SaberFang

We used two first rounders (Oliver and Weideman) in the 2015 draft. We don't need to use any first rounders in a draft until 2019.

The media fall over themselves to gush over Bontempelli when he so much as farts. You barely hear a mention about Clarry in the media. Shamefully biased.

He's not infallible! Geez, reading some of the comments in this thread you'd think he was Lucas Cook. The simple fact is this: we're yet to win a single game without Lewis in the side, which makes his win loss ratio pretty enviable compared to other teammates. Something to think about.

Just don't let Fremantle have him!

Search 'Jake Lever and Daniel McStay' in Google and open the article at the top from there.

How are GWS going to pay all these players with contracts ballooning to that size?

He would slot straight in, he's going to be a special player. Wish we'd found a way to get him back in his draft.

A bit like politicians calling speed cameras "road safety cameras." It was an illegal performance-enhancing drugs regime, not a [censored] "supplements saga." I wonder how large the bonus was for the PR spin doctor who pulled that term out of their ass.

He's a few branches short of a tree, is Robbo.

Ah, the good old days, before "journalism" became endless clickbait and product placement disguised as an article (and usually not declared in the addendum).

You know the media has an agenda when they start telling you who and why you should feel sympathy for someone. I reserve my sympathy for people I feel deserve it. James Hird is most definitely not such an individual.

Herald Sun in overdrive taking advantage of the whole situation by running a sustained Hird the Golden Boy narrative. Shockingly transparent stuff.

Just another classic Gillon "Dealmaker" special.

The whole thing makes me sick. The entire narrative that News Corp have attempted to form around the Essendon players is disgusting and hypocritical beyond belief.

So Jobe's refusing to give back the actual medal? Makes his pathetic pontificating about how much he was a man of honour and intergrity even more vomit-worthy, if he cut one of Gil's famous deals to keep the medal in exchange for a PR statement. And makes the AFL even more pathetic. To echo the above, I'd give this corrupt corporation (barely consider it a sport anymore) away were it not for the Dees.

What's the point of doping to win an Olympic medal? Wouldn't that be the most hollow victory imaginable? It's like using warp pipes to beat Super Mario Bros.

Surely that's the end of it, then?

Pathetic, the guy is clearly just wasting everyone's time now and has no intention of following through on the appeal. Basically he knows the system and knows how to waste everyone's resources; he's just disrespecting the whole process. In the real court system, Magistrates can just throw out vexatious litigants and prevent them from pulling this crap. Clearly this works differently with the AFL Tribunal.

Unsurprising. An inconvenient truth that completely destroys the entire narrative he's spent years fabricating. So what does he do? Sweep it under the rug, pretend it never happened, and within 24 hours he continues on his merry way! First rule of media propaganda: ignore the facts that don't suit your agenda.

I don't know Zaha personally but I'm assured he knew exactly what was going on (as did all players) and wanted no part of it. The "don't like needles" excuse was a fabrication to get teammates off his back. It's interesting how he was shunned from the leadership group and treated like crap by Hird in the years following his refusal to partake in the program, isn't it?

I'm trying to see your point of view on the topic but is this your main point of contention? That ASADA have fabricated evidence or rigged the system to find the players guilty? At no point has any player accused ASADA of fabricating evidence. No player has ever denied lying to interviewers about their off-site injections. If ASADA were inventing evidence to find them guilty, would every player and their pet dogs not be screaming about this to the media? Would there not have been a reference to such an accusation in any of the multiple court cases over the years? And would the media narrative not be slightly more substantial than, "they were all duped, but they're all really great blokes"? I'm not saying ASADA are infallible; I think they've been made to look fairly incompetent throughout this entire saga, largely due to the endless obstacles and roadblocks put in place by both Essendon and (more discretely) the AFL. Not one party involved with the AFL has made the process easy for them, obfuscating at every turn (not to mention tip-offs to destroy evidence before investigators had a chance to reach Windy Hill).

T'was a typo, have fixed that one (meant to say all of the players lied). It was established in the brief of evidence following one of the many verdicts that the players, who were receiving off-site injections, did not disclose this information to ASADA when specifically asked if they were receiving off-site injections. Every single player lied to ASADA's interviewers when asked this question.

Quite funny how Robbo never had an article pondering why none of the players admitted to ASADA interviewers about receiving off-site injections. Every single player, to a fault, lied when questioned about whether they were receiving injections. I guess that's just an inconvenient element of the "good guy" narrative we'll sweep to the side, hey?

Zaharakis had no issues refusing to partake in the program. Every player had a choice, naivety is no excuse for willingly allowing hundreds of mystery injections enter your body. Nobody had a gun to their heads.

Robbo presented another view? Well yeah, if a subjective, wholly biased Essendon supporter using blatant lies and mistruths to present an "opinion" that he's been instructed to present by high-ranking Essendon fans who hold senior positions at News Corp is your definition of presenting another view, sure. You're well within your rights to not consider that rubbish. Personally I'll take the side of ASADA, WADA, the Swiss High Court and the Court of Arbitration for Sport who all agreed these players are convicted drug cheats, over the gutter journalism of a drunk. And I have no doubt there are people who have fallen for the systematic, media-driven "poor players" narrative. I'm very relieved the overwhelming majority see right through it (and I'm certainly not getting my statistics there from the "pack mentality" of Demonland).