sue

The only favourable interpretation that I can put on the AFL's delay in making a decision is that they want that time for people to work on Jobe to convince him to give back the medal voluntarily. That being a positive view of the AFL's position shows just how hopeless they are.

I agree that those 2 could well have known what they were doing. But the rules don't extend to life bans. They have done their time. I may be a bit uncomfortable, but I'm no going to boo them when the AFL admin and the EFC organization really need booing.

Saty: I agree that we have to treat Melk as one of us, having done his time. Unfortunately there sems no easy way of moving this debate back to the EFC Swiss thread.

I think you are relentlessly missing the point. It is one thing to make an argument that WADA shouldn't ban everything in sight, but them is the rules and I would argue there is no workable alternative. But that is irrelevant to the discussion. Just because the drug may not work, does not change the original intent which was to cheat. The degree of guilt to ascribe to the various parties at EFC (possibly naive young players, experience players, coaches, officials) can be argued. You can't argue that just because their cheating failed, they didn't cheat. But that is precisely what you are doing.

Why on earth do you keep repeating the sentence bolded above? It is irrelevant to the discussion whether the drugs they took worked or failed to have the desired effect. It doesn't make the behaviour of the players or the club any better or worse that the club's cheating plans may not have worked (as judged by you or anyone). So why do you keep saying it? It must indicate something about your thinking on this issue, but I can't see what it is.

I think you will find Saty that it is the other way around. Swisse is piggy-backing on the fact Hawthorn have one the last 3 premierships.

You don't have to be aware of specific evidence in this case to know that post by Saty is plain nonsense. He is usually more sensible than that so I expectsomeone has hi-jacked his account. So WADA just bans everything in sight so they can justify their existence and keep busy? I would have thought anyone can see that WADA and CAS have more work than they can possibly handle.

It is totally irrelevant whether or not the 'experiment' worked. They weren't experimenting to see if they could find drugs that would slow the players down or make them better lovers or compose better symphonies than Beethoven. They were trying to cheat in the game we love. Full Stop.

for a moment there I thought you said you had seen them doing a bank job.

This list is getting out of hand. If we keep on winning you blokes will have to go for records like "Since 1988 we haven't beaten Sydney at the SCG on a day when a north westerly was blowing until half-time after which it swung around to an easterly." I look forward to that.

The AFL is happy to make new 'interpretations' on the fly. Since they said some years back that this sort of tactic would lead to a free kick against in order to protect players' heads, it would hardly count of a biggest new rule of the week to instruct the umps to stamp it out.

Is it true that deliberate rushed behind is now being more rigorously enforced? I thought it was just a thought bubble from one of the geniuses at AFL HQ as something that might come in. One of the commentators did imply that it was true, but I have zero confidence that those guys know what they are talking about. Anyone know for sure?

Completely agree. Where will it end? Recall the C'wood goal where the C'wood player was paid a mark and picked up the ball and played on and scored a goal, should we have a review of whether he played on forward of the mark. (I will certainly be reviewing that when I watch the replay!)

dangerous stuff that Bex - it was banned eventually. Clearly an ump stepping back cannot keep out of the players' way. It has to be the players responsibility. The stupid thing about the umpires telling the players at every ball up that they are going straight back is that it is completely unnecessary since they always go straight back. The players can easily work out where straight back is, and telling them doens't ad any extra information, so what is the point of telling them?

Agree. That for a change they didn't suspend first and announce policy later is one small positive in this.

Nutbean, seems to me that that new tackling technique is more likely to cause injuries (when the not bringing to ground fails) than a sling where the player's arms are free.

$1000 fine for the "sling" tackle.

I don't see why they are tedious - it is a significant issue and one hopefully where we have dodged any bad outcome. I'm also glad we have him as things stand.

BB as an Essendon hater myself, I'm happy to say that if Goodwin was involved with drugging his team, then I will happily see him go regardless of the effect on our club. I expect most of the anti-Hird/EFC people you attempt to criticise have the same view, but it irks you that they don't call for Goodwin's head on a daily basis. And why should they - the issues that they comment on are the events as they (endlessly) unfold - all to deal with legal actions etc involving people whose name is not Goodwin. Unlike you, I think EFC were as guilty as hell and compounded that by their subsequent actions bringing disgrace on our game. They should have put their hands up like the rugby club did and this would all have been over years ago. No Essendon-lovers can ever again shake their head and tut-tut when the Russian water polo team or the Chinese hockey team etc is called out for drug cheating.

I too don't want to prolong this, but do you consider Chinese/Russian altheletes etc when found to have been taking drugs to be 'convicted'? But only if the drugs have been found in their body perhaps? And not if there is a strong chain/rope of evidence that they did? There is always doubt, even if their urine is full of drugs. Perhaps the detection chemistry was wrong, a mix-up in the lab etc.

But do you have a problem with the word 'convicted' as in 'convicted substance abusers'.

Sorry LDvC, when a murderer is found guilty of breaking the law beyond reasonable doubt he is convicted. In this case the level required to be found to have been breaking the law was 'comfortably satisfied'. So they are convicted of the offence. I won't quibble whether a peptide is a drug or not - the point is that they were found guilty of <insert drug/peptide>. ie. convicted drug/peptide takers.

It does say this: Also interesting:

I'm not assuming it either. Just on my relentless crusade to turn up improbable excuses for the players.

I've tried and failed to think up plausible excuses for the players not reporting the injections. Here's a new attempt (boy am I leaning over backwards for these cheats): I wonder if they didn't report it to ASADA partly (if not wholly) simply because of embarrassment caused by not knowing what they were being injected with. What would you do if faced with a form which stated "please list any supplements you have had in the last x months' and you had no idea what they were?