Macca

Fair enough ... I formed my view on the Sky sport team based on what the various pundits and commentators were saying ... if it's only 10% then it's not an issue. I blame Phil Liggett! That's of course if the budgets are all hunky-dory. I'll take your word for it though bing. But the issue of grading the cyclists and not letting any particular team have a glut of the well-graded cyclists is an interesting concept. However, they'd have to change all the rules of engagement for that to happen and right now the teams tend to operate in a 'free-market' sense do they not? The US Postal & the Discovery teams were dominant as well back in the day but we now have a better idea of why those teams were so strong But there's no denying that the Olympics and a lot of the Olympic sports has a major issue with PED use ... but I could say the same thing about the AFL, NRL, Tennis, NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA, Soccer, Rugby amongst others. I do think that cycling is much cleaner these days but it's not "clean" In a nutshell, I'd rather look at all the sports that can or do have a problem with PED use ... narrowing down the focus to any one particular sport I see as quite a futile exercise. I'll post the link below up again just in case people are coming here for the first time. Drugbuster Pound says doping is so widespread that he no longer has faith in sport at the top

That doctor was dismissed very quickly too ... at the time I thought it was bit of a hasty move given he may not have done anything wrong. I'm still not absolutely convinced he did anything wrong apart from have dealings with Dank. That in itself doesn't make anyone guilty of anything unless there's more to it than meets the eye. But as always, we're kept in the dark about what actually went down. Sacking the bloke so quickly tells us something though. Of course the bigger story was the EFC scandal so the 'related' smaller story never gained a lot of traction.

In Europe & the States it would be quite easy to get hold of any sort of PED. I see that as the heartland of PED use - it's where big sport operates and where all the money is H. What do they say ... 'Follow the money trail' But we're not as tucked-away in Australia as many might think. After initially being outraged by the EFC/Cronulla/Dank/Weapon/Dr Ageless/Bomba/GoldenOne scandal, I'm no longer outraged on reflection. It all makes much more sense now that we've got more information and we know the history. Didn't the Cats have most of those characters in employment? Fairly sure Dank was at least a consultant and Jimmy had previous dealings with 1 or 2 of them as well.

The other issue is how all these sportspeople get hold of these PED's ... my reckoning is that they're mostly getting hold of these drugs independently from different sources and in different ways from many other sportsperson. In any sport. In other words, they're not necessarily acting in cahoots. Their motto might be that if they're going to cheat, as few people as possible need to know about the cheating. It's entirely possible that there isn't necessarily a common source for these PED's as well. State sponsored drug programs, baseball (Balco) and the EFC & Cronulla are one thing but most drug cheats would probably act independently. Which means finding a paper-trail or a whistle-blower is a bit of a futile exercise ... it largely explains why there aren't many paper-trails or whistle-blowers unless it's a state sponsored exercise or its baseball, the EFC or Cronulla.

WADA, the Olympic sports & cycling can do as you say and keep samples for 20+ years whilst having numerous tests and rigorous testing. But what about all the professional sports who do very little testing? ... the testing in a lot of these sports isn't rigorous and most of these sporting bodies don't have any sort of agreement with WADA. There is a lot of money at stake and these pro sports do not seem to be interested in slowing down the flow of money. Transparency with regards to PED use has a cost. That's the issue right there ... and who cops the angst? The Olympic sports & cycling. I'm more interested in broadening the view ... I tend to look at PED use in every sport as a matter of course. This issue is about as complicated & complex as it gets. We could fix the Olympics & Cycling and almost certainly still be left with a much bigger problem. We'd just be shifting the focus to the next sport. But it's all academic anyway ... from a big-picture point of view we're miles away from fixing anything of any note. We'll still be talking about this in the same way in 5, 10 or 20 years. Or longer. We need a buy-in from big sport with regards to cleaning up sport but so far, big sport has been more than a little reluctant to do so.

Thanks for the thread H ... you've given me a free license to rant away My opinions aren't necessarily facts but I'm confident that I'm close to the mark ... the levels of awareness is my goal. I'm not sure anything is going to be fixed in the near future but open dialogue about the subject matter can't hurt. So many times these discussions turn into a competition of sorts but open discussion without angst is entirely possible.

