1 minute ago, stuie said:

I've not once said they're blameless. I have said they've been suitably punished though.

I guess in my mind when i think of this concept of players keeping spreadsheets and inspecting serial numbers I picture the head of Dyson Heppell and I'm no surprised by the idea that they didn't think too much about the whole thing.

 

I agree in terms of their suspensions, i just feel that if the charges stand Jobe should hand the medal back, if he can't prove he did nothing wrong ( which if he could he would have already ) then he can't be sure he hasn't and it's in the interest tof the game that he hands it back. 

The players are very well educated on this stuff, and have to be very thorough in record keeping

1 minute ago, Abe said:

I agree in terms of their suspensions, i just feel that if the charges stand Jobe should hand the medal back, if he can't prove he did nothing wrong ( which if he could he would have already ) then he can't be sure he hasn't and it's in the interest tof the game that he hands it back. 

The players are very well educated on this stuff, and have to be very thorough in record keeping

Yep, absolutely the medal should go back. Staggered that there's even questions about it still.

 

3 hours ago, stevethemanjordan said:

Dank and Hird were the perpetrators with the players being lead to believe that everything being administered was legal and the players signed consent forms stating the program was ASADA approved. It was leading edge and they were the first club to run the program.

Here is where it starts to break down.

Why the [    ] are the PLAYERS signing forms saying that the program was approved? Why isn't the CLUB signing them, or ASADA?

If the players were concerned enough to want to do this, why didn't they go to ASADA? Or to their lawyers?

It's backwards. The forms indemnified the CLUB, not the players.

1 hour ago, stuie said:

But what should they do? Get out their scientific testing equipment whenever the coach and medical staff tell them to take something that is safe and legal just to be sure?

They could have done what they're trained to do and PHONED ASADA

35 minutes ago, stuie said:

But what should they do? Get out their scientific testing equipment whenever the coach and medical staff tell them to take something that is safe and legal just to be sure?

I assume you've done hours of scientific testing every time you were about to take any form of medication?

 

Interesting view Stuie but completely misguided.

These are professional athletes. Everything digested should be analysed for its content. Read the label before eating/drinking. Its not hard,. they are trained to do that.

ASADA have a website. Look up the substance. That's what its there for. Thymosin, hmmmm, cutting edge supplements programme, hmmmmm, black ops,hmmmmmmmmm...no red flags there Stuie is there.

Thousands of injections offsite hmmmmmmm...Bruce Reid supposedly sidelined hmmmmmm.....

I mean really. Take a look at Dank. would you allow him to give a pill to your cat? he looks about as dodgy or unsophisticated as they come. Him running a cutting edge programme? Please.

Face it. They drank the Kool-Aid and they forgot what they had been taught about substances because they were basking in the glow of the Hird/Bomba Thomson cult.

The when confronted. They lied/obfuscated or simply omitted to tell investigators they had taken certain things.

There can be no sympathy. It's not like they were drinking Gatorade.

It's sad for them on some level but that is the regime they signed up for.

I would prefer to stand up for the 724 AFL footballers that did not seek to cheat the system.

1 hour ago, stuie said:

Probably, but maybe they were just doing what they're told. Not saying that makes it ok obviously, but let's remember what footy club culture was like before this, the players were basically robots who did as instructed without question.

 

This may well have been what happened but it cannot excuse their culpability. And there can be no sympathy whne they did not fully disclose or co-operate with investigators. They were skewered by the cover up as much as anything.

 

1 hour ago, stuie said:

Not saying they're blameless at all, just think before all this footy club culture was all based on trust, so when the club legend who is your coach, and the highly paid medical staff come and tell you to go on a medical program that is totally safe and legal you would believe them. That's all changed now, but it's changed due to this whole thing, it wasn't that way before all this happened. Let's remember most of the players are basically kids, kids who all those spreadsheets etc done for them by club staff. They've learned their lesson now, they've been suitably punished and footy club culture has forever been changed.

Fletcher, Stanton, Watson and a bunch of others aren't aren't kids. And the argument doesn't wash that 'they were the first but everything's OK now as we have all leaned what not to do.' Zaharakis and 11 other players did not sign up for the programme. Your proposition sinks when you consider the players that did not sign up.

The media would go nuts over the Russian athletics team or Chinese swim team wheeling out this excuse. What is AFL different? 

They go through 30-40 hours of training a year on this stuff. Honestly they are idiots to fall into line with this after being preached to about the dangers. 

45 minutes ago, stuie said:

What was Dank then, their waterboy? How about "The Weapon", bootstudder?

You know Reid gave final approval right? According to Hird.

