Its Time for Another

I was going to Like your Post for your presentation of the facts. But the facts are so horrible I can't really press the Like button.

We met at the tour of the Club facilities before the first game I think last year. I haven't spent any time in Canberra for a long time so might take in the Gallery and a few other things. I don't have to pay accommodation in Melbourne which helps.

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome then my expectation optimism every year of us winning the first round probably means I'm insane. Even to the extent of flying down from Sydney I get so optimistic with the catch cry "Well at least we know we couldn't be as bad as last year." only to be crushed. Think StKilda last year, Port the year before and Brisbane the year before that. All expected to be shoe ins. I think I might be beginning to recover from my insanity because for the first time in many years I don't expect us to win the first game. I have tied my hands and feet and been gagged so I don't say "Well at least we know we couldn't be as bad as last year." even though I really want to say it. Having said all of that I'm still going to fly down for the first game but at least I don't expect us to win. I might even get to the first three games. GWS in Canberra the week after and possibly a flight to Adelaide as a once off to experience the new ground and a few of those delicious reds.

Scully = Hogan, Dawes & Barry Rivers = Hmmm! Pick2etc= Tyson & Salem Frawley = Brayshaw I love the guy but if he goes to GWS who will offer him a fortune I can think of a handy player or 2 we might get in a trade. In MFC I "now" trust.

The Frost trade was instructive for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I along with a lot of other people on here frankly had kittens when I found out what pick we'd given up to get him and what we got back. But Looking at the result of that trade in terms of how good Frost is plus getting ANB and Oscar McD. It now looks inspired. The big lesson out of that for me is that we now have an Admin that is making good decisions. For the first time in a long time I feel like I can trust their judgement. It's a big step and is starting to translate onto the field. The Tyson/Salem trade last year. Frost, ANB, OMcD this year. Getting McCarthy into the coaching group.

Yeh but look at the crescendo. It's not enough. It's interesting. It's dramatic. It's full of ever changing twists and turns. It's political, It's social. It's legal. Covers most of the topics covered by most of the tv series and you don't have to turn the tv on. Just turn to good ol DL.

Ha!! Weren't you the person that just had a go at everyone for posting on here and low and behold here you are doing the same thing. Couldn't resist hey, just like the rest of us. And by the way agree with what you were saying on this post so feel free to keep posting. Come on you know you want to, you obviously can't resist. It's ok. We won't tell anyone.

Like your work Bing.

Impressive. Wonder if Doc Reid used it. I'm not really asking.

Begrudgingly agree with this in terms of it being necessary to protect clean sports but stop and think of the individual athlete. Let's remove it from this EFC saga for a minute and say an individual athlete who has the flu and as required goes to his Doctor and says I want to take this flu tablet is it ok. The Doctor makes a mistake and says yes to a flu tablet that has some substance in it that is banned. Bad luck, there goes the best two years of your career while you are at your peak. Come on, you've got to have sympathy for the poor athlete. What else could they possibly do. Everytime they get the flu are they supposed to ring ASADA with a new medication. I can guarantee you with the limited resources ASADA has it wouldn't be able to field calls all day long from every sportsman in Australia subject to their code who has these sorts of questions. I wonder if they buy the medicine take it home and are about to take it and their Doc rings and says I've just found out that it is banned don't take it. Does that amount to "attempted". On the other hand if its not strict liability it opens the door to unscrupulous sports regimes. Hird doesn't seem to understand any of this when he cries that the Essendon players have less rights than any normal citzen. Of course they don't Jimmy Boy, for the reasons above. Don't you get that you are now the Poster Boy for the reasons why it can't be fair.

The big difference with the Armstrong case was that all his teammates over many years were called before Grand Juries and would have faced jail time if they didn't give truthful testimony. That was the key to most of them deciding to give first hand eyewitness accounts of watching him inject himself with PED's and they knew exactly what they were because they admitted to taking them as well. There is no direct evidence like that here.

