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Whatever it takes ... they took.

You're kidding yourself if you think that Watts hasn't influenced a game so far in his career. He was the best on ground in our only win of note in 2012 against Essendon. He kicked 3 goals against the Tigers in Round 14, 2011, one of which was a fantastic individual effort that all but killed Richmond's momentum and hope of getting back into the game. He was consistently in our best players for a long stretch of games in both 2011 and 2012. While he may not have lived up to the lofty expectations that come with being a #1 pick, there is no way that you can be serious in saying that he hasn't influenced a single game in his four years at the Dees.

"see the bombers shoot up, up"

I don't know how many times I've seen this type of comment, but I cannot agree that it's irrelevant that other clubs have not been investigated or charged. This is not a case of burglary or another clearly defined law. This is a poorly drafted rule that is vague and basically inoperative without some form of clarification from those in charge of administering the rule. You could ask 20 people what the rule is about and you'd get 20 different answers. Therefore, the fact that certain conduct (e.g. what Carlton did in 2007) has been deemed by those in charge of administering the rule as satisfactory and not in breach of the rule shows how the rule is interpreted and applied by those in charge. Even if it was only tacit acceptance by the AFL (for what it's worth I think it was more than that), then I think the clubs are entitled to rely on such tacit acceptance in formulating their understanding of the rule and the interpretation and application of the rule by those administering it. Even during the 2009 season the CEO of the AFL publicly backed what Melbourne was doing! If a club cannot rely on the administering body's interpretation and application of a vague, poorly drafted rule, then what can they rely on? So no, the speeding ticket example is not relevant to the current circumstances. Everyone knows that you cannot drive over the speed limit. No one knows what the hell 'on their merits' means. Hence the need for guidance and the relevance of administrative acceptance of similar prior conduct by other clubs.

Age Football writer Waroline Cilson is about to release the following: "Essendon have been inadvertently caught up in the scandalous ongoing Melbourne tanking scandal - Cameron Schwab is said to have, according to reliable sources, secretly encouraged the novice Bomber coach to force his players to experiment with body building drugs. In further breaking news Schwab has also been implicated, according to other reliable sources, in masterminding the shocking European Football (Soccer) match fixing scandal, based on his well known success in systematic match fixing at the MFC. Further investigations are underway on suspicion that he may also be part of the Elvis mystery, and the Kennedy assassination, according to sources."

Wilson has called for CS to be sacked. He was seen walking past a Bombers membership tent last year.

Go to the top of the class Scoop Junior. Indeed, it goes further than that. The AFL is acting as the administrative body dealing with the rights of all constituent clubs. It can't apply its rules in one way with one club and refuse to apply them to others without good reason.

Good to hear him stir the pot ... but he's still a [censored].

OK. We've all had our laugh at Essendon's expense but let's not forget that they're innocent until proven guilty. PS: Can't wait till they hand over their ill-gotten 2000 premiership cup to us as the rightful owners.

with an ashen face?

UP theres, AD is skating on thin ice, the competition is a shambles, he couldnt drive a greasy finger up a dead bears ass.

Our sport really does not need this. 99% of me desperately hopes this is false. But if someone must be found guilty, Essendon is a good choice. 1% of me wants this to be true.

I Macbeth (on injections in the vault rumours): We have no spur To [censored] the sides of our intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself, And falls on th'other. . . . Macbeth Act 1, scene 7. 25–28

Someone just posted this on BigFooty. Quite a poignant observation!

Lloyd and Luke Darcy need to be put in a capsule and fired directly into space.I'm sure Richard Branson would help out for a larf.

I'm afraid that people who don't see Jack Watts as a very good footballer are living in the past. I have confidence in that fact being very firmly established as the 2013 season unfolds. I'm not going to list Jack's positives here, but the list is significant. If you think the current coaching panel has reservations about his place on our list you are bordering on delusional. Think 6' 5", athletic, highly skilled, intelligent and coming into his prime...

