sue

Love the illogic of the paelo diet being somehow the natural human diet. For the last 10,000 years most people have lived off grains which led to a massive increase in human numbers. If you didn't perform well on that dominant food source you probably didn't produce many or any 20th century descendants. Natural selection has favoured humans who thrive on grains. That's not to say it may be the wonder diet for some rare class of current humans, eg footballers and tiddly-wink players, but the benefits of paelo are hardly established by simply appealing to our pre-Neolithic past. Unfortunately it would be hard to do a double-bind test of players' diets.

or his way of telling WADA to go for it. Too much reading of tea leaves is bad for you.

AOC not happy: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-09/asada-has-its-hands-tied-says-aoc-john-coates/6457672

It looks like those who thought Clark was faking it will have to reconsider (unless they are Republicans from Texas, in which case the recent news indicates they would believe any ridiculous conspiracy theory).

Weirder and weirder:- Shane Charter, sports scientist linked to Essendon supplements saga, convicted of drug offences

Yes they will. Depends on the type of helmet. Imagine a helmet made of 2 feet of bubble-wrap. It would absorb the energy of the blow well before it got to the head let alone the brain. What is needed is a say 4cm thick soft helmet made of some hi-tech material which absorbs energy. Will certainly help in accidental knees to the head like Jeta had. Boxers use them and the reason why it is not 100% effective for them is because getting the head continually pummelled is the 'sport'. In AFL it is only incidental (except when playing Hodge). AFL already has rules which limit players using their heads as battering rams and head high contact, so it is not like the hard helmets or their use in gridiron.

True. But I'm not sure that a simple equation of US football and aussie rules is sufficient to say helmets in AFL wouldn't work or be worse. I'm thinking of padded soft helmets. Surely they increase they time over which the momentum is reversed and hence lower the impact. Hard helmets are more a protection against hitting objects like kerbs. Madness to use them as battering rams.

Finally saw the May bump. Not much in it at all. He made the mistake of looking at the other bloke. He should realize that if he had closed his eyes he could have punched his opponent into next week and got a lesser penalty.

Well I think it was obvious I meant the sort of drug cheating EFC organized (allegedly ) not some bloke popping one pill. And you misinterpreted me - I wasn't trying to say breaking the law was a necessary criterion for cheating. But on your last sentence, we just disagree. Just because they both may have a financial or other advantage doesn't make them identical morally or in efect. For example, tanking doesn't affect a player's long term physical health. More generally, murder and theft both can have an advantage to the perpetrator. I know which I'd prefer to be a victim of. Ed to add: And I also know I'd prefer my club to have tanked than to have conducted a 'pharmacological experiment'.

I am surprised that you do not recognise that some forms of cheating are worse than others. For a start, tampering with players' bodies is worse in my mind than playing with their or some bookie's bank balances. There are a range of cheats you can do which don't involve breaking any laws. Then there is cheating which may involve some law breaking - eg. by flattening the tyres on the opposition's bus so they arrive late through to mugging their star players the night before the match. All are worse than cheating by pretending you touched a ball going through their goals when you didn't. I'll leave aside individual drug cheating versus tanking because the discussion is about institutional drug cheating.

Is that a rule? If so I wonder if it is being uniformly applied. (See what cynicism the AFL has engendered...) Just read that Salem's concussion was a result of collision with a Freo player - did the Tribunal look at that?

Drug cheating is far worse than tanking of the MFC type (as you seem to acknowledge), but it is also worse than match fixing for profit or whatever. If I throw a match at the request of my coach, I might have a bad conscience for the rest of my life. If I get injected with a substance which may have long term health issues, I may not have much of a rest of a life. And as you say, the fact that EFC admin won't/can't say what was injected is terrible - those people should be thrown out of the game if not into the clink.

The one back to Hogan is a classic case of how umpiring is influenced by more than the rules. The TV commentators went on about how it was ridiculous, and so it was. But I reckon they paid it because just before a clear play-on to advantage running into an open goal was wrongly called back beyond 50m to Jamar. We all know umpires will sometimes make mistakes. And we all know that us biased supporters are going to think we get the rough end of the pineapple. And yes, getting to the ball first helps sometimes (though with the new sliding and holding the ball rules, I'm not so sure). But if you just watch matches where you don't care about the outcome you will see that the umps are influenced by crowds, previous bungles and being generous to well known players at the expense of no-name players (of which unfortunately we have too many).

Sorry that is rubbish, but just in case you weren't making a weak joke..... Would you apply that reasoning to comparing murder with shoplifting? BB is quite correct, drug taking is of course far far more serious than tanking.

What's the issue? Those poor Hawthorn players had been harassed for well over 40 metres before they took action.

Interesting point about the risk to WADA of making a guilty finding before a drug test is available. But I think WADA might take the risk given your bolded remark above etc. It could take care to present its decision wrapped in words which would allow it to escape too much embarrassment if it turned out wrong (especially if the test isn't 100% accurate etc). Of course no matter how they hedged their ultimately wrong decision, that wouldn't wash with Essendon supporters and our media and our pollies would be quick to join the national outrage. But that may have little effect on WADAs reputation more broadly, nor even with our athletes. So WADA may not be too worried about the risk. (Do they have to be worried about being sued by individuals erroneously convicted? - normal judges don't)

Agree 100%. So easy to take the safe option when there is any doubt. On the basis of what is public, I feel if there was any doubt, it was at the 'reasonable doubt' level, not at the 'comfortable satisfaction' level.

which one?

I'd rather watch a tentative Watts than Richmond's arrogant sook.

Just been watching the replay with Watts in mind and two things stood out to me. First, many other players dropped marks etc and it hasn't led to yet another thread groaning about that player (eg soon after Watts dropped that overhead mark and Carey was saying how he'd better not do that more than once, Cross dropped an easier mark near goal at the other end. No one noticed it seems.) Second, several times balls came shooting out of a pack allowing our players to break free. I couldn't see who had done it so I rewound. Watts each time.

It would be interesting to see what conclusions some here would draw if Watts was injured in Q1 of a game and we went on to win the match.

While I'm not optimistic about losing Jetta & Kent, your analysis misses polta's point unless I am totally confused by your post. You can't just extrapolate their 7 disposals in a quarter to 28 disposals for the game and then bemoan those missing 28 disposals. The point was we won without them being there for 3/4 of the game. Other players were there instead - indeed, other tired players who were spending less time resting on the bench. Bringing in 2 'inferior' players is better than 0.

On the definition of king-hits, I saw nothing in the recent legislation that said that you had to hit someone unawares and from behind to 'qualify' as some have suggested. But in any case, hitting a seriously drunk person from any direction could be seen as hitting him unawares. It seems unpopular here, but I'm with Redleg on this. A push is OK, if that is what he did, but no more. Until you are really physically threatened rather than just extremely annoyed you should not hit anyone including a drunk nuisance. Walk away or threaten to call the fuzz and call them if that doesn't work. Like all of us I don't know the details, but I'm surprised that 40 minutes went by with little action to defuse things as has been claimed. If it was me, I can imagine just putting up with being annoyed for that long. But I'm surprised when a high-profile person doesn't clear out long before other people might, knowing that they are likely to be a target for drunk idiots and the resulting media interest. Poor judgement if nothing else. (Don't tell me that 'celebs' shouldn't have to act differently than the rest of us (while having the same legal rights) - sorry, that is one of the prices of fame.)

Deplorable kicking by both sides even when no pressure and before the rain. EFC's drug supply must have run out. Terrible to have to barrack for the Pies.

I suspect Howe often doesn't look at the ball at the last minute when he is taking a speccy. Should be dropped.