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Discussion on recent allegations about the use of illicit drugs in football is forbidden

JP_

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  1. That's not about the B&F, that's about the votes given by forum posters throughout the year.
  2. The leaderboard after round 19, as posted on BigFooty, for those interested. You can work out who number 10 is while we wait on final results.
  3. Worth persisting with, for at least one more season. The rest of the depth players we have (Riley, Bail, M.Jones, McKenzie etc.) are scraggers, whereas Newton at least knows how to kick the ball. We need good disposers more than we need foot soldiers right now, and it's easier to teach players how to be fit and how to play defensively than it is how to kick properly.
  4. I'd try to take solace in the fact that it couldn't possibly get worse than this, but every time I've found myself thinking over the past few years that the club has found a new way to prove me wrong. We should forfeit the game next week, we're causing irreparable damage to the sport just by taking the field at the moment.
  5. This is worse than 186. I'm not sure how the club can come back from an afternoon like this. Everyone has to be put under scrutiny after this.
  6. Scored at least one goal in all 12 games so far, multiple goals in 9 from 12. Remarkable consistency from a small forward in a struggling side.
  7. I think what he means is that we had picks 3 and 14, and that we could have picked up Wines and Grundy with those picks if we'd kept them. Fact is that we didn't even take Wines with pick 4 (so why would we have taken him with pick 3?) and I'm not sure that I'd trust in the former MFC recruiting team not to mess those picks up if we'd kept them. Number 3 and 14 as it stands were Lachlan Plowman and Aidan Corr (neither of whom I've ever heard of) and I don't think anyone would think of trading Hogan and Dawes for those two.
  8. Yeah, I think we need to lay off the conspiracy theories here. All the available evidence points to TB4 being used - and I think it certainly would have passed the "balance of probabilities" test - but there's no inherent reason to suggest a tainted tribunal process. The AFL got the result they wanted, but I'd like to think they got it without the need to resort to brown paper bags or ransom notes. ASADA were hamstrung by failing to get Charter and Alavi to appear, and that was always going to endanger a case built entirely on a chain of circumstantial evidence. It sickens me that Essendon and their fans feel vindicated by all this, but let's not stoop to their level by invoking vast conspiracy theories and persecution complexes. This is going to be hanging over them for a while yet (player lawsuits, workcover, Dank's trial, the appeals process etc.) so let them have this moment of joy. There'll be plenty more material to hit them over the head with shortly. As for what happens, I think we all need to hope WADA steps in and takes this to the CAS. At the CAS it will be possible to subpoena Charter, Alavi and Dank, as well as forcing key EFC members to answer questions under oath. It may not have any prospect of reaching a guilty verdict, but it's the only way we're going to get any answers, and therefore a more clearcut resolution to the saga. Essendon are going to do their best to wash their hands of this whole situation now, but they shouldn't be allowed to until they've given a full and frank account of what really happened in 2012, and who they believe should be held responsible. Until now, they've been permitted to say nothing more than "you can't prove what we took, so ner-ner-ner" but that cannot be allowed to hold. If I was an EFC member, I'd be demanding the entire club be turned upside-down until concrete answers are provided about why they were put in such a compromised position to begin with. The fact that they're celebrating a "no comfortable satisfaction" decision like a premiership tells me that enough about the moral fibre of the EFC fan-base to known that this well never happen, so the CAS (or player lawsuits) are the only option. No-one should have to accept this decision until some key questions (like what thymosin were they really injected with?) are answered.
  9. I think it's also a phenomenon that's becoming much more common and virulent in the internet age. It used to be that one would have to get one's news from the mass media, and if one wanted to discuss an issue then it would have to be with one's social peers. In this way, it would be nearly impossible to avoid being confronted with arguments or facts that run contrary to one's own world view, and one would be pressed to adjust accordingly. These days, we can log onto the internet, and never have to hear a single opinion that one doesn't like. In politics, for example, it would be possible for me to log onto a partisan media outlet and then onto a forum populated entirely by people who entirely agree with me. I can go the whole day and have every single one of my opinions reinforced and not a single one of them challenged. It's almost inevitable that my ideas will become radicalized and increasingly distanced from reality. This is basically what's happened to essendon supporters now. They only trust some specific members of the media (I.e. Those who are pro essendon sycophants), they refuse to discuss the issue with their peers and they retreat at the first opportunity to their safe-place forums. Ideas that are expressed there snowball, and speculative ideas soon grow - through mass repetition and lack of questioning - into simply unimpeachable truths. Like their political equivalents, football fans on a football forum begin to develop a siege mentality, and become increasingly dependent on paranoid conspiracy theories to keep the increasingly unstable construct standing. For essendon supporters, this has become the simply unquestionable mantra that their is a joint afl, Asada and mass media conspiracy to persecute essendon even though they've done nothing wrong. Why any of these parties would be motivated to do such a thing is, of course, not a question that anyone there is permitted to ask. When it becomes inconvenient or even not permitted to question the basis of one's world view, inevitably incoherence will begin to set in because one is unreflectively just accepting convenient talking points without making any attempt to calibrate them against empirical reality. In such a way, inconsistencies - obvious to anyone but the group themselves - begin to set in. The club don't know what the players took but it was nothing illegal. Hird cards deeply about the welfare of the players but has no idea what the players were being injected with. Asada and the AFL are simultaneously evil, calculating masterminds and bumbling idiots. And so on -reality very quickly runs away from you if you aren't forced to take stock of it every now and then. That, incidentally, is why it's good to have people who reliably go against the group opinion on boards such as this one, rather than hounding them out of town at the first opportunity.
