Whispering_Jack

That's absolutely correct in the broader sense but shouldn't we (and I mean all of us, not you personally) get our facts right instead of leveling the blame only at people we think did the wrong thing and make general assertions in ad hominem attacks on them? McLardy, Schwab and others took responsibility in the end and resigned their positions and so too did the previous Board which virtually resigned en masse when they grew tired and found the task of making the club meaningful beyond them. They all did the right thing by the club in the end. This thread also highlights that our failings on the field were largely determined by our pitiful recruiting and player development record of the past decade and I believe it's that which has to a large extent (but not exclusively) brought us undone. Imagine if those Prendergast failures had all turned out to be successes eg Hannebury, Sloane and Fyfe instead of Blease, Strauss and Gysberts just for starters? I doubt in those circumstances we would even be wasting our time with claims that our culture was blighted by tanking. Caroline Wilson wrote an article hailing Cameron Schwab as a hero in 2010 when the club was on the up and up and things were looking promising on the field. A year later when the wind was blowing the other way, she changed her tune. My point is that administrations at football clubs invariably find themselves on the nose when the team is performing poorly. Certainly, it works both ways but in the end, it was matters football that brought us undone and that was due to long term failures in recruiting, player development, fitness and discipline, not just one or two individual officials who happened to be there at the end of the line when it all turned sour.

This McDevitt is sounding a far cry away from the McDevitt who doled out soft deals to the NRL players who co-operated with ASADA and the McDevitt who offered the AFL players 6 month bans back in June.Why is he so much less conciliatory now? My guess is that the heavies at the top of WADA have told him to stop acting like a cop out to get his man and get his quota of individual convictions and start acting more like a person charged with upholding the WADA Code which is there for the protection of athletes and sport on a world-wide level. In other words, let the system play itself out and justice be done. If after a hearing, it is determined that the AFL players have a defence under the laws, they should get off without penalty. If not, the appropriate sanctions should apply and if necessary, the ultimate determinant should be the Court of Arbitration in Sports. There might still be time for deals but I suspect that, with WADA behind this tougher stance, the deals won't be anywhere near as lenient as they were with the NRL. The media is as usual, a long way behind. Last night Chip Le Grand of the Australian was nominated for a Walkeley in the footsteps of Caro before him. Both have been off the mark in terms of the detail of this saga but the people who really deserve the credit are Roy Masters of the Sydney Morning Herald who highlighted the difference in approach of the NRL and AFL and Baker and McKenzie of the same paper whose investigative work caused Dank to sink. And on that note there's a lot more to come.

I don't have a problem with any of the changes made to date but I have a feeling we haven't managed our list all that well. At the moment, we have the following players coming onto the primary list:- Jeff Garlett Sam Frost Neville Jetta Heritier Lumumba Billy Stretch We have the following coming off the primary list:- Sam Blease Shannon Byrnes Mitch Clark Mitch Clisby James Frawley Dan Nicholson James Strauss This leaves the two places available for picks 2 and 3 so we need to delist two more to bring picks 40 and 53 into play. Luke Tapscott is coming out of contract and is one likely delisting but there's at least one more player we have to delist if we want to use pick 53 or take a delisted free agent and we've run out of uncontracted players. Did we contract some of players too early and who do we have to delist and then rookie? Do we delist a contracted player or two in order to free room to use those picks? The likely contenders for delisting/rookieing seem to me to be either Michasl Evans or Jack T. If we do it with both then we have no room to pick up any new young rookies. I'm not sure that we originally planned things this way.

Sam Blease makes the top three on Nathan Brown's list of delisted players who will get another chance.

Even if it doesn't work out that way according to the Tribunal, there's the WADA hurdle to overcome.

I believe that the idea of delisting him and then rookie listing him would have to be based on mutual agreement between Jack and the club whereby his existing contract would be honoured in full. This would actually rule out anybody taking him as a DFA unless he changed his mind and in those circumstances the new club would either have to take over our contract (and pay a year's wages) or give him a new contract. That's an unlikely risk for clubs to take. The benefit would be that Jack remains at the club on the same wage. If he remained on the primary list he would be put on the long term injury list anyway so the only difference would be that it would allow the club to recruit an additional player to its primary list and give it 40 fit primary listed players to start the season with instead of 39. In other words, Jack would be doing the team thing while his injury heals.

