Its Time for Another

Make that 3. 2012 draft wasn't too shabby either. Hogan Toumpas (Still think he is going to be a gun. You don't lose the skills you came in with. You just battle injuries, bad coaching, loss of confidence. Roosy will fix him) Dawes Pedersen (Who would have thought. I admit I was having fits over this choice) Jack Viney Dean Kent (Starting to look like he's going to be a really good player) Matt Jones ( Has done his job until decent players arrived. Don't see him getting a great deal of game time anymore) The rest including Terlich were junk picks so didn't cost anything to go in and to go out.

I've always had a great deal of sympathy for the players but I'm starting to change my view, particularly in view of the Doc Reid letters and emails where he voiced his concern about the program. I'm thinking of Jobe Watson in particular. He's the Captain of the team and therefore the player's no. 1 advocate. His father is an experienced player and has been very vocal in the media about all of this in support of the players. Surely, surely, surely Jobe mentioned this injection regime to his father. How is it possible this didn't send off alarm bells. How is it that he wouldn't have got his son to make investigations. Who would he make them to? To the Club Doctor who Tim knows well because he was there when he was. For all I know he might even be their family Doctor. If Jobe had bothered to make the enquiry to the Doc what would the response have been. According to the emails and letters that have been circulated it would have been that he has major concerns about the regime. Surely he knew that no records were being kept. How was he doing his job if he didn't check the records of what they were being injected with. If he knew there were no records he should have shut it down instantly. As a Dr he should have known you couldn't run a medical practice of any type with mass injections and not keep records. If my Doctor told me all of that I would have stopped immediately. So if Watson did what he absolutely should have done and spoke to the Doctor and got that response, he should have stopped right there. Forget the mad Sports Scientist or the maniacal Coach. What was his father saying at this point? If on behalf of the players, he didn't ask the good Doc, then they should all get what's coming to them. If he did ask the good Doc and he said it's all ok then the good Doc should be in a hell of a lot of trouble. I'm guessing the questions weren't asked of the Doctor. In which case the players should be in trouble, big trouble.

Don't you just love this time of year. It's our Grand Final. It's all downhill after today. Everyone on here is buzzing away, happy, optimistic and even being nice to each other. I've had a couple of belly laughs reading some of this stuff today.

There you go. I would have spelt it with an "e" on the end. Bugger I'm not going to get drafted. My 16yr old got knocked out in a game this year and had a month worth of concussion tests which include these two gems. If they do the same tests they also have to go through the 12mths backwards. I was going to check myself in because I was having as much trouble as he was. Didn't realise you had to be a genius to know how to play footy. I understand Buddy has a bat or two flying around the bellfree and it hasn't done him any harm.

the 10,000th post on this topic

This makes...........wait for it......

This is an interesting one. They pay Hird $1mill and give him a year holiday and he's the architect of this mess and the one who kept it going when others, particularly Thompson, tried to stop it. But Thompson who apparently made about 5 attempts to stop it and evidently was overruled by Hird is left out to hang by the Club and it isn't until he threatens legal action for wrongful dismissal that they cough up $25,000 but leave him to pay $5000. No wonder there is bad blood between him and the Club now. According to that article they've reached a six figure settlement with him for wrongful dismissal. Doesn't sound like a warm and fuzzy invitation to go back there to coach.

No way is it the same as Cronulla. That went for 2 weeks. There were records they stopped almost before they started and there was full co operation and admissions. Plus WADA accepted there had been unacceptable delays by ASADA but that was because they put aside while they threw all resources at Essendon. None of that applies to Essendon. In fact mostly the opposite

I wouldn't worry, I think you're copyright is very safe.

