Chris

And Knights was shafted by the then board. He went to them the year before he was sacked and told them the plan, which involved moving on some old players, having a hard year so, but doing so for the long term. The board agrees to this in full knowledge of the pain to come. When the pain hit they reneged.

It actually points to why I think PJ has been great for the club. Yes he is a Dee now but he is not a died in the wool life long Dee who makes the decisions based on emotion. He is a business man making the best decisions for the club he is in charge of. Much the same goes for Roos.

That the AFL are even discussing it is appalling. They are cheats, they are suspended from the entire sport, they should not be paid. Wouldn't the payment itself actually constitute contact between the club and players anyway. What's bet the AFL are on the players side again and trying to negotiate with WADA to allow them to be paid?

Robert Thomson's support of Hird adds one more string to the understanding of the absolute bias in the Hun.

Are you sure the players are getting paid. Wouldn't think the code would allow it!

I barely have time to get to games so go to a couple a year max. By not going you are hurting the club again. No way in hell will I ever go to a dons game again if they benefit in any way.

All supporters to do what? Is there a public AFL AGM we can storm and demand change?

The question is how to do that with out harming the Dee's first. If we were collingwood it would be a different story but if we cancelled memberships the AFL would laugh and the club would be harmed.

They are so blind that they can't see that their reputation would actually increase if they took a hard line on things like drugs, tanking, threatening people with chopsticks, glassing your missus, all things that have gone on and are now collecting dust under the Persian special from High Street Armadale.

That's right, he wasn't discussing the tanking as such but more the boys club corruption of the AFL and their propensity to sweep anything 'bad' under the carpet.

My guess is they know but don't want the fall out. Imagine if they do know and there are other banned substances on the records. We would start all over again with a new round of infractions as ASADA would have the evidence to prosecute. Hexeralin, CJC, the horse drug, and the mystery drug from mexico all come to mind.

A big part of the improvement has been in the way the club operates and cultures etc. Roos' improvement hasn't been so much on the actual game as such, it is all based on standards and roles and culture, not game plan. That means if we maintain those then the improvement keeps coming and we can add the game plans etc, if they collapse we are stuffed. I think Macca will be great for this and from the sounds of it so will Goody. Here's hoping.

Looks like Hal will only be able to find out if he has deep enough pockets! Bloody disgusting.

Amazing. A bloke is basically requesting his own medical records and is being hounded by the holders of those records. If he was a big name player I am sure there would be mass hysteria about this. Makes be bloody angry. I can not stand that club now, and the ignorant buffoons at the AFL. Close to walking form the game if this crap keeps up without anyone being called to account.

TB4 wasn't the only thing injected, he may well have had the horse drug, or the unknown one from Mexico, or any other possible thing. If ASADA didn't give him a show cause they obviously had nothing on him for TB4, doesn't mean he didn't get other stuff, but no one knows what that was. In terms of the forms, the players were basically hung by the forms. They signed a form that included an ambiguous term that may well have been a banned drug. Stupidity in the extreme. If you didn't sign it then you fall in the great unknown bucket.

The way I see it we were a good VFL team for a few years and this was hidden by the two new clubs coming in. We were miles off the AFL pack. Since Roos has stepped in the improvement across the whole club has not only brought us back to AFL standard but passed a few of the old clubs. This is massive. The next step is to make a good AFL club and I think that is coming. I think part of the problem many have with people (our supporters but mainly supporters of other teams) seeing the improvement is they just look at the ladder where we have gone from bottom few to bottom 6 or so, doesn't look so great. They miss that when we were bottom few we should actually have been in a different league.

Complete with a recording on loop of Roosevelt saying 'Essendon Coach, James Hird, a name which will live in infamy'

He was raising a good point while doing it though, in that CAS and WADA have ensured that this couldn't get swept under the carpet, and things always have. Oh how I wish we could have a comp who looked long term and didn't pander to people now to clean things up. Imagine if we set standards and stuck to them and made real penaties for not doing so, we may actually have a league we could be proud of.

This is now my favourite. hahahahahahahahahaha, to the poor soul who put that up. I hope karma doesn't bite too hard.

Not even Robbo could touch this dribble. I did like how he said CAS found he wanted everything to be compliant and signed off by Reid, yet forgot the texts where he is complaining about Reid blocking things!

And is a slap in the face to the ability of ASADA to keep records confidential, in fact given that it makes no sense at all

You are trained as an athlete not to trust your doctor and to check that what they say you are getting is not banned. This is drummed into athletes, why the AFL feel they are different and their poor little boys need protection is beyond me. Time for the whole league to grow up and join the 20th century, let alone the 21st!

I am happy the didn't take it yesterday but asking him to talk to them about why he should keep it? One of the stupidest things Dill and the commission have said, and that is saying something. Give Jobe the chance to do the right thing and hand it back himself, let him keep some pride in the matter. Cotchin and Mitchell also deserve to get it, it is no different than the bloke who didn't get the medal in 90's due to a suspension (can't remember his name).

I wouldn't be surprised if he prepared the questions as well!

Surely it hasn't taken you this long to work that out!