Heraldsun 8/8 - Essendon to contest suspensions, charges expected in a few days

[Joe Johnson]

Ok so if the players were injected with something other than what was on the consent form, they would not have known?

Did any player ring anybody to check anything about any drugs anywhere at anytime?

*like they are supposed to

 

[NikkiNoo]

The one camped by a billabong under the shade of a coolabah tree?

Nah! He was a greek migrant!

Didn't he come over on a boat? Send him back where he came from!

 

[syl]

I just hope that Carlton hold off on "mad monday" if we finish 9th

It's North's dammit!

 

[Joe Johnson]

I guess they are entitled to fight their case but it would appear quite frivolous if they are receiving penalties based on bringing the game into disrepute. They have said they don't know who was injected with what and when you consider the borderline/illegal cocktail of the drugs at the club then one would think that is enough to suggest they certainly did bring the game into disrepute.

Not only have they wasted tax payers money by forcing the government to invest additional money to unravel what happened at their club they now want to waste the AFL's money with further legal action with a massive group of top lawyers and QC's. This money should be invested in growing and improving the game, not wasted on proving a bunch of rich self entitled brats have done the wrong thing.

Stop making a mockery of the league and cop it on the chin Dons. This is just arrogant and pathetic now. If they do attempt this pathetic challenge then I hope the AFL make them pay double for it.

Give them a chance to plead guilty and get a reasonable punishment. If they want to roll out the QC's and lawyers and throw their money and considerable weight around in this frivolous challenge I hope the AFL make the punishment much harder to cover the additional funds and damage they do to the league.

that's your 3rd post in four years?

you shouldn't hold these things inside you for that long

 

[Fire Storm]

Besides, Essendon gets 14 days to appeal. So even if this is the announcement, the AFL can't stop us from playing finals....

This has been dragged out for so long that it might wait a little longer. After all, the AFL have to supply TV stations with the big ratings for the big games Essendon have played in.

 

[slimdusty4]

where has KFC gone? i had so many questions…. the silence is deafening….

 

[blueblooded]

Will somebody PLEASE think of James Hird!!!

Luke Darcy said he has loved the way he's gone about it this morning on radio...

Fair dinkum boys club the media in this town, wouldn't eat one of their own footy mates if they murdered someone!

 

[ASDA]

they're unlikely to shaft essendon from playing the big 4 twice, but don't believe for a second that Anzac day is beyond being lost....


If the punishment isn't finalised before finals and Essendon feature, expect all other punishments to be ramped up to compensate. higher fine, more draft picks lost, maybe even loss of points next year.

As old Ben kenobi said "you can't win; but there are Alternatives to fighting"

The way Richmond are going they'd pull bigger crowds to the ANZAC day game anyway, i recon the AFL would've be already looking at that change even before the drug cheats did their thing.

 

[Napier_Street]

Comparing bad financial governance of some of the poorer Victorian clubs to the bad governance at Essendon where they deliberately set up a systematic doping regime designed to gain an unfair advantage is laughable, they are completely different situations. Those poorer Victorian clubs also face a lot of financial disadvantages that Essendon don't face like smaller supporter bases, poor fixturing, lack of sponsors and bad stadium deals.

If Essendon had any sense they would cop their punishment on the chin rather than fighting it in the courts as they will earn back more respect. Carlton copped their punishment for salary cap cheating on the chin and after serving their punishment they earnt back the respect of the rest of the competition and were forgiven. If Essendon try to weasle out of their rightful punishment in the courts it will just make other clubs and their supporters resent them even more and they won't be forgiven.

How can it be unfair if it is not illegal??? You think Essendon is the only team that is looking for a competitive edge. Is it fair that Collingwood because of its fat bank balance can send its entire squad to Colorado for high altitude training and meanwhile North players head down to some sand dune running at Portsea. Don't be ridiculous friend. Essendon's systematic supplement regime is no more cutting edge than pain killers at half time, hyperbaric chambers, protein supplements, oranges at half time, ice baths, stretchy rubbery things to loosen muscles, high performance coaches, dieticians, masseurs etc. At no stage did anyone at Essendon promote illegal practices. Perhaps Dank might have gone rogue but to continually blame Essendon for doing anything more than what every other club has either considered or practiced is naïve to the extent of being stupid.