Makes a lot of sense. I really hope that in the context of the Tribunals powers they will accept the video statements from Charters and Alavi but I would think they would want to be very careful about relying on them too much as the conclusive evidence or they are very likely to face an appeal. Mind you if found guilty an appeal will probably be practically useless as they wouldn't be able to play and the appeal will probably take as long as the ban. Unless it's longer than 12mths. Maybe that's why the players had their secret meeting with Gil. It still mystifies me that Dank has left the players out to dry like he has. If he ordered and received the TB4 for his clinics and not for Essendon why wouldn't he just come forward and save the players. (If he could prove it.) The fact that he worked at EFC full time might help to explain why he had it delivered there. I dont' know anything about his clinics, how much time he spent there or why the TB4 wouldn't have been delivered there. But he could have explained all of this if there was an alternative reason. "Oh I'm not going to give any evidence because they didn't ask nicely." What a tool.

I fear this will be another development year with a small steady improvement. So maybe not much membership improvement this year. I'm predicting a major improvement next year with solid improvement this year plus a couple of recruiting coups next year. Jeremy Cameron anyone.

Interesting, looks like we might be beginning to have a problem of where to fit players in. JKH anyone? Wonder where this leaves him. I guess rotating between forward line and midfield maybe off the bench. Personally I really hope Howe ends up back in the forward line as long as he sorts his kicking out. We seem to be developing a bunch of beautifully skilled half backs but having a forward who can mark them from anywhere is invaluable and seems to me will end up being a better utilisation of Howe's unique abilities. But if that happens who moves out. Maybe Watts to a wing like was supposed to happen last year, being that quarter back link man using his height to float across half back and half forward to become anything from a 2nd to 4th option target but then rebounding back into the middle ahla Goodsey. Where does this line up leave Pedersen and Fitzpatrick? Nice to have these problems for once.

Looks like memberships are growing at about 400 a week at the moment. At that rate they will be lucky to get to 30,000 by round 1. I don't think it's a good marketing ploy to set benchmarks that are unlikely to be reached. Ie the 35,000 by round 1 or 40,000 for the season. It just sets you up to fail. Hopefully the first few NAB games will give it a lift but Freo in Freo with a lot of their veterans in isn't likely to be a pretty site.

Agreed and I don't know what the rules for this Tribunal are so anything else I would say would be guessing other than the fact that within those rules procedural fairness and natural justice still apply. I would be pretty confident that the last thing the Tribunal want to create is an opportunity for the players to go off on a separate legal challenge on procedural failures. I'm sure they will be as legally rigorous to the Tribunal rules etc as they need to be so hopefully this is the end of the matter. If a failure of procedural fairness was upheld they could have to hear the whole thing again. I could be wrong about this and maybe CAS is the only forum for appeal but I don't think so.

Exactly. I have raised this before. So if Jobe Watson who as the Captain of the team is the mouth piece and representative of the players didn't go to Doc Reid to check out if the injections were ok, he and the rest of them deserve what they get. I'm pretty sure from what I've read that all the AFL training they get about supplements and PED's makes it very clear they must get their Doctors approval. If they just relied on Dank or Hird then they are in a whole lot of other trouble. If they did go to Doc Reid and he didn't raise the concerns that he wrote in the letter he relied on to avoid any sanctions himself then he should be in massive trouble and the players should at least get the 12mth discount for being duped. I have no idea whether they went to the good Doc or not. I assume that would be evidence raised in the Tribunal.

One name. TANIA!!! You shouldn't be flumoxed. Don't let logic get in the way of understanding the Hirds. After all the fact that a retired Fed Crt Judge, a trial Fed Crt Judge and 3 Appeals Fed Crt Judges all found there was nothing wrong with ASADA's investigation still wasn't enough for Hird to admit he was wrong. He would probably argue that his responsibility was to coach the team not to be responsible for what the sports scientists did. He therefore did nothing that would justify being sacked.