I haven't been following this story during the day but I can't help but think about the suspension meted out to the Casey Scorpions player Wade Lees - AFL aspirant Wade Lees' 18-month ban for using performance-enhancing drugs will not be ramped up In Wade's case, he copped an 18 month ban for "attempted use of a prohibited substance violation'' after unwittingly ordering a fat burning product from the US. He didn't know that it contained banned steroids and didn't even get the product and he didn't have the benefit of the education on drug use that AFL players get. It will be interesting to see how this is handled.

What, "simple?" That's one of the worst replies I've read on this board, Roost It. Some supporters are keen to get along to training and report back to Demonlanders and have time to share their thoughts on methods and updates on new recruits and so forth. If anything, you should appreciate any updates you read. If you're fair dinkum and sensible, I'm sure you would re-consider your post and offer apologies to all in sundry that contribute training updates here.

I say it's the AFL's fault for creating an environment where winning is rewarded with premierships. Under a different rule set maybe teams wouldn't be incentivised to win and therefore not resort to performance enhancing drugs.

this is beautiful

Well, I don't agree that I am deluded. There is a simple timeline of AFL denial of an MFC malfaesence after THAT game and continuing until A Series of Unfortunate Events saw this investigation kick off. And our experimentalism is a well-worn talking point. At what point does context not bring 'eye rolls' from those who refuse to admit that many believed Frawley should play forward, that PJ was never a ruckman, nor a forward, that Miller was flailing and failing in the forward line, that three injuries (two before half time) will curtail rotations, and the meaningless of the number of changes before a game? I know, and knew, what we were trying to do, as do you. But to argue we were too blatant is to argue that the average AFL supporter knows more about our club than we do. 'They didn't play Watts enough' & 'Bate was played in the midfield' & 'Dunn was played in defence' These are seen by those on the outside (and the investigators if reports are correct) with just as much veracity as the ones we admit we pushing the envelope of believability. And that tells me that we are projecting that veracity onto those 'unbelievable moves intended to lose the game.' Well I won't project it. They were legal moves, intended to experiement with our players in a legal way when a result (ie. a win) didn't matter. Well within our rights and handled well by the club. You can't really expect me to take this argument on its merits - it's a different take on the "woe is us" mentality - "no-one screws up like we screw up!!" Well they do. And I am happy to name the protagonists but their roles are more important - an Assistant Coach and a dominant FF admitting that "Blind Freddie being able to see that winning wasn't the highest priority." Whoops. They didn't say that - they were much more blunt: "I never heard [a directive to lose], but I could feel it, if that makes sense. "Nobody ever said we're not going to win but the feeling in the group was that it was a bit of a laugh." "We wouldn't use those words (how do we lose), but another assistant coach would say, 'Tanks very much', or something along those lines in a jocular way," he said. ... Asked if he felt that constituted tanking, he said: "I would have to say yes.'' AND: The two-time Coleman Medallist said the club took "initiatives" such as asking players to have surgeries and making unusual match-ups. "It did seem like the club did a lot of things that made it more difficult for us to win games," Fevola, who yesterday kicked 18 goals in an exhibition match in Tasmania, wrote. I don't mention this as a "they got away with it" argument. I mention it as an example of a club that has had just as strong voices from the inner sanctum come out and say things that were more direct than what Bailey and McLean said. And yet OUR former 'donut' loving idiot kicks off an investigation and their 'dildo' loving idiot doesn't? Where do I say there is a conspiracy? I hope you haven't been fooled by RR, BH and BB's inferences that anyone who thinks that we didn't bring this on ourselves thinks it is a conspiracy... But of course you don't - you mention the 'bad luck' of having McLean fill-in on OTC. Well, all I am saying is that The Bloated One went to the Olympics and left Andersen in charge and while I am not privvy to the inner maschinations of the AFL, AA put the League on a course that AD had been attempting to strongly avoid since the various 'fateful' games have occured. He comes back and still maintains his belief that 'tanking' does not exist. I don't think my inference that Andersen 'screwed the pooch' is that much of a flight of fancy... That coupled with 'the bad luck' led to this mess being regurgitated after TWO AFL WHITEWASHES of the an investigation, TWO YEARS after the fact. Our execution was no more heinous than others - nor more obvious, we are in the mess because of a confluence of events outside our control. *If you want to discuss whether we should have 'tanked' (list purge, youth, surgeries, experimentation) in the first place that is a seperate argument, and not directly related to 'how' we went about it in 2009.