Agree. Brayshaw and McCartinnnnnnn!!!! That would be Merry Xmas as well. Club clearly stuffed up this year by not getting picks 1,2 & 3. So SNS I gather you would take the P man over McC. I guess if I had the choice I would take him as well but in the long term if McCartin turns into a Roughead then we may well have got the bookends with Frost of a 10yr spine that you can fill in a team around. If we end up with Petracca then we still have to find a key forward. Midfielders are a lot easier to find than key forwards. Having said that I'd salivate at the thought of a midfield with Petracca and Brayshaw. Then we get Jeremy Cameron next year and we're set. I wonder if the Saints are eyeing off possibly getting Cameron next year and deciding on Petracca with that in mind.

What do you need to fuel your brain? Whatever it is I need it.

My neighbour, in his mid 50's went on this diet two years ago. After a period of time he went to his Dr for his regular check up as he had high blood pressure and was on medication. The Dr told him it was amazing but his blood pressure had stabilised so well he was going to be able to reduce the medication. He said have a guess what Doc, I stopped the medication completely a couple of months ago and then explained he had gone on this diet. So it had a direct medical impact. I'm not suggesting that self medicating like that was smart but it had that direct impact on his blood pressure. He also had bad arthritis in his fingers and it's gone. He dropped 15kg's in the first few months and has kept it off effortlessly for 2yrs. I decided to give it a go a week ago and I've dropped a couple of kg's in the first week. I definitely have more energy, especially while cycling which I do with a solid level group. I find that having protein for breakfast instead of cereal means I don't get hungry at all until lunch, it also so far is taking away those mid afternoon post lunch lags we all get. It is also clearly having a positive impact on my digestion. I haven't been really radical yet, like no dairy and no fruit but so far I'm a fan. I finally got prompted to have a go after a read an article a week or so ago about some of the Aus Cricket tam going on it. Shane Watson was swearing by it and also Dr Peter Bruckner, the team Dr who was also the team Dr for the Aus Olympic team in London and at one stage for the Dees.

That's exactly the point and why just having them play for no points is irrelevant to what this does to the rest of the competition. Any way you look at it other than them getting off completely the damage to next year's season is going to be considerable. Imagine the damage to the AFL brand and Australian sport in general if they get off completely because ASADA couldn't prove what they took because they didn't keep records. What a great precedent for drug cheating on a massive sporting team level. Just don't keep records and you won't have a problem. You can see why strict liability would be appropriate and the onus on the drug accused. In this case they all admitted having injections, so show us the proof of what they were or you are automatically banned. Getting ASADA to have to chase around and find out what they took is ridiculous.

Yeh, I thought of that but that means that all the teams that play them twice get adversely effected. So if they play those games for no points, I assume that means the opposition team gets no points for playing them plus no percentage. This is likely to be a big penalty for a team like the Hawks who play them twice compared to the Swans who play them once. On the other hand if they are automatically awarded the 4pts then that creates an unfair advantage. Eg Saints play them twice, we only play them once. That would have been slotted in as two of the harder games for them based on ladder position so they will play easier teams other than Essendon and that would be an unfair advantage compared to us. No easy answer.

This saga is just going to keep giving and giving. Has anyone thought about the uneven impact on the competition next year if they are banned for a period of time during the first part of the season. The teams that play them during this time will be playing a reserves team that will clearly be non competitive, whereas say the bans run out mid July the teams that play them after that will have a significant disadvantage. For instance the Hawks play them twice, the second time on 27 June. So quite conceivably could have two massive blow out games against a reserves team. Whereas the Swans play them only once in round 1 and the Power only play them once on 25 July so could have a massive disadvantage. We only play them once in Rd 14, 11 July so they could well be back to full strength by then whereas the Saints play them twice, the second time on 5 July. So conceivably that could be a two game advantage plus percentage over us to a direct competitor. Lions get them once on 24 May. So any bans that are less than 1 yr and therefore only apply to part of the season will stuff up the whole competition and have a major impact on final ladder positions. 1yr bans would have the added advantage of stopping this from happening except that every team that plays the reserve team they are fielding twice will have a very big advantage although less than if the reserves team only plays for part of the season.