Logically I guess you're right. I seem to recall the legislation referring to the steps an athlete has to take and getting cleared by your Doctor is the main one but there are plenty of rogue Doctors around, especially in cycling. If the case here was the players went to Dr Reid and he cleared the injections and they are in this s&*t then as far as I'm concerned they deserve our sympathy. They would have mine anyway. I'd be beyond p&ssed if this happened to me. Having said all of that I haven't read of any evidence that they went to the Doc and got it cleared. If they didn't then they pretty much deserve what they will get.

BB read my previous post re proof and answer the question instead of posing one. You are correct about the burden that's why there is a specific burden of comfortable satisfaction for Tribunals established by the High Court after a similarly constituted Tribunal to this one was appealed against. No matter what the Tribunal and how it is constituted everyone has a right to natural justice and procedural fairness. A Tribunal can't just make a non legal kangaroo court whimsical decision. I believe and could well be wrong that an appeal from this Tribunal to CAS would be an appeal on the decision of guilt or innocence but an appeal for a lack of procedural fairness and natural justice could go to the Court system where normal legal standards apply. Think the Greg Williams appeal in the past against the Tribunal decision. I would imagine that an appeal from the Penalty hearing if there is one, would go to the CAS.

binman agree with all this 100%. Also think there will have been a fair bit of expediency in this decision as in other circumstances with less to lose for an entire professional competition I could see them getting 2yrs with no discount for duping. Of course I don't have any facts to base this on and it may be the players went to Doc Reid and he cleared them to proceed in which case it would be 12mths but in fairness should be nothing after all you can't expect an athlete to do more than get a clearance from their Doctor. However, in this case I haven't seen any reports that they did get the Doc's clearance.

Good point.

OK I could try to argue the actual legal process with you but you don't want to hear it. Perhaps I'm not understanding your definition of proof. I'm taking it that you mean that proof is presenting evidence. Is that correct? My use of the term prove was by presenting legal arguments that prove that legally ASADA's evidence does not prove their case. As I've pointed out before they can sit back and do nothing as the Tribunal will ultimately make their own assessment on whether the evidence will satisfy the burden. They will still do this of their own volition whether the defence say anything or not. However, this is a mute point here as we know the defence spent days presenting their defence. We don't know what form that defence took. Maybe it was only arguments about why ASADA's evidence was inadequate, maybe it was evidence they have that proves what they took (unlikely), maybe it was evidence for instance of bank records to show that no payments were ever made to the drug suppliers so the invoices etc are not evidence of anything. Who knows.

Point taken but a bit irrelevant here as according to what has been reported (take with a grain of salt) and (more reliably) what was argued in the Hird case that the players have already admitted to taking something.

BB now you're getting it. All the players have to do is prove that the evidence presented by ASADA is inadequate to pass the comfortable satisfaction rule. They don't have to actually prove what they took. They don't have to put forward any evidence at all. They just have to argue why ASADA's evidence is not good enough. So for example they could show that the invoices presented by ASADA can't be relied on as evidence as they can't prove they were really written by Charters and Alavi or whoever. There is a level of evidence that has to be satisfied to accept the invoices. The fact that Charters and Alavi can't be called to give evidence to say "Yes that is the invoice I sent for making up the TB4 that I delivered to Essendon", makes it much harder to prove the invoices are even legitimate. The players only have to argue this to win the case. Because the onus isn't on them the Tribunal hearing will just be a series of arguments on each piece of evidence. All the players have to do is successfully argue why each piece of evidence is too weak to pass the comfortable satisfaction test. If they can do this to enough of the critical evidence they will win. This is why I argue the legislation needs to be changed so that the onus should fall on the athlete to prove what they took and if they can't prove it they are automatically banned. They are the ones that have total control over the records of what they took not a statutory body like WADA/ASADA who have to do massive investigations to try to find out what records they should have.