maybe west coast 'leaked' it so they could 'make' akermanis look stupid, and also allow them to put their own 'we say no to drugs' line into action...

Amazing...how quick some are to rush to judgement...all from the safety of their keyboards.. how lamentable

some realities please., EPO is extremely hard to detect unless you are consistenly vigilant. i.e A determined and orchestrated drug policing strategy. Otherwise yo will go scott free. The AFL has none. It doesnt want one.

the AFL has its head in the sand re drugs in its backyard. It doesnt want to find them, the consequences and headaches that would enchew are just too much for a simple nimwod like Demitriou to confront. Much easier to push it away whilst feigning lip service to it all.

Say you ARE a professional AFL player and you know somethig is not kosher... why wouldnt you draw attention to it.

Aker DIDNT mention names, not publicly at least. it was a scenario, a scenario well worth investigating.

What may or may not have transpired has nothing to do with whether a player has an ego or not. he had th eballs to say something isnt right. Kudos to that. If you dont agree with the player thats all..

The rule of "silence " pervades still throughout the AFL... dont you dare dob in anyone.. how unsporting !! etc.

What exactly has Aker said.. im more amazed at whom and why are circling fro his beheading . Id be looking to whom 'protests too much !! "

Anyone who believes the AFL is drug fee is delusional. it would then be the only mainstream code in a country not to be..and thats likely isnt it ?? lol

Yes Aker is a loud out opiniated egotistical opportunist but what has that got to do with the substance of his concern. Play the ball not the man people !!

All i hope is Godfrey to give Aker an ear full.

I am going to preface this by saying that I think that Aker is a complete [censored].

That being said there are two ways (to me) that this whole situation can he looked at and neither is particularly right or wrong........

1. What Aker wrote in the article was utterly irresponsible, attention seeking and without merit or more importantly proof.

I have read the article and proof is something which he categorically said he did not have, but he seemed more than happy to cast unfounded aspersions and innuendo across a number of teams (or at least at those that played that season at the Gabba on a Sunday) and the whole sport that he plays anyway.

Couple this with the fact that the match in question apparently occurred twelve months ago, it does not lend a hell of a lot of credence to his wanting to do what is best for the code. The divulging of his apparent suspicions now and in public can be seen as nothing more than a calculated attention seeking grab.

The other problem with the piece was that is was based on nothing more than a hunch that drugs may have been involved which in turn is based almost solely on the fact that this particular opponent could run away from him, or played better football that day than you have seen them play in the past

This seems massively egocentric, although not necessarily surprising given who we are dealing with.

It is also staggeringly naive, something I really don't think Aker is, to think that once the bee hive had been (deliberately) poked, even without the individuals name being dropped that no-one, in the media or otherwise, would have not gone out of their way to try and figure out just who the hell he was talking about.

He would have, or at least should have, expected this reaction, and if that is the case then he is not as innocent in this as some would have him be.

Or.......

2. The reason Aker wrote the article was because his heart was in the right place with regards to the drug debate within the AFL.

It was not written necessarily to tarnish a possibly innocent fellow player, but to shine a light on the lax drug testing regime that currently exists, and he chose this particular game as an example of how players can exhibit signs (to him at least) that they may be taking performance enhancing drugs and not getting caught.

And in regards to the current regime he is probably 100% correct. The drug testing system does seem to be unbelievably inadequate. This was quite clearly shown up recently by Ben Cousins (just an example) who managed to maintain an alleged drug addiction for what could have been years without getting caught.

That is an indictment on the system if ever there was one. And it is something that needs to be rectified if the code is to maintain its credibility, especially when it comes to performance enhancing drugs because in the world athletes exist in taking an EPO or something similar is quite simply a crime.

The AFL does need to do something to stop the speculation regarding drugs no matter the cost.

So maybe Aker was trying to say as much, and given he didn't name anyone from the game in question he could maintain that the article was nothing more than as example of how potential drug cheats can slip through the system, and he gave a personal reason for why he believed that this player could be juiced up.

And despite all the reactions and allegations he will stand by his piece because he may believe that it was not a personal attack but rather a swipe at the system.

So in conclusion.......

I think that there is probably some middle ground between the two. But as far as Aker is concerned it was an egocentric and miscalculated piece.

The system is inadequate and probably needs to be overhauled, and there should definitely be more money spent on testing, especially all players after every match for performance enhancing drugs, if that is at all possible or plausible, with continued possible random illicit drug and blood testing.

Until this happens media like this will continue to happen and speculation will continue to occur and this will be to the detriment of the sport, if it isn't already.

Whatever the price may be it would be a small price to pay to maintain the integrity of the code.

That would be the only possible upside of what he wrote, as for the downside there is more to that because of its self serving nature and lack of evidence.

The drug system something that has been talked about for a long time now and I don't think that Aker's article really shed anything new or particularly fascinating on the debate. What it did do however was open a can of worms (which was probably the intention) and Micheal Braun has become the victim.

No Aker didn't name him, that was Channel 7 who would have to be in some serious legal trouble. But what Aker did do was in putting his unfounded opinion out there he made sure that it was looked into and, whether he meant it to or not (and he is not stupid), that it and the player he believed was guilty would be named.

You don't shake an apple tree and then act surprised if an apple actually falls out.

I didn't like what he had to say, nor how he said it. If you have genuine suspiscions then you go through the proper channels and then let those in charge deal with it, even in the AFL. You don't wait and then cast very wide ranging and potentially damaging aspersions far and wide in the hope that you will hit something.

Michael Braun may or may not be guilty, but I sure as hell am not going to condemn him on the basis of an article lacking credibility written by Jason Akermanis.

Anyone who believes the AFL is drug fee is delusional. it would then be the only mainstream code in a country not to be..and thats likely isnt it ?? lol

I'd go a step further - it would be the only mainstream sport in the world if it was drug free.

Aker's column didn't name the player because he said he had no proof. He gave the reasons for his suspicion - his knowledge of his own fitness, his knowledge of the other player's fitness from having played on him previously and his observations on that day. As far as I'm aware he has only named the player to ASADA and to the AFL. He criticised the process and gave a reason for it. It was mentioned earlier but it is no different from what numerous swimmers and runners have done in the past and they seem to escape the criticism. I don't particularly like Akermanis but I don't have any problem with his article.

It is interesting that Braun's name is leaked 5 minutes (figuratively speaking) after ASADA get their hand's on it. Channel 7 were also irresponsible with their reporting and I'd expect that they would be paying a fortune to Braun when the dust has settled. Unless he's tested and found guilty.

But as far as Aker is concerned it was an egocentric and miscalculated piece.

Yep!!!

Should just play his footy and stay away from the keyboard.