You are a legend. Unfortunately, for virtually all of us who were at the Doggies game and were either just too young to remember, like me or not born yet, to have seen '64, that game and that season from the last 6 games on, is by far and away the highlight of my Dees following career. From memory we had to win every game for the last 6 rounds to qualify. It never seemed possible. I went to all of them. Other than that final win to crack the finals for the first time in my living memory, I also cherished going to the Collingwood Social Club with a Pies supporting friend and listening to everyone there tell me how we had absolutely no chance and I frankly didn't give us much more chance than that. And we got up and won. No better venue. As an aside their Social Club back then was still miles ahead of any facility we have today. Ie none. Like a lot of people, went along to the Nth game not confident, then the Swans who during the season were the only team to this day to kick, I think, 150pts in three games in the one year. I think they might have been consecutive. They looked unbeatable. What a win. Won 't mention the next game. And so happy for Robbie as each win prolonged his career for another glorious week.

To give you an idea of how much the list has been turned over since Bailey's last year 2011. There were 52 players on the list with 48 on the primary list and 7 on the rookie list. There are only 15 players left from 2011. There's been 4 list management periods since then and 37 players are gone plus a few players who have come in and gone since then eg Sellar, Byrnes, Gillies, Rodan, Giorgio, Clisby, Stark. So averaging a turn over of around 11 a season. Remaining players are :- N Jones Jack Watts Jack Trengove Jordie McKenzie Lynden Dunn Jack Grimes Colin Garland Max Gawn Jeremy Howe Neville Jetta Mar Jamar Jake Spencer Tom McDonald Rohan Bail Jack Fitzpatrick

From memory the NBA don't allow the top 4 teams to get Free Agents. Or is that NFL. We really need to bring that system in urgently. Definitely before Dangerfield walks to Geelong at the end of next year. Although by then they probably won't be top 4.

This type of recording has very limited use. It's actually much better not to use it at all. Just ask Essendon. When it comes to drug injection regimes of over 15,000 injections it just doesn't seem to work. So it's much better not to keep records at all. That's what a Club with one of the biggest Football Dept spends does.

Does anyone know if this is the Paleo diet. I've heard great things about it.

Something tells me smarter minds than theirs had decided the PED factor wasn't there. I'm just hazzarding a guess here, but my guess would be they wouldn't be banned for being PED's now either.

Oh come on, according to the MRP that was a love tap not worthy of a suspension. Must have been something else.

Good point. They even used to smoke cigarettes while riding, especially in preparation for the mountain stages. The theory was smoking opened up your lungs and increased your lung capacity. There was a great full size photo in a bike shop in Sydney of four riders riding in le Tour sharing cigarettes.

Only in the context that together with either pick 2 or 3 it might have got us Dangerfield or another A grader which seemed to be the thinking behind the Trengove trade for pick 12. If it was just pick 7 in this draft I wouldn't be so excited. From what I have read we'd be better off with Howe than the players available at pick 7 this year. Evidently I rate Howe higher than a lot on here.

And yet someone, from memory Bernie Vince, when he arrived at the Club commented on how hard they trained and how fit they were and that there were more players who were running sub 10 minute 3Km time trials than at any other Club. We have had continuity with conditioning with Misson since the end of 2011. How is it that the fitness is so far off the mark. I don't buy it. I reckon it's more to do with psychological fatigue than physical fitness. But some key players dropped off badly which effected the whole team. Dawes was terrible by the end but that was off the back of missing nearly the whole pre season. Apparently that adds up towards the end of the season. I don't know what happened to Pedersen who dropped off so badly he was dropped. He didn't miss the pre season. So we were back to no effective forward line by the end of the season. Dom T had a limited pre season and was carrying an injury. There were a few more carrying injuries or suffering for interrupted pre seasons. We are in much better shape this pre season than last, for what it's worth.