is the bad guy. Despite doing everything in the open, saying exactly what they were doing they are the ones hiding information and suppressing the truth.

Rubbish, lunatic conspiracy theory.

If it had been Conner Menadue the woman at the centre of this would have had no idea who he was and we would never of heard of this in the first place.

What is curious is that I´m hearing virtually no female input on this.

I asked my wife and daughters what punishment they´d think appropriate and they started with questions (noting they arent really football fans so I had to explain who Martin is). So he threatened her but never actually made contact? No. Did he break anything, a chair, a glass, a wall? No. Ok, their view was obviously start with counselling for alcohol abuse, probably a fine and some sort of community work.

When I told them the idea was being floated of a 12 month or more month ban, fines of 50k plus they were, I think its fair to say horrified. Yeah what he did was wrong and he deserves punishment but why destroy him?

Now my sample size is tiny and its completely might be that this isnt representative. However I also detect that in the all male commentry that seems to be dominating this discussion there´s an outrage olympics being staged where the winner is the guy (yep has to be a man) who can ride the biggest white horse and do the most to protect “the ladies”.

Odd report in the age this evening.

“Fairfax Media understands a number of independent witnesses interviewed by the AFL and Richmond prompted the league to refer the matter to police with the view that the matter was better investigated by the state’s law enforcers.
It is believed that several witnesses who saw Martin confront the woman have played down what has been reported as a vicious and threatening verbal attack.
Unwilling to take any action against Martin until all the facts had been fully uncovered, the view of Richmond integrity officer Steve Wyatt and AFL integrity officer Brett Clothier and his team was that the prudent option was to place the matter in the hands of police.
Both the AFL and the Tigers refused to comment on Thursday night on the new witness statements but those statements have reportedly placed Martin’s behaviour, while still unacceptable, in a more favourable light.”

Just trying to figure through this but it sounds like the media has unleashed before getting the full story and now no matter what people are told by the player, the afl or the club (people like the author that started this thread) there´s no way Martin can get a just result. Therefore, confident that there´s not much to find, they´ve referred it to the cops, hoping the cops will say “not much to see hear, move along folks” and that this will provide some credibility when the AFL says the same thing.

I think the treatment of the Marley Williams or Michael Hurley who actually did strike other people, did actual harm, were charged with GBH or simple assault, and were convicted are better precedents. I´m pretty sure neither coped a suspension despite sending people to hospital and receiving criminal convictions (add to that Hurley didnt get any punishments for not meeting the conditions of his suspended sentence either). Going back a little further, Andrew Krakouer played on for a year while awaiting a hearing that culminated in a 36 month jail term.

I´m not saying for an instant that Dusty should get off with nothing but I am saying that any suspension for him would be totally outside any previous action by the AFL and the 12 months that people are talking about is longer than the game has awarded for players that have decked umpires. All this for a player that threatened to, but did not, strike someone.