So after claiming for several months that they didn't receive sufficient information from ASADA to enable responses to the show cause notices, the players now won't respond. This is not particularly suggestive of the players co-operating with ASADA. As to the issue of a discount for delay, the NRL sanctions were backdated to November 2013 which is when it's own investigation was completed. In the AFL case the investigation was completed in May, 2014 and the delays were caused in part, first by Essendon's failure to keep records of the drugs programme and then by Essendon's failed legal action. They should not expect the same discounts as the NRL players in these circumstances. It's good that the matter will be heard and the players will have the opportunity to prove their innocence. This will give finality and closure in a much more transparent and open way than the process of dealing when the players clearly don't want to accept their guilt.

Ash, I know you're copping a lot but please don't take offence at my characterisation of Jobe's comments. His response came across to me as being cocky and smug because, by that time, AOD9604 had been clearly identified as a banned peptide on the WADA S0 list and, despite that, Dank was at the same time crowing that he had advice from deep "in the bowels of ASADA" that it could be injected into the Essendon players. Watson must have known at the time of the interview that the club was trying to exploit a loophole at best. AOD9604 remains to this day on the S0 list when injected and, whether Jobe was being truthful or not, he made a big mistake with his comments in that interview. If he was a dummy like Brock McLean, you would expect that sort of reply but Jobe's the skipper of the club and normally a smart bloke. That wasn't his finest hour and I hope his words don't come back to haunt him.

Not to mention that he asked the Demon community to keep its faith in him.I do realise that the club has a difficult decision to make with his status in terms of whether to keep him on the primary list or delist him with the promise of full pay and a rookie listing. I know that there are some who would criticise such a decision but I believe that if its dealt with properly between the club and Jack, it could be a win/win for both and avoid the possibility of the angst we saw over Mitch Clark and his injury and illness woes.

Great decision. I think this means he will remain a rookie listed player in 2015. I personally believe that he went past Jayden Hunt and that he has possibilities for the future in our midfield if continues to advance at Casey.

I will do likewise and agree that there's a lot of ground that's been covered in the past and we have different takes on what transpired.I will however, take you up on your ultra-wide definition of tanking which conflates valid list management decisions with unacceptable attempts to throw matches. As to the individuals you mention, the decisions regarding Jeff White, Adem Yze (2008), Robbo, Matty Whelan and Paul Wheatley (2009) were all justified by the club's youth policy with which I was for the most part in agreement (see below). They were all at the end of their tethers and the latter two could barely walk their way through the final round of 2009. In fact, and it's no disrespect to either, they were so far gone physically that you could mount a very good case in favour of the argument that by playing them we were tanking! I don't know who was behind the James McDonald decision at the end of 2010, one that I agreed with on the basis of that lengthy recovery from the hammy but I believe its communication wasn't handled well. As for Brad Miller who went at the same time, I believe the news was slipped out inadvertently by the Casey coach on radio. I can't comment on the unreleased Andrews Report and await its publication (somebody must surely make it public one day) but the "ashen faced" reference from Caro was rubbish transmitted to her by someone who had it in for Schwab and the Connolly joke could only be critiqued by people who know nothing about his humour. If those things worried anybody they should get a life. Your comments about Dean Bailey being tethered in 2008 and 2009 or any time thereafter don't fit in with two lengthy conversations I had with him one on one at club functions I attended. The first was at a Volvo centre on the eve of the Jack Watts draft in 2008 and the next time was at a function which closed down the old Junction Oval training facility in 2010. On the latter occasion, I questioned him about the club's youth policy, about our failure to retain some of those experienced players and about our poor trading record. My view was that we should have tried to recruit a couple of seasoned players from other clubs by trading rather than to rely upon youth entirely. Bailey's view was that the club was going the right way about things and he did nothing to disclaim ownership of this position. Perhaps, he might have simply been diplomatically toeing the party line but I didn't get that impression. Our entire conversation wouldn't have made sense of what you are now claiming was true. I suspect that like most events from the time, a lot of grey areas are now coming back in black or white depending on what people want to believe. I suppose we'll have to agree to differ on tanking as well as everything else but you haven't satisfied me as to why we advanced so much in 2010 and regressed badly in 2011 against stronger teams that ran both ways and physically monstered us with their superior strength and fitness. Until otherwise convinced, I will continue to believe that the tanking issue did not play any more than a minor role in the issues that led to 186.

