Whispering_Jack

On Twitter ~ @theafloffseason: Adelaide are interested in Hawthorn's Kyle Cheney according to Michelangelo Rucci.

Thanks folks and a happy birthday to Nasher. Cheers

I've done well. Flying out of Melbourne on Thursday and will miss the last two hours of the trade period to land in Queensland a few minutes after it all closes. I won't miss trade week one bit though. Too much head spinning going on.

I think we have to accept that loyalty in the game means something entirely different in this day and age to what it meant a decade ago and what it meant 30 and 40 years ago. We can't accept sentiment in a game where the players now have a strong union, are well paid and have a say in the structure of trading and drafting rules. We are seeing contracts torn up, boards, coaches and players removed suddenly and all in the interests of the good of the club. We therefore have to sit back and accept that player movement of the sort we are seeing this year is now a fact of life. In Jack Trengove's case I agree that, apart from the club's interests, a move by the player will also benefit him. Coming off his foot injury, Jack would be under far less pressure elsewhere given that these things take time. I do believe that something much bigger is afoot than an attempt to secure a youngster with pick 12. That proposition goes against what we've heard from Roos in the past and against logic. So we will sit back and wait for things to happen this week and nothing should surprise us.

No significant fault on the part of Wade Lees either or on the part of Belarusian shot putter Nadzeya Ostapchuk who (briefly) won gold at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. She was later disqualified from the medal for testing positive for a banned substance and banned from competition for twelve months. Her coach Alexander Yefimov, admitted to spiking her coffee with metenolone without her knowledge after being worried about her performance, stating that he thought the drug would be clear before the tests were administered. The wording "Thymosin" was used on the waiver form, not "Thymomodulin" which is gobbledegook introduced at a later time. There are two types of "Thymosin" which have been referred to by at least one player as "the good and the bad thymosin". ASADA believes the "bad thymosin" was ingested into the players and claims to have proof of this. Given that the players could have sought advice from others or by google search of the nature of these supplements, they are going to find it difficult to prove "no significant fault" in my view. However, they could gain sympathy from ASADA CEO Ben McDevitt who appears to be eager to wrap this all up and get convictions. On that basis, they should all be signing up for the cheap penalties likely to be on offer for an early plea and hope WADA doesn't object. On that latter point, I believe McDevitt dropped the ball badly on AOD9604 and the football media (most of who put little effort into research of such matters and I specifically include Caro). AOD9604 in the form injected into the Essendon players is most certainly Schedule S0 and prohibited at all times for use. Whatever penalties are applied to the Bombers if found guilty, they probably should count themselves lucky.

The players will not be receiving infraction notices over AOD9604. They will be getting notices alleging that they used an S2 drug TB4, a form of thymosin referred to on the waiver notices. I think we must have covered the issue of no fault at least half a dozen times on this thread in some detail. My view is that "no fault" should not apply. Along with most high level athletes, AFL players receive extensive educatation about what to look for and have it drummed into their brains that they are responsible for everything that goes into their bodies. Compare this with the case of former Casey Scorpions player Wade Lees who was suspended for 18 months for importing a banned supplement which he never received. He had no education about what he ordered and, at the very least, was no more at fault than the Essendon players. The same can be said of hundreds of oher athletes world wide who have in their ignorance ingested banned drugs worldwide and copped sever penalties.

On Toby Greene and I'm aware of the no DH policy but I wonder if, in view of the err ... problems he's been experiencing, it would be best for his welfare and his social rehabilitation to be as far away from western Sydney as possible and that he might find a safer haven under the watchful eye of Roosy and with former junior teammates in Viney and Tyson around to keep him in check. [note the irony - if it happens we'll be prising him away from the evil influence of Voldemort]

I have to confess he got me but I did think it was so out of character for LG. Please do watch the programme on the ABC tonight for a fascinating insight into the work of the Prahran Mission with the homeless and the mentally ill. Those on the site who have bagged Mitch Clark (and I have a feeling some of them might be in the Gen Y category )might have second thoughts watching it. Disclosure: I am a member of the Development Committee for the Mission and we're trying to raise funds for the drop in centre ... but please watch the film and take in the message of the story it presents.

I think Elwood's referring to the witches in the opening scene of Macbeth because he knows I once played the role of one of them in my school days as a character assassin actor (also played the soothsayer in JC). I think if I was doing a rewrite of The Tempest I would make more of the character in the play Ariel (in the bible Ariel was the lion and we all know Roosy started off a Lion). On a serious note, please do watch the programme on the ABC tonight for a fascinating insight into the work of the Prahran Mission with the homeless and the mentally ill. Those on the site who have bagged Mitch Clark might have second thoughts watching it. Disclosure: I am a member of the Development Committee for the Mission and we're trying to raise funds for the drop in centre ... but please watch the film and take in the message of the story it presents.

Just tell me this. Is Trenners out there batting with a runner or not?

Surely if he kicked six on Chip we would never have managed to get pick 3 for him?

Depends on the country you're in Redleg. Here in Australia it will be Thursday @ 2 pm AESDST.