The gap is getting bigger by the day H ... there is no challenge in my eyes. That ship has sailed. I'm no pessimist either ... on the contrary, I'm a positive person but have an unquenchable thirst for the truth in sport. No bs and no spin. WADA & the other drug agencies have little or no hope of curtailing things and the sporting bodies have no real interest in catching their own drug cheats. They're not interested in clean sport. Far too much emphasis is placed on the Olympics & cycling ... the professional sports are filthy with PED use and in my opinion soccer is the worst. You'd never know it though because soccer never seems to catch any drug cheats so the public then thinks the sport is clean. There are literally hundreds of PED's that will help a sportspersons endurance or leg speed - don't be thinking steroids necessarily. How can the biggest sport in the world (by a long stretch) be clean when numerous other sports are laden with PED use? It doesn't make sense. Are all soccer players squeaky clean? FIFA does virtually nothing to catch its drug cheats and none of the leagues do much of note either .,. the A-League does a token amount of testing but in the whole scheme of things, the A-League doesn't count. Sports signing up to the strongest WADA code doesn't mean those sports are going to do much testing and it also doesn't mean that the testing will be rigorous either. There are a lot of misconceptions out there H. There is so much below the surface - it's 'Iceberg-like' x 100.

We could take it back further and promote spin bowling in this country (and seam bowling for that matter) ... the Sydney & Adelaide tracks were often spin-friendly historically and even the Melbourne wicket used to take more turn. The Gabba was often a green-top and the Perth wicket used to be a lot more bouncy than it is now. The Sydney wicket would often favour seam bowling early in a test much like the Gabba used to favour seam bowling, often for 4 or 5 days. Now all our tracks are very similar (especially in comparison to yesteryear) ... so our batsmen and bowlers are not playing on enough variable wickets. I'm not surprised that we struggle on sub-continent wickets at all. The variance in our tracks was a reason why we've been the best performed tests teams ... we now struggle on spin-friendly tracks and when confronted with seaming conditions in England, we've also struggled of late. Curators creating flat decks that last 5 days is not necessarily the fault of the curators though ... the ground trusts, CA and TV all have a strong say in proceedings. I agree with you on the 'horses for courses' idea 'TD' but it shouldn't have necessarily gotten to the stage where we need to use that option. A good test batsmen should be able to bat in all conditions.

I don't have a problem with a sportsperson or a team gaining a competitive advantage as long as it doesn't 'cross the line' ... most would tend to agree but could differ on the 'cross the line' interpretation. Drugs are out in my book and so is salary cap cheating. It's up to the sports & sporting bodies to enforce a level playing field and many sports at least try keep things on an even keel ... but many sports don't. We could break down every sport but putting the drugs aside, I reckon the NFL gives all it's clubs a reasonable shot at it but baseball doesn't. The richer baseball teams don't always feature but they definitely have an advantage because they can pay their players more (soccer is very similar) Soccer has an almost zero chance of ever having a level playing field unless all the leagues got together and worked out a fair system - won't happen though as there are far too many vested interests and the big clubs are just far too powerful. In footy our club had very little money in the 70's & 80's and our zones weren't very fruitful ... the money issue was almost certainly our own fault but the zones were definitely an issue. So in comes the salary cap and the draft and suddenly we were in the mix again - a coincidence? Maybe. Cycling has an issue with the Sky team but the UCI could bring in measures to make them weaker and therefore make the other teams stronger. There was talk of grading the cyclists and only allowing the teams to have a certain amount of the better cyclists ... a salary cap (of sorts) could be brought in too. Despite what many might think, I'm not sure that footy is that lopsided ... the big 4 clubs in Victoria are all struggling to win games and most of our misfortune has been of our own doing. Clubs of our size can still have excellent coaching and creating an excellent list of players is always quite feasible. We've seen the transition in the last 3 years (in both areas) Our training facilities are first rate too. The Hawks do it better than most and good luck to them but ... but I'm not sure that the better performed AFL clubs should have access to free agents. The NFL has restrictions on free agency for the better performed clubs and it works reasonably well. The biggest problem in sport is always going to be the doping ... I honestly can't see the use of these PED's being reeled back in and can only see the problem getting far worse. And most of it won't be visible ... Don't test = don't catch = clean sport (in the eyes of many)

The after effects of these PED's is not something that I've ever given enough thought to but perhaps if the sporting bodies were all hell-bent on stopping their cheats then it wouldn't be another issue to add to the whole messy affair. I just assumed that these PED's are always going to have long term health effects based on what we already knew. But again, it's not an issue that many are interested in 'H' ... if it was of high interest there would probably be a lot more information available. As it stands, there's very little information available and that tells me a lot. The secretive world of PED use has a huge abundance of drug cheats, is 'virtually' sanctioned by the sporting bodies that these sportspeople are connected to, has very few if any whistle-blowers, so therefore, the public is kept in the dark. It's the cover-up that makes it worse in my eyes. If people here want to look at 2 documentaries on PED use click on the following ... as I said, considering how big the issue is, there's been surprisingly few exposés on the subject matter. It's as if we've all collectively turned our backs on the whole affair. Cycling's Greatest Fraud - Lance Armstrong Al Jazeera Investigates - The Dark Side of PED use

Ha! ... most of the previous stuff will go unreported for the reasons you outlined GtB. Also, because there is no real thirst for the truth from the general public. And that includes the happenings up until now. Most either don't want to know about it or they simply have no interest in the behind the scenes goings on. Oddly enough I came to terms with it all a long time ago and just continue to watch the sports regardless.