One thing's for sure, I didn't post those views to close up debate and I welcolme discussion and different viewpoints. The thing that I don't welcome is the constant carping and ad hominem attacks on people without the slightest amount of substantiation. There are many people during the era in question who should be admired for their contribution to the club and for their earnest efforts to lift it off the floor. McLean did many good things as a player and by his monetary contribution but he was trapped into making some very stupid comments on air that caused us substantial damage and he could more publicly have retracted them when he realised the potential damage of those comments.As for Hird and Pestorius, while I have no sympathy for either they both deserve(d) proper representation. For the record, I don't think Hird would have hired me because I don't think he would be pleased with my initial advice. As for Pestorius, his defence did a brilliant job and got him a terrific outcome thanks partly to an inept prosecution case and to a very intelligent and well thought out judgement.

Thanks Nasher. While there might be some debate as to whether Rendell's comments were racist or not, it's clear that Rendell himself accepted that the words he used to express his viewpoint were ill-advised. It's unfortunate that we can't conduct a civil discussion on a sensitive subject such as this one. Perhaps with some more education and maturity, one day we will.

For those who believe the ends justified the means in McLean's case, you should think again. His so called confession about our supposed "culture of tanking" ended up costing the club $500k in fines, an amount probably equal to that in legal fees, substantial disruption at board level and to the way the club was conducted both on and off the field and possibly helped ruin one man's health and life and what was it all really about? There seems to be a bit of a misconception about the so-called "culture" of the club at the time of McLean's departure at the end of 2009 and through the years that followed, which places the blame squarely on Cameron Schwab and Chris Connolly. When repeated often enough, like Joseph Goebbell's propaganda, people start to believe that it's true but is that really so? There are three major and critical aspects of our team"culture" from this era that come to mind: 1. The losing culture. As a team, we were on the nose from 2007 onwards. In that year we lost the first 9 games and were 2-9 at the halfway mark, in 2008 and 2009 we were 1-10 at that point of each season. That record was achieved under two coaches, Neale Daniher and Dean Bailey. Connolly appeared on the scene in 2008, an appointment of the Gardner administration and Schwab was appointed by the new Jim Stynes board late in 2008 by which time we were already well and truly "losers". 2. "Tanking" There's been much debate about tanking, what it constituted, whether what Melbourne did was "tanking", was the practice followed by Melbourne and others at the time condoned by the AFL and its CEO (an article by Caro after the infamous Jordie McMahon game indicates that it was) and whether other clubs did what Melbourne was accused of doing (and it's clear that some including Hawthorn and Collingwood did it successfully enough to later reap premierships from the practice). My view is that the practices that came to be described as "tanking" were not long-lasting at Melbourne and there was no sign of internal resentment toward the practice among the playing group in 2010 when the team made a dramatic improvement and recorded some outstanding individual and team achievements. If there was any truth in the "tanking" culture argument, its effects should have been felt most strongly in 2010 but that didn't happen. The real malaise surfaced beyond that in 2011 when our game style was exposed against teams that employed heavy presses and strong defensive running. I therefore don't place much store on McLean's tanking culture claims which I believe were mischievous and misleading, especially given the fact that he himself agreed to be traded to Carlton who were the masters of tanking in that era. That On The Couch interview made good theatre but I believe it was contrived and possibly calculated to serve the very purpose it ultimately achieved. Tanking and the placing of blame for what later happened was in my view a convenient issue to explain the divisions within the club that simmered throughout 2011 and came to a head in July of that year. 3. The "drinking" and "party boy" culture. McLean was one of those who personified this culture in the years of the burnouts, the arrests and time spent with fellow party boy Nathan Carroll in overseas jails and other incidents reported at the time. In his case we often wrote it off as immaturity but in truth, it was stupidity. There was lots more that didn't get out about various people at the club and sure, we weren't the only ones where drinking and partying might have been an issue. It was even happening at the successful clubs at the time like Collingwood and St. Kilda and drinking wasn't the only problem football clubs were experiencing. I know football clubs try to suppress stories about footballers behaving badly and many of us dismissed stories of what happened on the China trip as the boys having a bit fun in the off-season but I was told much the same was still causing concern at the club in season by a then senior coterie member when I attended a club luncheon before the North Melbourne game in 2011. That was just a few weeks after the Brent Moloney incident in the bar at St. Kilda that led to his removal from the leadership group and how many of us really want to believe such stories? What does that have to do with Schwab and Connolly? Were they encouraging a drinking and partying culture among the players? I think not but rather, that it was to the contrary and that they wanted a better club. Like most Demon fans, I was happy when we received picks 3 and 5 in the draft that gave us Colin Sylvia and Brock McLean after we lost the last eight games of the 2003 season (tanking - surely not?). It turned out to be one of the many curses that have afflicted our club in our recent past. I hope that picks 2 & 3 of 2014 bring us a much better outcome.

