La Dee-vina Comedia

And the so-called "biochemist Shane Charter" would be with him.

i know there's not a lot of love for James Hird on this website. But he came back from a serious foot injury and eventually led his team to a premiership. Let's hope for the same result.

It's a pity this didn't all happen in the 15th century so Shakespeare could have written a play about it. Or maybe he did. Macbeth seems to have all the requisite players including witches making a vat of prohibited substances. James Hird would be Macbeth having 'murdered' Matthew Knights. I wonder who Lady Macbeth might be. Mark Thompson? David Evans?

No worries FerdDaDee. It's all going to boil down to one thing: Was AOD and any other substance taken by the payers banned or not banned when it was administered? As I've said all along, I suspect Essendon is arguing that the substances were not banned at the time they took them*. How they can argue that is difficult to see on the publicly available information. *I guess there is an alternative argument - that the players (and the club) believed what they were taking was something other than prohibited substances and that they were genuinely mislead by those doing the injecting. If that were true, I suspect some sort of criminal offence (medical fraud? is there such a thing?) might have occurred. If that happened, the Club will be severely punished because you would have thought there were sufficient warning signs (eg, injecting off-site) to raise a red flag.

I assume you understand that the concept of tipping is that the result of the game affects the tip and that it's not the other way around.

with both feet.

45HG - as always a more interesting analysis than that provided by the mainstream media. Well done.

Is there any way we can go back to the date of this opening post and start again? I'm all for skipping the last two years. Bit like Bobby Ewing and the dream sequence in Dallas all those years ago.

I would have thought written advice from ASADA would trump any online list, thereby, in relative terms, making the online list irrelevant. Of course, it remains to be seen whether ASADA provided written advice, and if so, what it said.

Bizarre. Carlton needs key position players, not mids. Nevertheless, I'd be quite happy for Carlton to continue to recruit players they don't actually need (but not Nathan Jones).

The most amazing thing about our pre-season training in Darwin was how badly our marketing people managed the photo opportunities. Who was the genius who thought it would be a good idea to have a photo with players sitting in and on an army tank when the club was being investigated for alleged tanking?

While I like the tribalism argument, the zone system was essentially unfair. Some clubs (eg Carlton with the Bendigo area) had much better zones than others.

And the upside of ASADA making a mistake and Essendon being cleared would be that Caroline Wilson would have more egg on her face. And possibly one or more large defamation actions to defend.

Of course, someone from ASADA may have actually made a serious mistake. ASADA, like all organisations, is made up of a bunch of people so human error is always a possibility. My suspicion is that this is what might have happened. In short, someone at ASADA may have stuffed up and given Essendon formal advice which turns out to have been wrong. There must be a reason why Essendon has remained confident throughout this whole ordeal. It would also explain why Jobe was prepared to admit to taking AOD publicly.

Perhaps the plane became unbalanced because of weight distribution problems. How was the plane set up? Jamar sitting on one side and Robbo, Bail and Wonna on the other? Or does Jamar+Bail = Wonna+Robbo?

The background to this is actually quite interesting. In the 1980s, the then VFL commissioned a review of its structure and operations. While it is well known that the VFL adopted the Commission model and national expansion, what is lesser known is that the report also recommended making sure the VFL (now AFL) remained a sport where the masses would attend every week and not just for major events (what the sports world calls the "theatre-going crowd"). The VFL (now AFL) has pretty much adopted that mantra ever since. The NRL and cricket went the other way (whether deliberately or accidentally I don't know) and put all their eggs in the big events basket. Now both sports get big crowds for State of Origin and Ashes tests but relatively small crowds to almost everything else. This can be highlighted by Melbourne Storm's game last weekend. They were thrashed because they rested players before the State of Origin - which ultimately devalues the home and away games and tells supporters the premiership season is not that important. I suspect the AFL believes that State of Origin wouldn't work because it would damage the premiership season. And the clubs don't like it because who wants their best players being injured in a game that's meaningless with respect to the Premiership?

In 1986 there were plenty of doomsayers who predicted the national expansion of the then VFL would be a failure. And for a while Brisbane as the Bears were dreadful. People should not confuse the merits of expanding into NSW with the methodology used. In my view, the AFL has made two mistakes. They should have started a second team in NSW at least 5 years sooner. And they allowed local GWS management too much control in some of the key implementation decisions. I am in no doubt the AFL expected GWS to have a greater mix of moderately experienced and young players from day 1 - not young players blended with retirees such as Power, McDonald, Brogan and Cornes. That playing list decision was a local idea which may pay off in the future in terms of performance but has tragically damaged the GWS and AFL brands in western Sydney in the meantime.

Eade coached well at the Bulldogs with what he had - but they never seemed to recruit appropriately to fill their weaknesses. Was that Eade's responsibility or their recruitment/list manager's fault? Craig coached well enough to consistently make finals but with enormous resources couldn't take the team to a Grand Final. Williams has been a Premiership coach and has clearly been a mentor (or trainer) of subsequently successful coaches in Clarkson and to a lesser extent, Hardwick. Yet Bailey was also a protege of Williams. Neeld was an effective Assistant Coach highly regarded by his senior coach at a Premiership team. In short, the publicly available information does not provide sufficient information for us to judge who would be the right coach for us. I just hope our coaching panel know what they are doing and what to look for.

Are we sure he got passed over at GWS? I recall some commentary that he left GWS because he wanted to live in Melbourne (because his wife wanted to. And quite frankly, who wouldn't?)

Arguably, Mitch Clark is the only "best 22" in that list.

I think it's more likely he'll do a Toyota Great Moments in AFL TV advertisement. Perhaps a new one with James Hird showing his joy when Essendon gets away with nothing more than a slap on the face with a wet lettuce leaf.

Would've been even better if it was North Melbourne we were talking about: Rude Roos rues Roo's ruse. Or maybe Nick Reiwoldt... Rude Roos etc etc And talking of North Melbourne, is Dean Laidley considered to be in the senior coaching field? Not sure about his marketability (which, unfortunately, I think has to be part of the package these days) but I have great respect for him as a tactician and someone who appears to get the best out of his players.

Or perhaps their parents.

The New York Times online has just published this story about the Walpiri people and the birth of a new language. There is nothing in the article about football or Liam Jurrah, but Demonlanders might be interested in understanding more about the rigours of living as a Walpiri. For example, I didn't know that in 1948 the Federal Government forcibly removed 550 residents of Yuendumu and relocated them to Lajamanu because of drought and overcrowding. And that twice those 550 residents walked back to Yuendumu only to be forcibly removed once again.

I'm just concerned that we'll find that we've mixed up our mythical characters and instead of being Sisyphus we'll find out we're actually Icarus, get to the top of the mountain and have our wings drop off. In answer to the question initially posed, I think it's passion. The Demons may not give all the rewards that passion can deliver, but they also don't expect anything in return.