sue

But still easily done. For example, a job with a sponsor who 'surprisingly' reduces its financial support to the club by a similar sum. Or if that is seen as too obvious, a job with a company which has an individual who is a big donor.

we'll know the answer to that sometime in 2017. Do you really think the MFC staff did not think this was a likely outcome?

disagree. I reckon it was a calculated risk with a clear plan of what to do if the tram ticket turned out to be exceedingly dry. I think that is more likely than all the praise that people have bestowed on our new admin was misplaced. They have shown little other evidence of being turkeys, why assume they were with this.

Now stand by for the whingeing and attacks on CAS, WADA, govt, you name it. It will be interesting to see if any journos go for Hird et co.

That's my guess too.

Another interview on ABC RN Breakfast which I suspect was set up by the EFC apologist who speaks on sport every morning. While the bloke reasonably pointed to the complications of a one-size-fits-all approach (while putting the boot into WADA and CAS), he ended by saying it should be left to the AFL and the AFL Players Association. No interest in lifting the carpet and doing some rapid sweeping there at all I suppose. He also said all players want is a level playing field. Yep, and we know what happen if you don't clobber those who cheat and what happens next. Players level the playing field by emulating the cheats. Look no further than the Dutch Olympian who just admitted to taking drugs in 1984: "I then thought: the only way was that if you can't beat them, join them."

On the contrary, if a player is on another team he risks meeting Viney maybe twice a year. Watts has to face the prospect of being tackled at training several times a week.

All very well, but we don't actually know what he was doing when it happened. It could have been a freakish accident in a situation where only the most helicoptoring parent (or footy team/demonland member) would have said 'don't do that'. The only indirect evidence we have that he was in fact stupid is Roos' comments. And even that may have been borne more out of frustration than with anger at bad behaviour. I guess that is motivating many posters as well since I reckon we'd have hardly heard a peep on the subject if it had happened to a player in whom we have no hopes of great things.

That depends entirely on what was agreed between the AFL and the MFC when we selected Melksham (which we don't know). If it was agreed we'd be compensated in some way by the AFL if we took him, then we'd rightly expect that compensation if required. Just a part of the 'calculated gamble'. Maybe we wouldn't have taken him without that assurance.

I posted a while back that no one who said it was a 'meta' had given a source for it being that bone. I still don't think anyone has. ??

The MFC website only mentions vaguely a toe. What is the source of the metatarsal being the bone? I've looked through all the posts and unless it was misspelt I cannot see any attribution, just assertions by one or two people which were then repeated by others. Source please?

Depends entirely on how vigorous the basket ball game was. We don't know. If he had been instructed to not play certain types of games at any level including basketball because of ACL concerns, then he should have been in trouble regardless of the toe injury. If he hadn't been so instructed, and it was an ACL concern, then someone else should be in trouble.

We don't know the facts (as usual) so until it is clear that he was doing something stupid I can't see any justification for blaming him. Playing a basketball game cannot be considered stupid in itself if played sensibly and bearing in mind his general situation. However, the fact that Roos is so publicly [censored] off may indicate he was doing something stupid.

I am surprised that a couple of posters saw this as the same old pre-season meaningless guff. While it contained a lot of that (surprise, surprise) we don't often see such direct mention of something that was wrong in the past. Seems a (small) positive to me.

No point in consulting the guilty parties as to whether they should be exposed or not. I think we could guess their response. The only question is was it right to expose the guilt. Many of us think Essendon would have saved both themselves and the game a lot of pain if they had done so.

You don't think the AFL would find a way to help them recover quickly from an event they could label as 'unique/unprecedented'?

I'm also all for fair process and the presumption of innocence. But I didn't get to decide what level of proof is needed in WADA/CAS/ASADA cases. So I've made my own - which is to ask what is the probability that the presumption they are innocent is true. (Yes, slightly contradictory, but when I add the danger to sport that the 'lost the records' defence presents, I'm prepared to loosen my usual bias in favour of the presumption of innocence.) Which leads me to think there is a bigger chance that there are fairies in the bottom of my garden than that the club did not set out to cheat. As for the players, I expect there was a range of knowledge/suspicion/complicity/naivety amongst them.

You're correct, in itself it is not cheating. But it is most likely a partial truth - we also don't want others to know because we are using illegal substances. And if the players knew enough detail to be able to give away the IP, then why don't we know know what that IP was that Hird was so keen to protect? Of course you'd say that there is no proof (yet) of illegal substances being used. It seems to me that you have bent over so far backwards to show how fair you are, saying nothings proved etc, that I'm surprised you haven't broken your back. This is one case where we had a choice of believing it's either a conspiracy or a stuff-up, where I am sure we can discount the usual folk wisdom. Nothing else makes sense to me. So no matter what decision CAS comes to, I'll always believe that there was a deliberate plan to cheat.

Don't confuse a comeback to playing footy with a comeback to AFL footy. Good luck on the former - might help fix him up. The latter would be a miracle needing divine intervention.

That Tom Ryan won my undying admiration when he wrote the article entitled: Why James Hird is our new Lindy Chamberlain It looks like a PR campaign to make it easy to cry 'unfair' just in case they are found guilty is well under way.

AD's firm may be innocent but ideological cutting back of TAFE for private firms to take over has led to a rash of rip off merchants.

Sorry, but while I agree that #1 is their direct job, the aim of doing so is to achieve what I stated, either by themselves under #2 or by providing the data so someone else can do so. Otherwise journalism is just entertainment.

I doubt if it was Russian or Chinese journos writing sympathetically about their sports people accused of cheating they'd be any disagreement on how things are read.

OK, so he's used some extreme language. But to me its undeniable that Le Grand and many of his colleagues have sought to protect the EFC and some of its players rather than do their proper job to protect the integrity of our sport, not to mention the well-being of the players. I went into this saga with no hatred of Hird, quite the contrary, and no knowledge of the existence of any of the other people involved or the EFC (beyond the usual opposing supporter's bias which I see as a joke). Their behaviour has moved me in to wish them ill, not my prejudice. If this whole thing ends up in "can't prove anything because the records don't exist", then while it may (arguably) be a victory for "rules of law, rules of procedural fairness and natural justice" it will be a disaster for just about everything else.

Disagree. The WADA matter will not have been dealt with until the CAS decision is announced. So Little can't be praised for doing what he said he'd do - he hasn't . And he can do something further - he can face the music post CAS (or celebrate) as I said in my earlier post. And then allow his successor to disown the past rather than say what Tanner has said. Tanner probably had 'Little' alternative having takien over now.