SaberFang

Almost a certainty to go home. If Richmond stink it up this year with yet another bizarre season, he'll be outta there faster than Frawley left AAMI Park.

Why not BOTH?

If you're a professional athlete you should probably maintain exemplary fitness all year around. It's their career path, after all.

And the irony of who derailed it is certainly not lost on me.

I'm sure the club is ecstatic about how it eventuated, but they'll never admit it.

Really just a sad story for all involved. Had so many lifelines and hasn't taken any. So much wasted potential. Oh well, we have Bernie!

Oh, please. That ridiculous ego. It's so large now earth's gravitational pull won't stop him floating into the stratosphere. Once again, not one thing about Hird's campaign is about confronting his treacherous and illegal acts. Nor the way he utterly betrayed every Essendon player and supporter with this drug program. Everything is simply about suppressing the natural course of justice and from being punished for the wrongs he's committed. He's a man guilty of murder arguing his fingerprints on the murder weapon are invalid evidence because the police didn't put it in a plastic bag.

But magically enough, as soon as ASADA came up with evidence the players were injected with Thymosin Beta-4, Essendon suddenly claimed they were injecting them with the very legal Thymosin (despite that drug having no apparent health benefits for athletes). Essendon have changed their story so many times throughout, basically every time ASADA presented damning new evidence. They denied there were ever drugs, then they knew there were drugs but didn't know what they were, then they didn't know the drugs but knew they were good, then they were "cancer fighting" drugs according to their coach, and finally they were the "good" Thymosin, after ASADA presented evidence citing mass orders of Thymosin Beta-4 to Bombers HQ. Oh, but there's no records because everything was coincidentally destroyed or missing when ASADA came asking for paperwork. And yet, this is all ASADA's fault! Essendon clearly take us for fools.

Someone get me a bucket. It's like reading a year 7's first essay. Just embarrassing. Seriously? What... the [censored]? Robbo is literally a parody of a journalist.

Why is our senior coach, Paul Roos, not overseas somewhere on a business course in France or something? This is the pre-season, after all. Isn't it normal for the senior coach to be gallivanting around the globe?

Geez, no doubt the lawyers are considering a high court appeal. The longer they keep this farce in the courts, the sooner they can retire.

Getting in as much overseas travel as he can before many countries won't actually let him enter? It's not exactly easy to get a VISA if you're a convicted criminal. Unsure of the legal implications for Hird if he's infracted for a mass sports doping program.

I hope the AFL are stupid enough to allow players to compete in the NAB cup, thus preventing backdating of sentences once they're handed out by ASADA, meaning players will end up missing the season proper instead. Would be gold.

Whitfield, O'Rourke and Plowman were all taken before Toumpas and haven't shown that much either so far. Just very frustrating that Stringer, Macrae and Wines have all shown so much and were taken right after the Toump. I think the benefit of patience and time will be kind to Jimmy, but it'd be nice to see something meaty from him before Roos departs... he's renowned for bringing out the best talent from his players, so if he can't...

Hird needs to just STFU. Fancy dragging him out to hold a press conference at a time like this. Nobody... literally nobody at that club has a bloody clue.

Really hoping it's just the patella again. Real questions marks over our medicos though if it's the same injury. Was he rushed out to train before making a complete recovery? Got really high hopes for ANB. I reckon his ceiling is enormous.

The lack of transparency doesn't help the situation. Clark is unwilling to come out and give an explanation to what occurred, and everyone seems to tiptoe around the issue. All we've been told is some vague medical advice stipulating Clark "needed a fresh start away from the MFC." Basically leaves upset supporters to reach their own conclusions; never a good idea.

Journalist [censored] for "something was brought up and immediately dismissed by both parties". Total weasel language from Chip designed to incite a situation into something more than it actually is, without technically being incorrect. Essentially, more propaganda from News Corpse to perpetuate ASADA incompetence, and paint the AFL as inept (so when they they sentence Essendon players to year long bans, they look like the bad guys).

Ah hah, didn't see any of that. Instagram bugs out on my laptop. Gives it a bit more context than Harmes' original comment. And yes, the comments from supporters overall are ugly. Hardly endearing MFC players to the supporter base by going on their Instagram and launching attacks on former players, regardless of what we think of them.

Doesn't go down that far on my computer, the last comment I can see is from 'jarradb3'. No conspiracy here mate, please feel free to enlighten me on what I'm missing.

I note that it's dissolved into MFC supporter squabbling about how unfair it is to pick on Mitch for leaving the club.

Well, that will affect our third NAB cup match. I know weird things happen pre-season, but I don't see us beating Fremantle. Claiming the scalps of Bulldogs and Bombers would be handy for team confidence though. I think we made much greater strides in the off-season than the Bulldogs did.

STFU Nice little STFU there to the incomparable Mitch Clark. What an inspiration he was to Hoges, who apparently looked up to him as a mentor. Hopefully that's past tense now.

Rather damning post from BF:

Definitely not far off the mark. Allison alluded on the MFC website that the rooms were chosen specifically for each new player, and Cross is the perfect mentor for Brayshaw. Oh hell, Cross is the perfect mentor for everyone in our team.