When you have an official report that says Essendon broke the law, come back to me.

Essendon is guilty of being amateurish at worse, naïve at best. Guess what people, its a football club - not Rio Tinto. Our mismanagement relates to a pretty pointless supplement regime. No advantages gained, no damage done. FMD, we lost the last 8 games of the season on this regime - worked wonders didn't it.

 

[Blues4everr]

I actually hope Hird does keep fighting on until the end, he is making a fool of himself.

"Yep I deny that, that, yeah that too. Everything the media said I deny"

He is just making people hate his guts even more by the desperate attempt he is making to preserve what reputation he has left.

Although I must say he does handle the media well, most people would have gone crazy by now but he is always calm. Are they really allowed to stand at his front door LOL?

 

[dmc333]

Just said something about tomorrow being the day on Ten.

 

[Mattrox]

I'll spell it out real simples for you:

1. Players do not know what they are being injected with unless they (a) are experts in sports science and (b) test each substance to confirm its identity before being injected

2. Coach does now know what the players are being injected with unless they (a) are experts in sports science and (b) test each substance to confirm its identity before being injected

3. You can write down whatever you want on medical records, so they are not infallible proof of what someone has or hasn't been injected with.

You can minimise the risk of anything untoward by following procedures but ultimately you put faith in the person(s) preparing and administering injections to ensure they do not tamper with the supplements and ensure that they record correctly what they are injecting.

1. Players should be able to sight the containers to see that the containers are labelled with the same substances that are on the consent form. Then they see the name of the drug written on a record with a date of injection and dose. Just like you see your Dr do on your medical record with your booster shots etc.

2. The Coaches have said record which was filled out in presence of the player. Or indeed a club representative is there to help fill out said paper work accurately. Someone HAS to be there to verify it.

3. If records are simply made up there will be irregularites in paper work.

If the whole operation is more clandestine than this then investigators have to assume the worst and ban players and officials. We simply cannot have dodgy medical practices in sport. I would view dodgy and incomplete records as an attempt to hide evidence or create murky waters. This goes directly against principles of player safety and duty of care.

I can't believe the level of defending the indefensible that is going on here.

 

[blue harvest]

Boy oh boy, tomorrow could be the biggest day on BigFooty ever.
Hope admin are busy beefing up the servers.

 

[rumply]

Boy oh boy, tomorrow could be the biggest day on BigFooty ever.
Hope admin are busy beefing up the servers.

& selling adverting space at superbowl rates...

 

[Sector 7G]

Ok then, what about the Jolly Swagman?

A suicidal tresspassing livestock thief who refused to accept his punishment.

Throwback to a convict heritage. I wonder how many Danks or Hirds there were on the first fleet?

 

[Broken_Chairs]

"We should accept this fate because the lemmings of BF are foolish enough to swallow whatever they're fed by the mainstream media, and in this instance they have been instructed to think that exoneration of EFC would be an unthinkable outcome, right?" - yeah the media are liars, and nothing they say is true…. i mean this has to be my favourite argument in the whole saga… "we'll the media are lying and essendon aren't"… come on, seriously? these guys are wolfing down the essendon PR campaign like a kid who has just sat down for sunday roast, after completing the 40 hour famine...

haha.

all i could picture from that was some angsty teenager with hair mopped over their eyes saying "f*ck the mainstream" while sitting in their room listening to some sh*tty corporate pop-punk thinly veiled as "edgy" and "different". who else could write off the media as a whole while eagerly lapping up the ridiculous statements essendon have been dishing out?

 

[Spongebob]

Boy oh boy, tomorrow could be the biggest day on BigFooty ever.
Hope admin are busy beefing up the servers.

probably be down for routine maintenance

 

[Napier_Street]

i wonder how many memberships worth of cold hard cash the bombers are prepared to spend on potential legal action.

lawyers don't come cheap.

