Qwerty30

No way is it the same as Cronulla. That went for 2 weeks. There were records they stopped almost before they started and there was full co operation and admissions. Plus WADA accepted there had been unacceptable delays by ASADA but that was because they put aside while they threw all resources at Essendon. None of that applies to Essendon. In fact mostly the opposite

The Cronulla program went for 4 weeks

Who has said the Essendon is the same as the Cronulla decision? It certainly isnt.

However, notwithstanding that the difference between the two situations, the Cronulla outcome showed that the ASADA/WADA were prepared to deal with the ruling sports body. There is no way that the extent of the Cronulla concessions would apply to EFC but its plausible that there would be some recognition of the attributes of the matter and have the punishment reduced a net six months. And I would not be surprised if the AFL and ASADA/WADA worked to some broad understanding in reaching that decision.

I'm curious.

What exactly was the "Cronulla decision"?

Patrick Smith - "The Cronulla players received 12-month suspensions backdated to November last year, which meant they missed the last three games of the home-and-away season. It was a deal cut by the NRL executive and ASADA and, begrudgingly it seems, ticked off by WADA, the world anti-doping body."

'

the afl will give essendon the minimum punishment that wont result in asada taking it to the CAS.

ie itll have to be enough to satisfy ASADA to the point that they dont appeal - but itll be the minimum they can get away with.

id say the players will get 12 months - 6 and you can guarantee appeals.

Whether it's WADA or ASADA I think your assessment is right of the target of the AFLs punishment. It's in no ones interest bar the ambulance chasers to prolong this saga. And FWIW I don't think the players will get more than six months

It's inconceivable that the AFL will arrive at penalty for the 34 players unaware of ASADA/ WADAs expectations and requirements. It does not serve the interest of either organisation to be anything than pragmatic and sensible abou

The relative softness of the Cronulla decision will look incongruous if they go in boots and all on EFC for what is in essence the same offence. And it will look ridiculous that the persons who were responsible for this appalling program and have deviously sought to debase and derail the progress of this investigation will walk away untouched by ASADA.

Fair enough...

Seems like yesterday,....

Agree. It does. I can remember the trapezoid backs of the Chinese female swimmers which paid homage to the bulked up East German swimmers of the 1970s.

Surely they have had 'team' sports such as the Chinese swim team...

That was in 1992-3.

WADA was set up in 1999.

They let Cronulla off with a slap on the wrist.

The Cronulla/EFC sagas have highlighted to WADA/ASADA the need to broaden the culpability to club officials. They don't have the protocols or legislation at this point to back up the necessary sanctions.

At the moment the players will be subject to potential sanctions but culpable officials are not going to be hit by ASADA/WADA

Quite.

There is no doubt that records were kept and were either destroyed or removed from Essendon's possession.

And while the coaching, medical and fitness staff must all be brought to account for this, the players are not without blame either for their part in this scandal.

Incredibly, some of the major players in all this remain in control of the board, the senior coach and the medical officer. That's what really boggles the mind.

How are the coaching, medical and fitness staff going to be brought to account in all of this?

Aside from a 12 month paid suspension/ holiday to the coach, not one penalty has been made to stick on the perpetrators.

Nice to see Max given the chance to bring some credibility back to the number 11 after the last bloke soiled the Guernsey.

Paul Johnson certainly did not grace the jumper.

Played like a 200cm rover.

And, yes the players may have been duped, maybe, but they did consent to and accept mystery injections and surely must have been told that they would improve / enhance performance otherwise why take them? "Here, have this shot - it isn't performance enhancing by the way but take it any way". "Yes sir". What total BS.

The issue is not the performance enhancement. The issue is the substances taken were banned by ASADA.

A bit like refusing a breath test - isn't the penalty somewhat equivalent in terms of licence suspension as a high level positive?

They just cannot be allowed to get away with it by destroying / hiding / losing their records.

I think you are confusing the players with the officials.

I dont think the analogy is right.

And its the Club officials (especially Dr Reid) who should be held accountable on that one.

How he could just go silent when he had initial serious concerns and then turned a blind eye to the lack of record keeping is atrocious.

In terms of penalty. I just think of that VFL player that decided to import steroids of some type. He never received or took them so he got no benefit as they were intercepted. But was suspended for 2 years if i remember correctly.

So if the Essendon players are found guilty, how can they not be given a minimum of 2 years. They actively injected the illegal substances into their body and gained benefit form that against the rules.

It is irrelevant that they were duped etc, they accepted the drugs and like many people pointed out with other sports, its does not matter how you got it, voluntary or tricked, if you use illegal drugs you get banned.

