La Dee-vina Comedia

What were they thinking? Surely it would have been more appropriate to buy him the collected works of Friedrich Nietzsche. He could start with 'The Birth of Tragedy' and then move on to 'The Case of Wagner'. What could be more appropriate than that?

You make a good point and get into the area of whether executives in any business should be drug tested. Personally, unless it's a privately owned business and is not in an area of public risk, then I think executives do not have the right to say it impinges on their privacy because their actions affect others. So, I would have to say that the AFL is not privately owned and as such I have no problem with AFL executives being drug tested. (IQ testing might be a good idea, too.)

While I agree with you that some players might think that it's inconsistent that they're the only ones being tested from within the AFL community, those players are forgetting another inconsistency - they're the ones getting the big money to perform. I think there is an argument that perhaps coaches (including assistant coaches) could be tested, but how the rest of the AFL community performs and whether they're using illicit drugs is not relevant.

I wonder whether we wanted to but he (perhaps on the advice of his manager) wanted to keep it shorter. He may believe his value will increase substantially over the next 2 years, especially as he becomes a free agent* at the end of this contract extension. *Based on Lucifer's Hero's post above which I'm sure will be correct.

Amazing how Garry Lyon is universally supported on this site for his assessment of Oliver but totally vilified for his role in choosing coaches. Apparently he only knows some things about football.

And he invariably found a player, usually in a better position, with his precision disposal, .

Well said, Ernest. Your last line sums him up. Very few players have that skill and I think it means he's worked out what he's going to do with the ball before he gets it, rather than making the decision afterwards. Not many players have that capability. In fact, you can see many players "spending it before they have it" which shows how hard it can be to do what Oliver does consistently.

I assume you mean by Melbourne. I think Hawthorn getting Roughead, Franklin and Lewis in 2004 and Geelong getting all of Bartel, James Kelly, Steve Johnson and Gary Ablett in 2001 fared reasonably well.

My suspicion is the opposite. I believe the data will show that top players generally get a better run with the umpires. In addition, the change to the rules this year which sees all punching of players a breach of the rules which will earn a free against the puncher should assist genuine ball players. As such, opponents of Oliver and Brayshaw won't be able to use that particular tool in their arsenal.

It's nice to think that we finally have a player that looks like he can be talked about in the same breath as Judd, Ablett, Dangerfield, Voss and Flower. There will always be arguments about whether he's the best or second-best, etc, but just having a player of that ilk is so un-Melbourne like, I'm not quite sure how to react. And, unlike Judd at Carlton, Oliver is not on his own with players like Gawn and Brayshaw also with the potential to be rated by the end of their careers as genuine superstars of the competition.

This is not about AFL, but it's an interesting illegal doping story. I'm just not sure whether it's humorous, troubling or both.

I have no respect for people who falsely claim they have a "mental health" problem as an excuse for poor behaviour. But I'm also conscious that as a society we need to make sure that we don't assume that a person who claims a mental health problem does not, in fact, have one. Every case needs to be judged on its merits and none of us will ever know which ones are genuine and which ones are not. Only a person trained in that area and actually dealing with (ie, treating) the person involved will know.

On a slightly different tack, I wonder if there are any players with genuine mental health problems which have been directly caused from drug use. There is plenty of scientific evidence that marijuana can cause depression and other mental health problems in some people.

The AFL, and professional sport in general, is not like most workplaces. That's why the AFL has an enforceable rule that allows action to be taken against a player or official who may not have even broken a law but "brings the game into disrepute". Not many businesses (or vocations) have the ability to take action for bringing that particular industry (vocation) into "disrepute". Though recent findings of some Royal Commissions perhaps suggest it would be a good idea.

Racists have recently been emboldened by nationalists who happen to have been able to climb the greasy pole to the top (or at least to have a level of influence they don't deserve) in a number of jurisdictions. Not every nationalist is a racist and vice versa, but those that are happen to have very large mouths. I happen to prefer loud mouths who shout in support of their football team, even if it's our opponents. That's a healthy way of expressing one's self and does not offend (I mean in its true meaning, rather than in the playful world of being "offended" by someone supporting another club.)

I think including PEDs in the discussion is unavoidable. There's a fine line between "recreational" and "performance enhancing" at the best of times which becomes even more blurred when you include masking agents.

Tried...and failed. Mind you, it's not that I don't want to believe you, I'm just following Ronald Reagan's policy of "Trust but verify".

Where does the one or two tests per year figure come from? To answer your question, I don't know whether the AFL's efforts are "token" or otherwise. What I do know is that I find any use of performance enhancing drugs or masking agents abhorrent and any use of recreational drugs by professional athletes to be bizarrely stupid behaviour.

Ignoring the moral arguments, I'm amazed that professional athletes who seem to have to pursue highly specific diets and exercise regimens would then participate in taking substances that wouldn't be on any list approved by the club's dietitians or sports scientists.

For a person whose interests are listed as "Apathy", this is one helluva posting!

The AFL conducts the urine tests? I thought it was ASADA that did that.

Do you subscribe to the "3 stickers and you're out" rule?

I see you've extended the concept of 2 byes per year to eliminate two full weeks from the calendar.

This just in:

Just commenting on your last few questions, and not specific to this particular case: Yes, offending content should be removed. It's not "protecting the poster" to do so; rather, it's protecting the person who has been vilified. Whether comments are derogatory, racist or defamatory, they should always be removed. As has been stated here many times on Demonland, there is no such thing as unqualified free speech. There are laws against vilification, racism, hate speech and defamation.