La Dee-vina Comedia

I thought Demetriou argued that he shouldn't be discussing the matter because as a Commissioner he may have to make a determination and could be accused of bias if he had discussed the matter publicly prior to that decision being made. You can take Linda Dessau out. She's now Governor of Victoria (and as a passionate Essendon supporter I suspect she's probably glad she's no longer responsible for having to make this decision.) In a legal sense, taking something away from someone is much harder than not awarding it in the first place. I would think the AFL's lawyers have advised that procedural fairness obliges the AFL to give Watson an opportunity to comment. It's also strategically a good idea as the process may "encourage" Watson to hand the medal back thereby allowing the Commissioners to avoid having to make a decision at all.

Thanks, that's helpful. However, unless the question which is specifically asked at the time of the drug test accurately reflects that obligation it's still possible that the players did not deliberately avoid providing necessary information. (Yes, I'm being technical, but that's what working in law enforcement does to you. No-one's ever been found guilty of breaching the "spirit" of a law if it couldn't be proved that they did actually break a law.)

And if the questions were specific (which they should be...the drug testing officers should be working from a script to avoid failure on a technicality) surely we should know what the specific questions were before we claim that the players breached a rule. I see it as quite conceivable that the players may have breached the spirit of what was intended while not being dishonest in their answers. (Of course, I'm only speaking about breaching the specific point about answering questions, not the more important issue of breaching the rule about taking illicit substances.)

If it could be proven he did this, being banned isn't enough. He should also go to jail for assault.

The court of public opinion certainly turned against the Essendon 34 when it was revealed that none of them advised the testers that they had received supplements/injections as it is alleged they should have done. Do we actually know the specific question the players were asked, though? It has always seemed unlikely to me that 34 individuals could all have breached that same obligation. I'm suspicious that the question may have been poorly worded allowing the players to answer honestly while not disclosing information intended to be uncovered by that question. If nothing else, hopefully all professional sports people and ASADA have learned from this extended process how better to fulfil their obligations in this important area.

Just to clarify, are you referring to the claim that the players were meant to advise the testers at the time of any drug test that they had been given an injection? I presume the testers are with ASADA rather than WADA. Or are you referring to something else?

Wow. Just...wow.

Might be Robbo's ghostwriter.

Confirmation here that we've offered a second round draft pick from next year for Hibberd. Essendon wants a second round this year.

The club hasn't used the word "delisted". That's been used here and I assume by the media. What the club said was that there were list changes and that the three players were not being offered new contracts. I'm not sure what else the club can say or do to make it any more dignified.

I'm sure Satyr can speak for himself, but his statement is no more or less relevant than the alternative view espoused by others on this forum that they could see that the Essendon players were "juiced up" and noticeably bigger during the first half of that season. As you say, neither view is relevant to the issue.

On this point, do the payments to Category B rookies, or whatever it's called, get included in the salary cap? I expect in the overall scheme of things the amount these rookies get paid wouldn't be much, but I'm curious nevertheless.

While I understand what you're getting at, don't forget all players upon induction into the AFL are also told exactly what they are expected to do with respect to checking everything personally with ASADA. So while you are correct that they might find it hard to stand up to their Essendon boss(es), by not doing so they ultimately did stand up to their AFL bosses.

Actually, I wouldn't mind a regulatory authority investigating whether Luke Hodge actually uses that food preparation service (is it called Light and Easy?) They may be a perfectly sound option for the average human being but I find it hard to believe a professional AFL footballer could survive on those products alone.

Sports people do things and take things that improve (or, if you prefer, enhance) their performance all the time. That's why they take protein supplements, eat massive amounts of food and train with weights. I'm not defending the EFC - they had a responsibility to ensure that their players only took legally approved performance enhancing products. And the players, too, had a personal responsibility to ensure what they took was legal. Did what they take do anything to improve their performance? Who knows (although I've said before I doubt it - I think Dank is a charlatan and should be behind bars). But that's not the point. If a product or practice is banned - so be it. The user wears the consequences.

Did he actually say that Dawes and Pedersen are list cloggers AND both should be delisted? If he didn't add those last five words it's an arguable proposition. If he did add the last five words, it is still arguable, but on more tenuous grounds.

But you seem to forget that at picks 112, 129, 146, 163 and possibly even 95, we'll get who we want because there'll be no other clubs bidding at that time. Just think, we can make our selection at 146 without being nervous about who we might miss out on at 145. (Insert appropriate emoticon here).

I've said it previously, but I don't see Wagner being promoted to the main list as a certainty. He deserves to be but the recruiting and list managing system we work under encourages the club to keep him as a rookie who is immediately promoted at Round 1. That gives us more flexibility at the draft. I don't like it, but we have to use the system to our best advantage.

So, of all the embarrassing records we did break this year, which is your favourite? I think mine is not having lost three games (or more) in a row. Spreads the pleasure better through the pain.

To put some perspective on how far we've come, in 2013 we won two games and had a percentage about 4% points lower than Essendon right now. And that was with two expansion teams in the competition (which is why we were 17th and not 18th). That's a massive improvement in three years.

You're not the ghost of our former President Billy Snedden, are you?

Good point.

Didn't we beat Port in Darwin at night in 2010?

When was the last time we went through a season with out losing a game by 60+ points?

The family tree approach to judging coaching is well respected. Whether it's the Tom Hafey family (Kevin Sheedy and Mick Malthouse followed by John Worsfold, for example) or the Norm Smith family (Ron Barassi followed by Malcolm Blight) or the John Kennedy family (David Parkin and Leigh Matthews subsequently followed by the Scott twins), etc, there is logic in the idea. Successful coaches teach future successful coaches. Of course, not every descendant in the family can be a success (Hardwick, Hird, Voss...and many more) but the opening post makes sense overall.