Whispering_Jack

Incredibly, a few years ago they had three of the best crumbling forwards in Betts, Garlett and Walker who were fantastic working in tandem. Two are gone and Walker has been injured a lot in the past year.

Well, the AFL Tribunal clearly thought otherwise.

The number 11 hasn't helped Max Gawn either. Perhaps they can swap?

Round 1 Melbourne v Gold Coast, Sat 4 April, 1.40pm at MCG. New: Brayshaw, Frost, Garlett, Hogan, Lumumba, Newton, vandenBerg.

I think you'll find that a lot more than that was put to the Tribunal. They took the easy way out.

Good luck with that one Mr. Dank.

A tough ask for someone on debut.

And the answer will lie in Switzerland if WADA is serious about protecting its code and the clean athletes of the world.

Perhaps people should look at the WADA Code, the ASADA Code and the AFL antidoping policies and look at the legislation involved. All of these things were established to catch drug cheats. Lack of intent only helps if you had no conscious intent to have a substance ingested into the system. The only case in the history of the current anti doping regime in which it was found an athlete didn't have intent to ingest a substance which later turned out to be illegal was one where the athlete was operated on while unconscious. Throughout this saga, it has been stressed time and again that athletes are responsible for the substances that go inside their bodies. These athletes signed waiver forms showing they intended to take a raft of substances including thymosin. The question is whether the evidence proferred by ASADA was sufficient to lead to a ruling on the basis of comfortable satisfaction in accordance with the AFL's Code and whether the Tribunal correctly ruled it could not come to a decision on the comfortable satisfaction standard because of the absence of sworn statements from Dank, Charter and/or Alavi?

Precisely.

Obviously but where does the intent argument go?

On the question of intent, I’ve previously mentioned 16 year old Nigerian weightlifter Chika Amalaha who was stripped of Commonwealth Games gold medal after failing a drugs test in Glasgow. She never intended taking the banned drug which her coach gave her but despite the fact that she was duped, she had to do the time.

Not "finally" ... according to the article in the OP, the Tribunal Chairman David Jones said there had been a "deplorable absence of records in the program relating to its administration".

Not angry Bob - disappointed that the Tribunal took a narrow view of the standard of proof required to make the proper findings. I stated that in my opening post where I referred to a legal paper on comfortable satisfaction and nobody else here has gone close to touching on it. If the players feel exonerated, good for them but I think that whilst they might be elated at getting off the hook, it will soon become clear to then that the decision will not prevent them from being seen in the same light as many of the East German athletes, Chinese swimmers and assorted other athletes who were experimental robots in systems that were set up to beat clean athletes through use of superior scientific technology. Think about Raelene Boyle who was robbed of three Olympic Gold Medals because of this. This is what the anti doping laws were set up to defeat, it's why a certain standard of proof was required and why ultimately, the WADA Code must be the overarching document (and not local sovereign law) to govern such an investigation. It's why I believe that WADA has a duty to all clean athletes (and if the 34 are really "clean, them too) to take this to appeal. Reading between the lines, I can see the Tribunal coming out with a finding against Dank which it should but which will further complicate the position of the players. They have not been vindicated and if you're a "player person" you should reflect on that.

You're kidding, right. From what I can see, there was ample evidence but the Tribunal in its wisdom decided that they weren't prepared to accept that the evidence presented was sufficient for them to conclude to their comfortable satisfaction what was ingested into the systems of the players and the reason for them reaching that conclusion was the fact that the likes of Charter and Alavi refused to sign off on statements they had already made to the investigators. I look forward to reading their 100 page plus decision but, based on what I've read, I personally am in no doubt that the players were (among other things) given TB4 and that an appeal by WADA to CAS would have a strong chance of succeeding. In other words, it was open to the Tribunal members to come to their decision but I believe they were not only wrong but have done the sport a great disservice.

Agree that there's no need to slam the tribunal. They were entitled to come up with the decision as much as they could easily have decided another way. Let's see what happens next.