 

Why so much sympathy for the drug cheats? they're 100% to blame, every single one

1 hour ago, stuie said:

Could not agree more. Their continuing denial is not only incredibly frustrating, but it shows a lack of remorse and even worse, a lack of care for the future of the players who still don't know exactly what they took.

 

Doing what their Insurers probably told them to do, stall and deny.

1 hour ago, stuie said:

Probably, but maybe they were just doing what they're told. Not saying that makes it ok obviously, but let's remember what footy club culture was like before this, the players were basically robots who did as instructed without question.

 

really? wish someone had told colin sylvia that

no-one has satisfactorily explained why the doc was bypassed and cut out of the loop

no-one has explained why not one single player went to the doc to discuss the injections. not only was he the long established club doc but was the personal doc to many of the players. not one, he testfied.

all this was disclosed by doc reid under testimony at the cas hearing

and stuie claims it was all approved by the "medica team"

2 hours ago, stevethemanjordan said:

Knowing Jobe personally, I'm over reading posts like this and haven't commented a great deal about the saga because some minds are impenetrable.

Dank and Hird were the perpetrators with the players being lead to believe that everything being administered was legal and the players signed consent forms stating the program was ASADA approved. It was leading edge and they were the first club to run the program.

If anyone has been involved in any form of elite sport, you'd know that you need to check every substance you have with ASADA yourself as this is your responsibility and doing this provides you with protection. You are also told to never under any circumstances trust anyone other than ASADA when it comes to what is and is not banned. supplement programs are a big part of preparation, recovery and performance. No doubting this was really pushing the boundaries but to reiterate, if you're an elite level athlete who is used to supplement programs and have been told that you're about to be partaking in a program to help reach your physical potential and that everything was legal then you have also been told to do your own checks with ASADA and not trust coaches, GP's, team docs etc., why would you question it? 

Although it might sound an odd/simplistic analogy, I wonder for instance how many of those who have taken an Ecstasy pill would know what else (other than MDMA) is cut to make up that pill, and that they'd therefore be consuming. Of course MDMA is present. But I assure you it's not only MDMA. Ketamine, broken glass, Caffeine, Meth and plenty of trace amounts of other substances.

The same can be said for the players who partook in the supplements program. A football club is not a Chemistry lab. And I highly doubt anyone who has even taken any sort of pre or post recovery drink really has an understanding of what it is they're consuming. Dank was trusted. Hird trusted Dank. And Dr Bruce Reid was the only one who began raising concerns about what was going on at a later date.

I dislike Essendon a lot. But not because of this. Two people out of an entire club have caused this.

I have added the bits in bold to correct your comments. 

You also as why a player would question it. Simple, they would do so in order to follow the procedures they have been told to, and they are told to do this to protect themselves from crap like this occurring. I am not sure what the players intentions were re cheating, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt, but they are at fault here and that fault lies in them not following what they had been trained to do. The entire AFL is so far behind the times on this it is unbelievable. I was trained to do just this in the mid to late 90's for crying out loud!

On your analogy of ecstasy, it is pointless as Dank injected them with a substance they signed a form to agree to be injected with, this is both with AOD and with 'thymosin', which if the players did the right checks then they would have realised 'thymosin' is not actually enough information to determine the substance they are agreeing to be injected with.

One thing the players are certainly guilty of is mass stupidity!

31 minutes ago, jnrmac said:

This may well have been what happened but it cannot excuse their culpability. And there can be no sympathy whne they did not fully disclose or co-operate with investigators. They were skewered by the cover up as much as anything.

 

29 minutes ago, jeck wartz said:

Why so much sympathy for the drug cheats? they're 100% to blame, every single one

Again, as I've already said many times in this thread, I'm not excusing them, they deserved to be punished and they were.

I'm taking a broader context of the effect of it all on footy culture as I find that more interesting than shaking my fists at "drug cheats" after all this time.

 

1 hour ago, stuie said:

But what should they do? Get out their scientific testing equipment whenever the coach and medical staff tell them to take something that is safe and legal just to be sure?

I assume you've done hours of scientific testing every time you were about to take any form of medication?

 

Call ASAD and get the all clear. If someone gives you something out of a non labelled vial then you don't take it, simple. If what is in the vial is not what is on the label then you sue the pants off the person who deceived you. Why has no one sued Dank?

1 hour ago, stuie said:

Probably, but maybe they were just doing what they're told. Not saying that makes it ok obviously, but let's remember what footy club culture was like before this, the players were basically robots who did as instructed without question.

 

We expect 12 year old gymnasts to abide by the rules but not adult men because of 'club culture'. That right there is the problem and why the AFL are decades behind where they should be.

Just now, Chris said:

We expect 12 year old gymnasts to abide by the rules but not adult men because of 'club culture'. That right there is the problem and why the AFL are decades behind where they should be.