Is that Oscar the muppet or Oscar the pist?

No, I'm not in any way suggesting that we should try to get the youngster because I understand he had substantial issues with simply acclimatising with Perth life let alone finding himself in the eastern states. Yet I must say that when I saw him playing in the Under 18s a few years ago he was one of the most gifted players I have ever seen, often gliding across the ground with graceful ease. I also believe he was even unsettled at the time having moved from WA to SA and back again. This delisting probably spells the end for him in much the same way as Dayle Garlett's at Hawthorn though he's probably not quite in his category as far as his behaviour's concerned.

He cleans his desk in the next week which means that he's not hanging around for the draft. You would think with first pick in the draft he would have hung around to enjoy the glitz and glamour of draft night. Surely, if he takes a job elsewhere, he would be conflicted if he played a part in its planning for this year's draft.

I don't know who's in charge but they call it the "Peter Jackson VFL" and if it's the real PJ then they'll cover all Casey games.

Good get George. I notice that Casey is being top dressed at the moment so hopefully, it will be in good nick by January.

Sorry, I can't take away the tanking drama. He may well have been the pawn of those who had political aims against individuals on the board or the board itself or he may not. Whatever the case, the effect of his stupidity caused untold damage to the club and I for one, would not like to see him near the place again.

Ash, it's not clear yet what WADA's position is over McDevitt's decision not to go down the AOD9604 path. Since there's been no listing of players on the register of findings, no infraction notices and no deals to be ratified yet, we really don't know how WADA will react to the AOD9604 thing. Whilst it didn't object or appeal over the NRL deals, there is no certainty that it won't take the AOD9604 matter to CAS if there is evidence available that the drug was administered to players. In any event, I wouldn't be hanging my hat on that supposed "chink" because it's what probably broke the case against Essendon in the first place. Dank was too smart by half and thought he had found a way around the WADA Code by his querying of the status of AOD9604. He would have gotten away with TB4 as well but he stuffed it up by not understanding that TB4 is S2 and not S0. In the eyes of most people, the smugness of Jobe's admission of the ingestion of an S0 peptide ain't a good look and will possibly not help his cause in the long run. Nor will, I suspect, the current argy bargy about the players' lawyers advising them not to even consider making deals at this stage. They really can't have their cakes and eat them and by that I mean that if they're prepared to have the cases tested in the appropriate tribunal (which is their right) they can't turn around much later and try to claim discounts because they supposedly co-operated or, in view of Job's boasts about ingesting an S0 peptide that's banned; how on earth can the no significant fault line be seriously argued? I suspect the players are in WADA's gunsights. They need to very well-advised as to the steps they take next.

Off Twitter It probably won't affect the first draft selection but who knows?

I remember back in the day i.e 2008, he had some huge wraps on him as a key forward. He kicked a bag in the AGS/APS game and there were some even comparing him favourably to Jack Watts. I remember thinking back then how great it would be to draft both of them and get the twin tall towers thing operating. I don't think that way any more.

I understood that when we were suggested to him as a possible trade for Mitch Clark, he refused us. That's not to say we were interested in him anyway but I think it's fair to say we don't require another player who butchers the footy. Definite no.

The only example of which I'm aware is the WADA response to the deals ASADA cut with the NRL players. It came out as a bit of a lecture to ASADA suggesting that it was prepared to tolerate the laxity of the sanctions in that case but not to go there in future. WADA has a complex anti doping code to uphold and the impression I gained was that it expected support in that regard from this country's anti doping body. I got the impression that giving out three match penalties when athletes bound by the code elsewhere get 12 to 24 months isn't going to be tolerated.