Done Bub.The cricket comparison has been raised before so here goes. The three Trubunal members are all what I consider "old school lawyers" who are black letter of the law men. They decided a case dealing with 21st century issues in the same way as former England opening batsman Geoffrey Boycott used to bat. This case needed a Davey Warner.

Trial's over and we move on to the next phase. The aftermath.

The AFL Tribunal hearing into the Essendon doping scandal is over and the decision has gone in favour of the 34 accused players. It appears the full decision of the AFL Tribunal is going to make interesting reading ~ Secret report finds Essendon's drugs record-keeping was 'deplorable' On reading this, I am more certain than ever before that the Essendon players ingested the illegal supplement TB4 (and possibly other prohibited substances) and that the Tribunal ruled in favour of the players on a technicality - namely that they failed to be comfortably satisfied from the circumstantial case presented by ASADA as to what the players were given in 2012 because the evidence of the likes of Dank, Charter and Alavi was not provided in the form of signed, sworn evidence. Will ASADA or WADA appeal the decision? They will need to read the written decision closely and come to their own determination but I think the answer might well be in this article on the application of the "comfortable satisfaction" standard of proof ~ http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/UNDAULawRw/2012/2.pdf It was a closed hearing and none of us were privy to everything that went on but based on some of the findings I'm not comfortable that the Tribunal applied the test properly and consistently to the overall evidence in the case and an appeal will almost certainly flow from this alone. Summary: The Essendon players should in no way feel exonerated. They can play on for the moment and we need to respect the fact that the proper process has been followed but, in my view, there will be an appeal from WADA because the anti doping rules were designed to protect the clean athletes of this world and to defeat the sports scientists who are always two steps ahead of the game. Yesterday was not a victory for Essendon. It was a win for Dank*, Charter, Alavi, Hird and many others and in that respect Tuesday 31 March 2015 (and not 7 February 2013) now becomes the blackest day in Australian Sport. [* and we await with interest as to exactly how the Tribunal will deal with Dank]

It will be interesting if the above forms the basis of the written decision. WADA's position will, I believe, be based on whether it considers the Tribunal's understanding of "comfortable satisfaction" accords with the international precedents.

Me too ... Looks like all you have to do to get off a doping charge is to make sure there's no record at your club of what you took. If the not guilty verdict is allowed to stand, the entire regime of world anti-doping is in grave jeopardy.

That's what I believe as well but I'm surmising how a Tribunal could possibly find in favour of the players and against Dank.

There but for the grace ... Clean slate dream for Magpies left in ruins This could have happened (and could still happen) to any AFL club including ours. Collingwood is strong enough to withstand the pressures that are being applied against the club ... but if this ever happened to us? And let's not delude ourselves about the culture of this club over the past decade. One can only hope that the club and football administrations are right on top of this where our players are concerned?

As you would expect today, the newspaper coverage of football is mainly about drugs. Michael Gleeson of the Age puts the view that "the Essendon players' drugs tribunal has become more a referendum on whether the club was guilty rather than a test of the players' guilt." Essendon drugs saga: Clearing players and clearing club not the same thing If it comes down to that with the Tribunal decision, it makes an appeal and the continuation of this long running saga even more likely. In addition, it will be interesting to see how the players can be let off the hook and the apparent main offender in Dank be sanctioned. Too many things have to be explained away: the absence of records, the AFL's player education programmes, the invoices, quantities of thymosin supplied to Alavi, the waiver forms establishing that players had reservations about the programme and the text messages between key staff members and others including Dank, Robinson, Hird, Charters and Alavi, the inconsistencies. What does logic tell us about all of these things and what conclusion can the three Tribunal members reach to a standard of comfortable satisfaction?

The two players will be pushing it if they rely on the dodgy NZ meat story. China, Mexico and some EU countries are the places where meat contamination has been identified as a problem. NZ not mentioned here but Australian meat gets a tick as I would expect from our little brother across the Tasman - https://asada.govspace.gov.au/2012/03/01/contaminated-meat/