  10. What really amazes me is that Hird's away on holiday again. To my reckoning, this is the third time he's travelled overseas since returning from his year-long, member-funded sojourn in France (including missing at least part of trade week!). The extent to which he puts his own interests before those of the club is just staggering, and he doesn't even make any attempt to pretend otherwise.Quite apart from anything else he might have done, this should have the EFC members baying for blood. Hird must really have the club by the short and curlies in some way, because I ccouln''t imagine any other coach in the league getting away with such a blatant disdain for his basic duties to the team.
  11. One interesting angle I haven't seen discussed anywhere is the possibility of the Essendon players getting done purely on "intent". So far as I'm aware, it isn't necessary to show that an athlete actually took a prohibited substance under the ASADA code, merely that it was their intention to do so. If memory serves me correctly, it has actually happened that athletes have been banned for merely ordering banned substances, even where it was clear they hadn't taken them. Now my understanding is that the INs specifically charge the players with using banned substances, but I'd be curious to know if the prospect of a conviction still stands even if they can't definitively finger the exact players injected with TB4 and the exact times and places these injections occurred. EFC apologists seem to have it in their heads that in the absence of hard, concrete evidence for specific injections of a specific substance at specific times that the players must be cleared. This, however, is a ridiculously high standard of proof for a doping case (perhaps even for a criminal case, where circumstantial evidence can often be enough) and I think they have to be a little more sensitive to the present realities of the case. Namely, that the EFC players signed consent forms permitting the injection of "Thymosin" which should be enough to ping the players on intent alone, and I can't quite understand how they've been able to convince themselves that even the evidence circulating in the public realm wouldn't be enough for a conviction. The only doubt here seems to be to what "Thymosin" refers to, but given there is a long paper trail linking TB4 to the club and literally nothing linking "Thymomodulin" to the club (and which is never referred to as "Thymosin" anyway) I really don't know what paths the lawyers have to get them out of this one (save having all the evidence thrown out, which is obviously what they've tried very hard to do!).
  12. I have a copy of the post that was made on BF if mods give me permission to post it. Basically, presuming it's genuine, it would indicate that ASADA has concrete evidence and eyewitness testimony placing TB4 on the EFC premises, as well as the testimony of specific players that they were injected with TB4. It's only a summary, though, so it doesn't mention what that evidence is or who the witnesses are. Still, again presuming the post was genuine, and ASADA aren't overplaying their hand, at least some of the players are surely boned right now.
  13. The Age article says "Adelaide is interested in the South Australian Trengove, but it is understood he would rather remain in Melbourne". (link)
  14. I think the question isn't what Trengove is worth on the open market, but what he's worth to us. He's 23 midfielder, with great leadership qualities, and - injury permitting - will likely play a reliable 100+ more games with this club. In other words he's exactly the kind of player we'd be looking to draft in to the club under other circumstances. I want to see improvement in this club quickly, which is what Trengove can contribute to next year and beyond, presuming he's over the worst of his injury troubles (which would seem to be the case if he's passed the medicals at Richmond). Taking pick 12 to the draft would just be crap-shooting, and I'm not sure we're a club which has the luxury of taking gambles on players who may or may not come good 3 or 4 years down the track. Unless there is another experienced player we're looking to trade in, the fact remains that - for us - Trengove is a more valuable commodity than pick 12.
  15. A pretty good argument as to why this trade would be folly. That year we went in with picks 1, 2 and 11 and look where it got us. This year we're going in with 2, 3 and 12. "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce." - Dr. Karl Kennedy
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