It's hard to turn it over if you don't get your hands in the ball in the first place. The only number that matters is % of turnovers against disposals.

I've been at work and out of touch with the outside world all afternoon but I'm thinking of registering on BomberBlitz to discuss this and other matters of the day. Anyone else think it's a good idea?

What surprises me more is that not one player raised his concerns with James or Bomba, surely if they were asked to sign a waiver they would have had to think it wasn't completely above board.

I wonder if Warnie's mum supplied the supplements?

By the reports the AFL got involved at the request of Essendon management (if you believe it) Mind you they may have just been trying to get in first because it was about to break

as in 6-7 months?

Surely we could get good half dozen years from Dustin Fletcher.

I wonder how much it helped their first? They looked unquestionably bulkier in 2012 than in 2011. You could even say unnaturally so.

Those were just two that sprung to mind, and one more than you asked Binman for. You implied that he'd had none. Some of the Watts bashing on this forum is ridiculous; the Dees are a better team when Watts is playing than when he isn't. Fact.

There have been plenty of past instances of players & employees parting ways with the MFC in unhappy if not poisonous terms. The club has leaked like a sieve to the media over the past 3 years from within & outside from former employees/admin. Bailey & McLean felt compelled to infer that the club was rorting the system. How was the JMac fiasco handled? Miller & Bruce gave scathing exit interviews. Chris Johnson son of an MFC gun was publicly humiliated in front of the whole playing group. If you want to go further back, how was Woewodin treated? Or Daniher in being asked to reapply for his own job after 10 years in the chair? A large factor in our massive debt was high staff turnover.When Hawthorn turned over their list - players such as Holland, Thompson & Barker had nothing bad to say about their club. Yet we have had players such as Bruce, McLean & Moloney who all loved the club, depart very hastily as well as a number one draft pick who felt he would be looked after better by a team that hadn't even kicked a ball in anger. Carlton wasn't really killed by the AFL for salary cap rorting, they were killed by Silvagni, O'Reilly & other whistleblowers willingly admitting fraud to spite John Elliott. Melbourne is being investigated for tanking on the back of a former coach & player inferring that the club was delibrately losing for draft picks. No other club has had former employees go on the record with such candour. Fev & Libba's suspicions are not the same as Bailey saying he had "no hesitation" about placing the club well for draft picks, nor McLean claiming Bailey was under pressure to tank & that both agreed that it was [censored] in DB's office. Both have tried to qualify those statements now but a large part of it is to save their own hides. Neither would've made the statements so recklessly in the first place if they didn't feel some antipathy towards the MFC for how it had treated them & the situation in the first place. The MFC has a history of mismanagement & treating its own poorly. Those are facts, not conjecture. A spade is a spade & a club that doesn't treat its people well is bound to be bitten on the arse by revenge seekers.

I wasn’t there for long today. Only around an hour. I got there at around 10.40 and they were into match drills rotating between three separate teams of blue, white and orange. After this they went back inside for 20 minutes at around 11.00am. They came back out and did some warm up drills followed by match simulation. I left after 10 minutes of the match sim, consequently the photos do not cover the full training session. Today, to try and create a bit of variation I have included continuous shots that run in sequence. These sequences cover all three phases of the training, match drill, warm up and match sim. Enjoy. 04/02/2013 Gosch’s Paddock : http://six6six.smugmug.com/Other/MFC-Training-Goschs-Paddack-4/27856441_ZZV58P#!i=2350089315&k=Vz2h9RJ&lb=1&s=A 01/02/2013 Linton Street Moorabbin : http://six6six.smugmug.com/Sports/MFC-Training-1-02-2013/27813243_jFbL9F#!i=2346768420&k=dFsLz3d&lb=1&s=A 28/01/2013 Gosch’s Paddock : http://six6six.smugmug.com/Sports/MFC-Training-2013-01-28/27800770_DqggvC#!i=2344500953&k=4dF2pVS&lb=1&s=A

Whats Brocks take on this?