My friend, Essendon is not the Bulldogs. We have money to burn unlike most shambolically run AFL clubs where the concept of good corporate governance seems an alien concept. Good luck at your next tin rattler.

 

[slimdusty4]

haha.

all i could picture from that was some angsty teenager with hair mopped over their eyes saying "f*ck the mainstream" while listening to some corporate pop-punk thinly veiled as "edgy" and "different". who else could write off the media as a whole while eagerly lapping up the ridiculous statements essendon have been dishing out?

"uggghhhhh why should you have to conform… uggghhhhh (starts picking at black nail polish, and scratches dread-like messy hair)"

 

[Mattrox]

How can it be unfair if it is not illegal??? You think Essendon is the only team that is looking for a competitive edge. Is it fair that Collingwood because of its fat bank balance can send its entire squad to Colorado for high altitude training and meanwhile North players head down to some sand dune running at Portsea. Don't be ridiculous friend. Essendon's systematic supplement regime is no more cutting edge than pain killers at half time, hyperbaric chambers, protein supplements, oranges at half time, ice baths, stretchy rubbery things to loosen muscles, high performance coaches, dieticians, masseurs etc. At no stage did anyone at Essendon promote illegal practices. Perhaps Dank might have gone rogue but to continually blame Essendon for doing anything more than what every other club has either considered or practiced is naïve to the extent of being stupid.

When you have an official report that says Essendon broke the law, come back to me.

Essendon is guilty of being amateurish at worse, naïve at best. Guess what people, its a football club - not Rio Tinto. Our mismanagement relates to a pretty pointless supplement regime. No advantages gained, no damage done . FMD, we lost the last 8 games of the season on this regime - worked wonders didn't it.

Pointless or not there was intent to gain benefit. SOMEONE other than Dank needed to verify the status of the drugs.

You are in serious denial if you think that 50 injections of a substance that has not completely tested as safe, especially in the doses Dank prescribed, is like some whey protein shake with a fancy name.

What your Club did is wrong. No two ways about it. You can't cry poor us Collingwood is rich so that makes what we did ok.

Your supplement regime is not a "supplement" it is akin to a hormone therapy AOD 9604 is a fragment of the human growth hormone protein. It was intended to bulk players up with muscle and lean them down (fat Hurley). The "supplements" worked just fine. Your own board was impressed by the lads and how much muscle they put on in preseason. They put on so much muscle, that their tendons had trouble keeping up ---> soft tissue injuries. Just because the whole thing backfired does not make what EFC did any better.

You can't cry out after getting caught speeding. "But officer, I didn't kill anyone or get in an accident, no-one was harmed"...... You break the rules you pay the price.

 

[FuManchu]

If EFC cop a loss of points this year and dispute it, take it to court, then the AFL should drag it out until next season and then take this years points, next years points and only allow them to top up their list from the last round of the next 2 following drafts.

Or, cop it this year and start the season next yr eligible to win premiership points. And drafting bans for the first two rounds for the next 2 yrs.

The drafting bans are what will really hurt them.

 

[Tazmania]

My friend, Essendon is not the Bulldogs. We have money to burn unlike most shambolically run AFL clubs where the concept of good corporate governance seems an alien concept. Good luck at your next tin rattler.

Didn't ziggy say good corporate governance was also lacking at Essendon? Don't get all high and mighty now.

 

[Thrawn]

Boy oh boy, tomorrow could be the biggest day on BigFooty ever.
Hope admin are busy beefing up the servers.

It'll pale in comparison to the final ASADA announcement.

 

[FuManchu]

It'll pale in comparison to the final ASADA announcement.

And the winner is... Cough cough splutter gargle cough faints.... dead silence

 

[sherb]

My friend, Essendon is not the Bulldogs. We have money to burn unlike most shambolically run AFL clubs where the concept of good corporate governance seems an alien concept. Good luck at your next tin rattler.

And you may well need every single dollar of it.