La Dee-vina Comedia

I'm not sure about that. He may have said it now...because he was asked about it now. Nevertheless, the assumption drawn by Hogans_Heroes may prove to be correct.

I'm not sure how you draw that conclusion from essentially neutral comments. Nothing stated is critical of either Essendon, the AFL, the AFL Tribunal, or ASADA. Just a bog-standard statement that WADA will see what happened and what could be done to improve things. And I wouldn't expect him to have said anything else.

It would be nice to see a simple analysis which shows the financial difference to the AFL of buying Etihad Stadium now versus the option of waiting until it falls into its lap for $1. On the one hand, the early payment (did I read it would be something like $100 or $200 million?) allows for immediate renegotiation of stadium deals; on the other, its attractive to wait for a multi-million dollar property to land in your lap for basically nothing.

Wow. Three years already. Time flies.

And good phone books are so hard to find these days. It's pretty hard to threaten a crim with your contacts in a smartphone.

I'm not as cynical as you. I can see circumstances where the players may have self-reported. What about if they had just attended one of the AFL's integrity sessions about betting? Or (more likely) they mentioned it to other players or officials at the kennel where they were then reminded of the error of their ways and that they should self-report before being caught? And having come from a law enforcement background I also disagree with you that there should be lesser penalties for self reporting. The more self reporting there is, the more resources become available for the law enforcement agency to investigate those who really need to be investigated. And if you want self-reporting, you need to provide an incentive to do so. Lesser penalties is a good start.

What's not to like about 'Damian Barrett' and 'dope' being in the same sentence?

And I presume the AFL Tribunal also wants to "get it right" with a written decision they hope won't be challenged, at least on any technical failings.

And if I recall correctly, his Dad is a food provider rather than consumer.

That's a good question. ASADA risks opprobrium from WADA if it is seen to be going too soft and from the Federal Government if it is seen to be wasteful or incompetent. I'm not sure what ASADA wants most out of this. It's own credibility to be salvaged, I suppose.

Keep in mind that ASADA's self-interest is of equal import as that of the Essendon Football Club.

Sorry, your biggest flaw is in the assumption that relocating GWS to Tassie would "save money". While it might reduce outgoings, the loss in TV rights revenue would dwarf any savings which might be made.

Opportunity missed, C & B. Should have gone with a different clip of John Cleese - from 'Life of Brian' where he's saying "What have the Romans ever done for us?"

There would have been 4 clubs left in Victoria with the other 7 wound up by the Commissioner for Corporate Affairs in the mid-1980s for trading while insolvent.

People. Stop looking for conspiracies around every corner. It's also possible that first year players had plenty of room to develop without the need for any added supplements.

Did Watson admit to anything other than AOD 9604? If not, then his admission is not relevant to the matter in hand.

So, to misquote someone (but not exactly sure who), the better we manage our players, the luckier we are.

Or it could be a diversion to distract the media from a less palatable WA-based story. Have there been any stories of concern out of WA regarding current or former WA players recently?

Agree. I'd rather find a way to keep all the current clubs. If that means not expanding into Tassie, ACT or even New Zealand, that would be my preference. Conversely, if further expansion would assist all Victorian clubs to survive, I'd pursue it. This is not a new story. The AFL (as the VFL) faced the same issue in the mid-80s and resolved it by expanding into Perth and Brisbane, and subsequently Adelaide. That still wan't enough, so the Victorian clubs got involved with poker machines as an additional revenue source. As much as I despair at the amount of control the TV networks have over the game, without their dollars we'd be in deep trouble.

There is simple logic to the decision to have a second team in each of Queensland and New South Wales. And that's to ensure there's a game in each of those two States each weekend. That then allows for a significant boost in TV rights revenue which then flows through to the 18 clubs. In short, without this expansion, the dollars flowing from TV rights would be significantly less and clubs like ours, the Bulldogs, North Melbourne and St Kilda might not survive. The argument is often made that Tasmania would be a better location for a team than GWS. Undoubtedly it would for community support. But it would do absolutely nothing for TV revenue because not only is it a small market, but the Tasmanians are already watching AFL, so there would be no net financial gain. Whether the implementation of the Suns and Giants teams has been well executed is a different question. However, no-one in the AFL would have expected that the Suns and Giants would be making money in their early years.

Which is what my second para was alluding to.

No offence taken. And if it looks like I'm sympathetic to Crowley or excusing him, that's just poor drafting on my part. I agree that an experienced player should either know what he can take or, if unsure about something, that he should check with the club Doctor.

I'm not excusing Crowley, but I suspect knowing which drugs and supplements are OK is a little more complicated than it sounds. Keep in kind some are permanently banned while others are only banned on match day and I think others only banned when in season. Secondly, drugs and supplements have different names and ingredients which often sound similar but are quite different. Having said all that, and speaking generally and not about this particular case, I suspect some players take non-performance enhancing, non-recreational drugs which they know are banned because they are masking agents and take the risk that they won't get caught. Particularly if they've done it before or someone else they know has done it and got away with it.

Only if he remembers to read the instructions about how to get there.

Yeah...nah. The psychological damage which would be inflicted on our players if we played our best team and lost is so terrifying to me that I would rather play our least experienced team while including players who "need the run" such as Watts. I'd rest players who don't really need any more training (such as N Jones, Lumumba, Dunn, T McDonald, Jamar and Cross).