Learned very little from the show Hemingway but that doesn't mean the show wasn't of value to those who are totally ignorant of PED use. So the show probably appealed to a very large audience Good thread all the same H. We needed a thread like this although it may not get a lot of traffic - that's just how things work with these sorts of issues. Anyway, if the show was a 26 part series it might have scratched the surface but I saw the one hour show as quite unenlightening. I'm tipping there are a huge amount of people who must have led very sheltered lives if they didn't already know about most of what was addressed in the show. The health risks of using steroids? What don't we know! East Germany anyone? The focus being on 'athletes' instead of sportspeople in general was terribly misleading. The presenter made very few references to the professional sports where the real PED issue is quite widespread (as outlined in the link below) I suppose we should be thankful that he mentioned the 39 union & league players and the 50 NFL players (all in one year) But it's a lot bigger than that. Many would have come away with a firm focus on the Olympics only. My view is one of fairness - spread the pointed finger of guilt I say - and don't let any sport off the hook! Drugbuster Pound says doping is so widespread that he no longer has faith in sport at the top

Yep ... there's an old adage in footy that rings true ... "You called for it, you get it" A player making position is effectively calling for the ball and that recipient player has to take into account that the disposal coming in his direction may not be perfect. So often we see a recipient player give up on the play and not make a contest and that's half the problem. The pleasing part of that 50/50 yesterday was that Frost (?) didn't give up on the play. Frost played a really good game regardless. Also, players calling for the ball should be on the move and preferably moving at pace ... the player disposing of the ball then has an easier target. It's basic footy '101' Tom is obviously under instruction to set up the play from the backline and the coaches would be taking into account that he (and others) are going to make the odd error in that process. The team is a work in progress and so are many of our players. We could go back to kicking it down the line looking for a stoppage (2012/13) ... we'd then be screaming about how ineffective our transition out of defence would be. It's a risk/reward situation and I'm quite happy to go with it.

And an ineffective disposal is not necessarily the fault of the player who kicked the ball - although it might be. Our eyes tell us the true story - the stats can be used to strengthen or weaken an argument - for the same act or acts As an example - we won the clearances yesterday but we should have had a bigger advantage in numbers considering how dominant Gawn was in the ruck ... on top of that our clearances were sloppy and weren't clean enough. Viney, N Jones & Vince were all down on form whilst Tyson had a decent game. All 4 players have often all played well in the same game - if we're looking for a reason why we scrambled around yesterday, that's probably the main reason.

There's that and a few other factors like the pressure that a player may or may not be under when disposing of the ball or the options that a particular player may have who has the ball in hand. A hurried kick forward can be invaluable or not valuable depending on all sorts of factors ... that hurried kick forward is highly dependent on our players playing in front of their opponents I often prefer the hurried kick forward as opposed to handpassing to a player who is in turn going to be under pressure but not always - sometimes the ball ends up being 'released' from that initial handpass. The other issue is we often don't run hard enough to position ... for instance, Vince wasn't presented with enough options in the dying seconds of yesterday's game. Switching the play is often a poor percentage play in those circumstances so he had to go down the line where he was seemingly presented with just the one option. Not running hard to position is related to our ability to 'spread' The best players take the best options and then use the ball well - that's what makes them the best players. It's a 'captain obvious' comment but the reason a number of our players make poor decisions is that they're simply not good enough footballers. It's why we end up having to turn the list over more than the better teams.

Like any other club we're dependent on our best players playing well in order for the team to win or at least compete well. With the odd exception It could be assumed that our best and most dependable players are Vince, N Jones, Viney, Hogan, Garlett, Watts, Gawn, Tyson, T-Mac & Jetta. Our other senior players either can't get a game or aren't that good and can't be relied upon. In our recent game against the Saints only 3 of the 10 played up to their best form but 6 or 7 of the 10 played well against the Eagles last week. Against the Suns yesterday only about 5 of the 10 were at or close to their optimum. Of course, the rest of the team needs to contribute in some ways but as a general rule, the form of our best 10 players is a good indicator of how the team plays. Many of the other players in the seniors are youngsters or inexperienced players and the form of those players is understandably going to be up and down. The onus placed by the match committee on the youngsters or inexperienced players would be on the low scale - and rightfully so.