The VFL has set the standard 2yrs. How could they give even less for a far more deliberate attempt to gain an unfair advantage.

Wade Lees got 2 years because he imported a banned substance. Under ASADA rules if you import a banned substance then it is prima facie proof that you have taken illegal substances. The Essendon players did not import.

I would have thought the Cronulla example would indicate that the Essendon players wont get 2 years. They will get more than the Cronulla players but they wont get 2 years. I think ASADA have realised that notwithstanding the ultimate culpabiility of the players that there are extenuating circumstances.that existed at EFC. It wont get them off but it will mitigate the extent of penalties.

And here

http://www.melbournefc.com.au/news/2014-11-24/gawn-handed-stynes-no11-jumper

I like the history they've given with each number

I may be old fashioned but the list of players looks odd without someone wearing number 10 and the series of gaps in the 20s and 30s and a serious roadjam of players with numbers in the 40s.

the players have indeed been treated appallingly

the players are also their own worst enemy

And thats why the Melbourne Storm situation does not apply to EFC at all.

The Storm were hung out to dry by Brian Waldron and had all their past glories taken from them. The issue did not directly involve them but they were punished.

In EFCs case they're going to have their futures not their past taken from them.

And while the ASADA holds them and not the key officials involved accountable, there is no doubt they have been royally duped and I believe this will be a mitigate their punishment to less than 12 months.

This whole saga will result in WADA developing tougher protocols and penalties for club officials at club that breach the WADA rules.

I acknowledge that but irrespective of how they got there they had the backbone to go on wards and play with spirit and for the jumper.

Whatever is left of the despicable Essendon they too should seek to emulate at least a feigning of character and resolve.

It would be the first step in regainng some respect, not only for themselves but by others of them.

I think the situation of Essendon and Melbourne Storm are completely different.

And the players will have very little chance for showing character and resolve if theyre suspended for up to 12 months.

With all due respect for the situation the players have been in, I think they have shown significant resolve and character given the sword of fate over their heads.

FWIW, i think both during the supplements program and in the manner in which the club has responded to this, the players have been treated appallingly by Club officials.

Essendon will only regain respect in the eyes of the football if those in senior positions in charge of the club involved with this terrible saga are exited from sport all together. Starting with Hird and closely followed by Bomber, the evil doctor, President Didlittle and coterie of nodding directors who have all failed their roles.

didnt stop Storm from playing or competing...just saying

They didn't have players suspended as well. And the penalty Storm were done for was salary cap rorting. The penalties were at the Club and not the player level.

Is that assuming no players are rubbed out? If they are rubbed out, then the team which plays their 'reserves' twice (or before the ban expires) has an extra 4 points over other teams which don't and a boosted percentage (assuming the likely outcome is a hiding). Am I missing something?

I would have thought players would be rubbed out for a period. But hitting the club for points as well is draconian and unnecessary.

I think the way it works is if Ess win they get zero points but if their opponents win eg Hawkes, then the Hawkes get the 4 pts. So it shouldn't affect the ladder position or % (Except that Ess end up on the bottom).

This would work as long as their draft position for 2015 is based on their 'unpenalised' ladder position. Ie a 'shadow' ladder is kept showing where Ess would be if they were playing for points/%'age. This way they do not get the #1 draft pick in 2015.

It's a perfect way to suck any competitive interest from a game that will have supporters from both EFC and competing clubs deserting the games in droves, TV viewers switching off and it destabilises and undermines the whole AFL season. The AFL loses big time and as a consequence everyone in football loses big time including MFC.

As I understand it the penalties that are likely will be at the players and not the Club level. And if the players are suspended for a fair period then the Club will be crippled enough without the outcome of taking the points.

The punishment for EFC is they need to jettison Hird and Reid. Not re employ Bomber and they need to exit Little and other Involved Board member ASAP

I don't think the Melbourne Storm situation is applicable or appropriate here.

That is a great point. You would imagine that the Bombers would not be in their current predicament if Hird had of done an apprenticeship under someone like Roos

Along with Bomber,Danny Corcoran, Dr Reid, the missile, Ian Robson and at least half the EFC Board. Could we squeeze Paul Little in for some serious mentoring as well?

I can't see why there is such an imperative to have ex MFC fill coaching roles at the club. They are hardly bringing a solid culture of in built success. If an ex-MFC player is the best man for the job then he should get it. But people need to move beyond the jobs for mates routine. I thought that error has been shown up in recent years.