The issue is not the work expected of players generally but the standards that applied at a particular time which, when tested against the elite clubs, was substantial lacking. To compound this with undisciplined behaviour not seen at any other club is unacceptable and I doubt that Roos or most coaches or most professional footballers these days would accept such behaviours.

Hawthorn won a premiership in 2013 despite the speculation about Buddy's future in his free agent season but Walsh will really be up against it next year if all three of Adelaide's FA's stay at the club and delay their final decisions untiI the end of the season. With the notable exception above, these sagas tend to be destabilising because they are continually brought up when the team and players aren't doing well so if he has three players under the spotlight, it will really test a novice coach. Although I remain highly sceptical about our ability to prise Dangerfield away from the Crows, I think this is something they will have to think long and hard about in the unlikely event that Danger indicates he wants to leave. That, together with the fact they will not get better compensated if he goes next year.

Much appreciated Ash and others who have provided the vision that I'm sure has proved to those who never had the pleasure of seeing him play, exactly how great he was and reminding those of us who saw him of exactly the same thing. The vision will remain with me forever but especially tomorrow.

The players usually call the shots at most weak clubs. The First Lady of Football is telling us that ~ Coaches exit as player power rises in the AFL. Does anyone doubt the influence of the players in the decisions that led to the sacking of our last three coaches or that even Paul Roos' position depends on his having their confidence? I wouldn't be listening to Akermanis' drivel but there's little doubt that McCartney was undermined from within the club by discontented players from the senior group. Pity really because I thought the combination of experience and youth at the Bulldogs was a good model for improvement and movement up the ladder with the experience and leadership being the one thing we lacked in comparison to the Doggies. Certainly, in both games we played them this year, I thought it was the cool heads among their leaders that helped their younger players and together, this got them across the line in tight finishes. That theory's now gone down the toilet (and I can go back to blaming the umpires).

The ASADA saga is entering Bizarroworld as Hird continues his hopeless battle alone in the Federal Court and the players are seeking closure ~ ASADA to reissue new show cause notices to 34 current and former Essendon players this week It may well be the case that the lawyers will push the significant no fault provisions but it's a risky proposition at best because there are strong arguments to suggest that the players were partly at fault in accepting a drugs regime involving thousands of injections when signing onto it (remember the "waiver" notices). Moreover, the players will surely also miss out on any discounts for co-operation if they argue in the tribunal they are not guilty, lose and then try to cut a deal. Their best chance is to cut the deal ASAP if one is still on the table or available, hope that it's fairly lenient and that WADA also looks away as it did with the NRL (and the differences have already been pointed out). The other hope is for some form of political intervention which is always a possibility but unlikely even with scenes like this from earlier in the season.

Thanks Doctor John. As a matter of fact my lawyers have already had talks with the golden boy's lawyers on the subject and we're in the clear. They have conceded that their client no longer fits under the rubric of the magician but is more correctly known instead as the "alchemist" which brings me to my next piece based loosely on Paul Coelho's classic novel The Alchemist. My story however, tells the tale in reverse. It's about the alchemist James Santiago Hird who turns gold into shyzen. The lawyers are looking into it as we speak.

Do we know for sure it was their kids who were the problem or whether it was the older players with the need to make a statement.

Looks like we have Pakistan's measure ~ Glenn Maxwell blasts Australia to a series win over Pakistan in Dubai

The problem Collingwood has apparently is that they can't complete the Varcoe deal without clearing some salary cap space which would have been the case had they finalised a deal over Beams. This sort of thing is what prolongs many of the negotiations and delays their finalisation.

Jealousy? I always admired Essendon under Sheedy. The club was strong and resilient. It won its share of flags and yes, it knocked us around in that last grand final back in 2000. It's what you expect in such a game. I only started to dislike them more lately as they became arrogant and cocky and, when the supplements scandal deepened and I looked into and began to understand what the club had done to the game, to its players and to its supporters, I came to despise them as the quintessential cheats who were remorseless and who conducted themselves with a sense of entitlement. This was no better brought home than with their decision to extend James Hird's coaching contract in the wake of the governance sanctions against the club including Hird's twelve month suspension. The news of him being paid during that period took me to a point where I held the club in contempt and the high point of the year for me this year was when we beat them after Christian Salem's goal. But jealous? Yes, in one respect: the way their players who had every reason to shut up shop and repay the club in kind for what it did to them, continued to put their very best out on the field far more often than not. They never gave up and won enough games to qualify for the finals for two years under tremendous adversity. Yep. I'm jealous of that because over the past four or five years I've seen plenty of Melbourne's players giving up without a whimper when the going got tough. For everything that happened to them, the Bombers never produced bruise-free football, never gave in like we did in 186 and on a dozen other occasions when we put in some of the most insipid, half-hearted, lifeless and indisciplined efforts. Sure, "jealous" probably describes it.

Beautiful piece about one of our true greats - Time catches up with Robbie Flower

Redleg can forget the daily countdown to the draft now because the way we're going we won't have a pick.

Could be Blease, Strauss or Tapscott. Woe is us!