And that's why we drafted Weideman & Hulett ... unfortunately both players might take a bit of time but I'm not sure whether the FD will trade in a KPF. Apart from not necessarily having the bargaining chips, we might instead draft another KPF and play the waiting game (and the numbers game) Decent KPF's don't come cheap and most clubs try to get decent KPF's tied up on long term deals. In 4 years of free agency not many KPF's have been available (Buddy aside) It's the same story down back although Frost & Oscar are getting better - how much better is anyone's guess. As always, it's a waiting game and we again have to be patient. However, I am in favour of not putting all our eggs in one basket and competition for KP spots is a desired goal (within the team)

We were shocking back then and it wasn't difficult to find our faults ... jotting them all down was oddly therapeutic. You've got a good memory Col. Fast forward to the point we're at now and it's like chalk & cheese - we're not far away but we could still fall away - that's the nature of sport. Even if the Hawks win it all again this season they will as a consequence be hell-bent on improving their list and looking at ways of getting better - if our FD are thinking like that and can make good decisions, we'll improve and become a finals team. But nothing can be assumed. We have won 8 games but possibly could have won 1, 2 or 3 more ... but that's about it. We're just not that good yet. And we've tackled the better teams consistently well this season - in previous years we were getting towelled up on a constant basis by the better teams. We were never going to be a real contender this season and most/many of our supporters had no real vision of the team playing finals this season - the consensus was 9-10 wins and that's almost certainly going to be the end result. So ... if that's what the expected result was going to be shouldn't we be reasonably happy (putting aside those who dreamed of higher accolades) I'm satisfied with our year up until this point - but we still need to finish off the season well and we've got a lot of work ahead of us if we're going to be a contender. However, I believe we've come a long way and our list is in good shape going forward ... by the way, I felt no such optimism after the 2010 season (for different reasons)

For the most part we've played our best footy against the better teams this season. It does happen from time to time in sport but I've never seen it explained. However, I'd take those those unusual outcomes over only being able to play well against the lesser-lights. The unusual nature of our season shouldn't necessarily be seen as a negative ... previously the team went completely missing in big games (primarily for about 8 years) Our best performances this season has involved the games against the Hawks, Crows, North, Eagles & GWS. We weren't disgraced against the Doggies but we were towelled up by the best wet-weather team going around (Sydney) It should be noted that we've played reasonably well or quite well in most of our wins too. As others have said, take the win and move on but I'd rather start looking at the overall year and where we go from here (and that includes the next 4 games) Today was not a good indication of the progress we've made this season but at least the attack on the ball was more than decent. Our clearance numbers were good (again) but those clearances were often sloppy. The defence played very well as a unit today - they are obviously under instruction to use the corridor whenever possible (or switch the play) so the odd error is going to happen as a consequence of this departure from how we've previously moved the ball from the defence. That stands to reason. However ... We have to find a way to better utilise Gawns dominant ruckwork. We definitely need some outside class and run but finding those types is easier said than done We need to learn how to spread better - the teamwork is there but it lacks polish. The FD might be better off trying to convert some of our inside grunt into outside runners. Of course, the off-season awaits and some of the solutions could or should be found there.

Ideal timing isn't it? Cable (foxtel) aren't partnering ch7 this time around so I hope ch7 utilise all their channels (7mate, 7two etc) .

He's in high demand for "sporties" and that will continue on. He's not addressing the United Nations (wouldn't that be a laugh?) It's how these things work.

I could understand the outrage if we'd lost heavily and didn't give a yelp. Hate losing like anyone else but despite losing yesterday, it was one of our better performance for the year. There's often a very fine line between winning & losing and yesterday's game was a case in point. I actually took a lot of heart from the game and our efforts proved to me that we're on the right path. We lack big game experience, finishing skills and poise but ... that evaluation could have been said at the start of the season with a view that it's going to take more than 1 season to overcome those shortcomings. We're probably going to have the same sort of issues towards the end of next season but those issues probably won't be as pronounced. We're not Hawthorn or Sydney (yet) The current list needs time but the FD still needs to add some more good footballers to the list. And there is no reason why the upcoming off-season won't be fruitful. The sky is not falling.

What are the chances of the public finding out the truth about this incident? We may end up finding out whether the 'graze' was caused by a bullet but I'm not going to hold my breath on that either. "There's a lot more to this than meets the eye" was never more apt.

The chances of his injury coming from a bullet aren't great but if it were anyone else, we may be inclined to possibly believe that a bullet did cause the injury. People are so conflicted with Dank that they end up having a default mode of not believing anything he ever says.

Stephen Dank warns he won’t be silenced over shooting at Melbourne home A 'Police source' was attributed to a number of comments in the above story - some of which are a trifle baffling. Who knows what to believe with anything surrounding this bloke but what we do know is that the shooting was very real. Make up your own mind on the injury but I can see how a 'bullet' might have caused it. I do have my doubts though and those doubts are strong. It was reported that he was asleep on his couch when the bullets came flying through his front door but that might not be true either.