Scapegoating of one person? Now you can give ME a break. My major beef with Hird is that he instigated the cheating, and when he was found out, HE not only protested his innocence, but the contested everything in the courts and elsewhere. If he had have done what Evans, the AFL , and his PR advice at the time was suggesting this would have all been over by the end of 2013. Instead, he and his sociopathic wife sought to contest the obvious, and has prolonged it quite unnecessarily, and now look like taking it into 2016 and beyond.

Hird is responsible for this - no one else. What will happen though is the ESSENDON board, the players, staff and supporters will be the victims. Hird will retire quietly with his millions, leaving victims all over the place.

I have previously written, that Hird will be penalised, as will the players and staff. The EFC will go into liquidation after they are hit with writs from all and sundry. They will survive as a different entity but still under the EFC name, but a pale imitation of their former selves. If you think this is scapegoating one person, you are the only person who would think that. Hird, the board, the players are all in one way or another responsible, but Hird was the instigator and therefore should bear the major portion of the blame. He will survive, but not as coach, but many of his victims will be scared for the rest of their lives.

You clearly think he is a scapegoat. Well you clearly have very different values to me.

I have said Hird is culpable many times but your fantasy that he is sole culprit only indicates what little grasp you have of the matter. And spare that the Board is a victim of this. At the very start there lax governance of the football department, their blind faith in the messiah and their extraordinary combative and aggressive attitude to the AFL and ASADA makes them definitely having blood on their hands.

And if it does get bad then I can't see the AFL being able just to fold up the current EFC entity, walk away from its debts and just hang up a new shingle with EFC. What a dream world you are in! If the writs fly any litigant adviser will know that EFC will have past a certain point limited means and if the writs fly large they will also include the AFL.

Now let's see what we have

Players getting 4 years penalty.......

Worksafe investigation will usher serious criminal penalties and a High Court involvement.......

EFC Board are victims in all this......

EFC into liquidation.......

Are you able to put a date on when the world ends?

The Cronulla issue is easy to answer: their drugs regime lasted weeks not years, it was not systematic, and did not seem to have the clear purpose to systematically cheating the way ESSENDON did. They also admitted guilt and did not fight the charges every inch of the way like ESEENDON. It was a very different program. The one thing WADA does not take kindly to is obstructionism and obfuscation. Both these things ESSENDON did systematically.

Hird gets life under the precedence set in other sports and other jurisdictions. There are plenty of parallels. I did not cover Thompson and Reid in my comments, but I rather think they will be treated a lot more leniently than Hird. After all they both raised doubts about the program several times during its execution but these were dismissed by Hird as being "negative". The players get a longer than standard sentences because the players association have been in lock-step with the EFC in their obfuscation. I admit a few broke ranks and they may go for as little as three months. Cooperation will be rewarded in these things.

Whispering Jack covered the Worksafe issue far better than I could (as he so often does). Worksafe in my view poses a far greater threat to the survival of the EFC than WADA.. I would suggest the investigation has not started yet as they (Worksafe) are waiting for the investigations of ASADA to be completed as much of their evidence will be drawn from their successful persecution. This to me at any rate makes sense.

At the end of the day, these are all a matter of opinion based on the evidence available. There are no right or wrong answers. I am very confident though, from what I am hearing from those who should know, that these views will be proven pretty close to the mark . We will see what happens, albeit not as quickly as many would like.

The length of time of matter is irrelevant as to whether there was a breach of the duty of care. The Essendon players will get longer penalties for the reasons you mentioned. But 4 years......give me a break.

And the Worksafe matter is not as clear cut in the criminality that you have tried to fan flame.

And you have to get over the sole scapegoating of just one person for what you have send went on systematically for years. While I think Hird should be thrown out of sports, I am somewhat puzzled how you think ASADA will give him life. On what actual basis will this be done? If you want to really look at the evidence both Thompsons and Reid's limp efforts to address this matter are simply appalling fiasco from a legal duty of care and a professional one. As much as you like to floss, this is clearly more than just one persons folly.

It's Worksafe, not Workcover and its task is not to prove that the players DID take banned substances, only as to whether the club breached its duty of care to its players. Here are the relevant

Worksafe is sitting in the background waiting on the outcome of the ASADA investigation. The likely outcome if Essendon is found to have breached its DOC to the players is a hefty fine (no gaol term).

I don't know what the NSW equivalent has done in the case of NRL but my understanding is that the Cronulla programme was short lived and stopped as soon as the club doctor found out. The NRL, Cronulla and the players cooperated fully with the Investigation and negotiated a settlement without the need for a hearing and as a consequence, WADA decided not to appeal to CAS although it was not completely happy with the outcome.