Ok, just got off the phone with a friend who is in the inner sanctum at another very well resourced club, who have a few ex-staff at Essendon. Apparently the players were taking a substance that is legal only in certain circumstances in the process of recovering from certain injuries. The rest of the time the drug is prohibited. It was an attempt to exploit a narrow loophole. You could say it was akin to Alistair Lynch taking steroids as part of his treatment for CFS. The paperwork may or may not have something to do with a declaration that you have suffered from that particular injury. I may be able to get more details tomorrow.

Touche and the Blues and their officials and board members giggled themselves stupid over it to boot. The myth that we handled what we were doing any differently to other clubs is based on misinformation and delusional thinking. Let them all be investigated for six months and we'll find out how clumsy they were in the way they did things.

Essendon's moto on their homepage: "WHATEVER IT TAKES" Ahhh I love the smell of irony in the morning http://www.essendonfc.com.au/ http://statigr.am/p/307488573836377806_21625142

oh god this is funny. i hate their arrogant supporters with a passion. couldnt have happened to a nicer club. i hope they start the season -24 premiership points and with no chance of finals.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/afl/dont-blame-the-weapon-says-essendon-chairman-david-evans/story-e6frf9io-1226456149474 "Robinson was hired to build bulk and power to compete with league leaders. Robinson joined Essendon last pre-season on the recommendation of coach James Hird's right-hand man Mark Thompson, who worked with him in Geelong's premiership years." Just saying...

But we beat them in the first half right? Melbourne Demons - so good we can beat teams on steroids! Sorry, alleged supplements.

I think you can get a cream for that.

Interesting that Watson on SEN this morning announced that the AFL would be announcing our penalties today or tomorrow; smoke screen maybe?

I think most of us agree with your list. But you exaggerate the 'victim mentality' of other posters and how inept our 'experimenting/tanking' was. As someone posted earlier today, there doesn't have to be a conspiracy, just an unfortunate set of circumstances and timing for us being the target. But why not grumble about that and some of the so-called journalism we have seen? - it's therapeutic for starters. Anyway, I'd rather read that sort of grumbling than read people calling us totally inept and deserving of being clobbered. And some posters even appear to take some masochistic pleasure out of all that . (Not ascribing that to you personally BH. But just as you are sick of 'bleating/victim mentality', I'm sick of those who beat their hairy-chests saying everyone should be sacked and that we are the most inept club in the league). Let's hope this will all be over and we can start arguing about which players should be sent to Casey.

Watts was causing enough grief last year for opposition coaches to start playing a defensive forward on him. I think he will be a difficult match up this year and really step it up another notch.

If the AFL proceed with this the club has to go to court. It may be a case of lose/lose in the short term...but i believe the club could survive. To accept a "cheating" wack from HQ would kill the club. Who would sponsor us? The longer this drags the better chance we have of a "no case" scenario.

JimmyC ... a contrary view might be that far from being 'mistreated', MFC players have been overindulged in the past. Handed out pay increases and contract extensions when their output did not warrant it. When snouts in the trough are forcibly removed, it's understandable that a few greedy pigs will resort to squealing. It was a cancer that had to be cut out.

I said most important player this year, meaning season so not quite sure what you're saying Jumbo. And i reckon he will be our most important player this season (though i agree Sylvia and Jones will also be super important). My tip is that very early on in the season opposition coaches will recognise the importance of shutting Watts down such will be his influence on games with his delivery out of the back half (yes the QB role) that they will start putting defending forwards on him to limit his influence. But now that you mention it I also believe that he will become our most important player full stop soon enough. Ridiculous comment? We'll see.

Photos of training