Where exactly did I say I didn't expect them to abide by the rules?

 

1 hour ago, stuie said:

4 - They were told it was something else, or possibly not even told at all and just told it was safe and legal.

None of us now. But they've been suitably punished (Dank and Hird are another matter) and it's surely time to move on.

 

Then why not declare it. The forms are for you to declare all the things you have had, this should all be non banned stuff. You do so in case you get a positive test and you can then trace it back to a possible contaminated medication (or similar scenarios). Why would you not declare it if you thought it was legal?

6 minutes ago, stuie said:

 

Again, as I've already said many times in this thread, I'm not excusing them, they deserved to be punished and they were.

I'm taking a broader context of the effect of it all on footy culture as I find that more interesting than shaking my fists at "drug cheats" after all this time.

 

you find an irrelevant excuse more interesting than people passionately defending clean sport? well ignorance is bliss i suppose. 

maybe the MFC should play injection lucky dip and when we get done for not knowing what we took we can just say it's part of our culture so it's everyone elses fault?

1 minute ago, Chris said:

Then why not declare it. The forms are for you to declare all the things you have had, this should all be non banned stuff. You do so in case you get a positive test and you can then trace it back to a possible contaminated medication (or similar scenarios). Why would you not declare it if you thought it was legal?

Ask them.

 

2 hours ago, stevethemanjordan said:

Knowing Jobe personally, I'm over reading posts like this and haven't commented a great deal about the saga because some minds are impenetrable.

Dank and Hird were the perpetrators with the players being lead to believe that everything being administered was legal and the players signed consent forms stating the program was ASADA approved. It was leading edge and they were the first club to run the program.

If anyone has been involved in any form of elite sport, you'd know that supplement programs are a big part of preparation, recovery and performance. No doubting this was really pushing the boundaries but to reiterate, if you're an elite level athlete who is used to supplement programs and have been told that you're about to be partaking in a program to help reach your physical potential and that everything was legal, why would you question it?

Although it might sound an odd/simplistic analogy, I wonder for instance how many of those who have taken an Ecstasy pill would know what else (other than MDMA) is cut to make up that pill, and that they'd therefore be consuming. Of course MDMA is present. But I assure you it's not only MDMA. Ketamine, broken glass, Caffeine, Meth and plenty of trace amounts of other substances.

The same can be said for the players who partook in the supplements program. A football club is not a Chemistry lab. And I highly doubt anyone who has even taken any sort of pre or post recovery drink really has an understanding of what it is they're consuming. Dank was trusted. Hird trusted Dank. And Dr Bruce Reid was the only one who began raising concerns about what was going on at a later date.

I dislike Essendon a lot. But not because of this. Two people out of an entire club have caused this.

The comparison between professional sportspeople taking PEDs and someone taking an E doesn't hold water. There are so many differences the two don't even stack up. Professional, counselled sportsmen desperate to succeed vs the general public taking rec drugs? Nah.

I appreciate the personal sympathies towards your friend Jobe, but had he and his teammates shown some spine and simply googled the labels on the vials before signing the disclaimers, or answered the ASADA questions about what they had taken truthfully, this might not have happened. 

It beggers belief that not one of them googled the drug name against the publicly available list of banned substances and took a stand (Zaka excepted perhaps).

The victim in this saga is the integrity of the game, not Jobe and his teammates.

Ignorance is not innocence.

 

4 minutes ago, Chris said:

Then why not declare it. The forms are for you to declare all the things you have had, this should all be non banned stuff. You do so in case you get a positive test and you can then trace it back to a possible contaminated medication (or similar scenarios). Why would you not declare it if you thought it was legal?

He doesn't know, pretty hard to defend the indefensible, they cheated and imo tried to hide it, should have been banned for life to make a statement 

 

11 minutes ago, stuie said:

Where exactly did I say I didn't expect them to abide by the rules?

 

"just think before all this footy club culture was all based on trust, so when the club legend who is your coach, and the highly paid medical staff come and tell you to go on a medical program that is totally safe and legal you would believe them."

That sounds a hell of a lot like excusing the players because the 'club culture' said it was all OK. From what you have written it appears you think the club should have stuck by the rules and the players just follow along. That goes directly against the ASADA training.

7 minutes ago, stuie said:

Ask them.

 

I would if I could.

Doesn't that question raise a few other questions for you?

I'm reading this thread again tonight with a beer and fish n chips.

Bring it!

1 minute ago, jumbo returns said:

I'm reading this thread again tonight with a beer and fish n chips.

Bring it!

Don't forget to ask for the good stuff  

HAND THE MEDAL BACK JOBE