Agreed, that in Essendon's case the penalties to the players, if found to have breached the code, are unlikely to be the maximum two years but they could result in some severe sanctions against people like Dank and any coaches and officials involved.

Tell Dees 2014 what Worksafe is. I was responding to him. And I fully realise that they have a primary duty of care. I wonder if any of the charges are mitigated by the players signing consents.

The length of the program does not change the underlying duty of care in respect of Workcover or it's NSW equivalent. The co operation of officials and players with ASADA would be neither here nor there in the consideration of the requirement to provide a safe work place. And it is interesting that WADA did not contest the ASADA penalty. There is no doubt the penalties for the EFC players will be more than Cronulla possibly with some element of backdating. But as we agreed it don't be 2 years.

They won't. Even if the afl, federal government, ESSENDON, even ASADA want a light sentence (and all of then, with the possible exception of ASADA surely do), it won't happen. That is what WADA I or........

I'm tipping life for Hird, and four year bans for the players. They are cooked, and deserve to be so.

......

Then there will be the Workcover investigation, which will result in severe criminal sanctions on the ESSENDON hierarchy including the board, which will in turn I have no doubt end up in the High Court of Australia..

Then there are the coming court cases stemming from various players legal actions against ESSENDON and the AFL. This will be as long as "Blue Hills" and twice as entertaining.

The only ones to benefit from this will be the lawyers, as always.

I think you are getting over excited at the lights and sirens

If WADA are so zealous on upholding the law, why haven't they challenged the soft NRL player penalties. They were nothing more than a tap on the wrist.

And on what basis under the ASADA rules will Hird get "life"? If he gets life then surely Thompson and Reid must receive the same penalty. The only thing keeping Hird at Essendon now is his threat of a crippling legal action for "wrongful dismissal". The claim would be huge and the battle bitter and protracted. However if players are indeed banned then the pressure to exit Hird will be incredible. His battered reputation will be unsalvsgeable.

And the players get four year bans??? Yeah right..

And everyone is getting excited over the Workcover investigation. It's nearly 2 years since the news broke about events that are 3 years old. The premise of ASADAs onus proof is for officials/ players to prove that they DID NOT take banned substances. I would have thought the issue for Workcover is to prove that the players actually DID take banned substances. The best Workcover could come up with is that the lack of record keeping may allude to a unsafe work places but I don't believe the case is razor sharp and I don't believe serious criminal sanctions will apply at all. Nor will it get to the High Court. And why hasn't the NSW equivalent of Workcover gone after Cronulla? Well ummmm.....

I agree that whatever the actual outcomes there is a likelihood that there will be player actions against EFC and the AFL. However the naive duplicity of the players in this whole saga does not make their actions a sure winner.

Bu the only winner out of this.....will be the lawyers....sadly.

The reality was at the time that we couldn't have sacked Neeld after 9 rounds. It was a case of trying to get as much support around him as possible to let him live up to his potential. King's argument would have held more water with me if the fact that we were stuck with Neeld for at least a year was acknowledged and that we had to make the best of the situation.

The reality is that after 9 rounds in his first year there was serious reason to question the direction Neeld was going. The football was putrid and the game plan preditable and obvious. And the Club gave him significant support and he did live up to his potential that was evident by the end of his first year to a number of posters on Demonland. He should have been removed after the 1 st round loss to Port Adelaide and exited with the incumbent CEO after the appalling loss to Essendon.

King would not know the reality of Neelds contract or the machinations at the boardroom level to determine his standing and progress. But he did what he had to do as a game analyst and called it as he saw it..... And he called it correctly.

Matthew Bate at pick 13.

And IMO while he has been serviceable over the past 2 years, Lynden Dunn has not been a value first round pick (15)

And I know Newton cops a bath on this site and unfairly too, he was taken about pick 43 and at that stage you are punting a bit on talent.

But we did trade pick 29 for Paul Johnson....ugh.

We traded pick 12 for Moloney.

I would have thought our drafting in the rich and deeply talented 2008 draft was our greatest blunder. To have only had Watts and Jetta come through at least regular AFL players ( yeah I know they have limitations) was a blunder of catastrophic proportions.

Morton was indeed a bad miss and a Cook was too.

In respect of the 2011 draft we took Howe at 33 and McDonald at 53. It's not a bad dividend for that year. And if we reversed the order of who we drafted then there would be no complaints about the Cook selection. Nevertheless it could have been a stellar year if we have got it right.

I wish Lucas Cook all the best with the VFL.