Macca

Yep, no argument there ... from the word go he's been easy to read though. Shady types tend to act in a certain way. I remember making up my mind on the bloke after first seeing him on the 7.30 report Here's that interview from Feb 2013 if people want to do a revisit. The key questions about what the players knew is from about 6.15 into the video ... but again, what's true and what isn't true? Note that he mentions that the players weren't given anything other than vitamin B & vitamin C "intravenously" so, how about just straight injections then? Anyway, you'd be hoping that ASADA would produce the records if they had them ... couldn't Hunter's legal representation ask ASADA to produce them for his case? ASADA would have some documentation (consent forms etc) but I'd find it awfully hard to believe that they'd have detailed, accurate records of the injection program.

There are so many parts to this whole affair that could be believed or disbelieved For instance, yesterday Dank came out and said that the Essendon Administration destroyed all the records of the supplements program (or words to that effect) ... believable? Not necessarily. His comment could be designed so that people might assume that the records are gone and never to be seen ... wrap it up in a box and put a bow on top. Closure. It's my belief that there were records and they may still be intact and be accurate ... I also believe we'll probably never see them. There could be multiple copies too ... nothing should be assumed.

If the players knowingly allowed themselves to be injected with the supplements and know full well what they were given then how could they get a win in court? Especially when we consider that they signed consent forms as well. I can't see how they could even get any sort of "out of court" settlement either (if the above is true) Early on McVeigh was telling all and sundry that the players knew exactly what they were given - of course, once it looked like the gig was up, that tune was suddenly turned to "we don't know what we were given" Hunter never signed a consent form so he may not know ... then again, he might know and is just calling their bluff. For all we know Hunter might have been given TB-4 and he might know that he was given TB-4. Essendon & the AFL may well know that he knows. It was interesting that the EFC legal representative asked Hunter if he could tell them what he was given.

Yeah, I knew what you were saying and agree with you about the players not being forthcoming about the injections being the clincher. I just reckon there are a stack of people who haven't followed all the details ... so, to post up a sort of timeline could be beneficial to those who weren't "in the know." Bub's post above echoes my thoughts ... I've come across the very same scenario's - quite a bit. Of course, the points I highlighted were observations and in same cases, facts. And it's my take on things ... there's a lot more that could have been added especially with regards to all the major players (Hird, Dean Robinson, Doc Reid et al)

Only if it could be assumed that all those who are interested in this saga have already been educated with many of the points that have been previously talked about or noted. For those who were only mildly interested or not interested at all, the points gave a quick overview of many of the sequence of events. There are any number of people who only know bits and pieces and there are many who really don't know much at all ... my post wasn't aimed at the people on this thread who have been all over what has happened ... the contributors to this thread have largely come from a vocal minority (with only 1 or 2 people with a dissenting view) Sometimes it's worth repeating what may seem obvious to to those "in the know" ... it's my belief that most footy fans didn't bother to read the CAS judgement. And if they did read it, they may have had their thinking swayed (if, before reading it, they honestly believed that the players were totally innocent)

To summarise (in part because there's probably quite a few more ad-ons) The players claim that they don't what they were given. There were no records (yeah, right!) None of what they were given was illegal (apparently) Even though they don't know what the supplements were they had "cancer curing properties" (according to Thompson) Dank had a history of administering PED's to other athletes (according to WADA) The TB-4 was sourced from China (via Charter - Dr Ageless) The TB-4 was compounded by Avari (the South Yarra chemist) TB-4 was placed at the EFC The players signed consent forms allowing the club to give the players "Thymosin" (a fatal error of judgement as it turned out) The EFC gave the players TB-4 (according to the CAS verdict - comfortable satisfaction was reached) TB-4 is a performance enhancing drug that is banned by WADA The players failed to tell ASADA on multiple occasions that they were being injected with anything. (Despite seemingly believing the supplements were legal) The players seemingly never went to the ASADA site to check if the substances were legal. (Despite almost certainly knowing that that site was for that purpose) The players claimed (publicly) they were only given "vitamins" ... nothing illegal The supplements were "close to the edge" McVeigh claims that all players knew exactly what they were given - right from the word go Dank claims the EFC destroyed the records (why do that?) Many have been led to believe and many still believe that the players are "innocent victims" The points that I've highlighted haven't been shoved down our throats (yet the highlighted stuff seems to be the truthful stuff) ... conversely, the points that aren't highlighted have been shoved down our throats (yet it could be argued that those points may not be entirely truthful or are just flat-out lies) Anyone might think the points that aren't highlighted were designed to confuse a footy mad public ... and it very nearly worked except they didn't count on a tenacious WADA with a "comfortable satisfaction" outcome that was always quite feasible. The 17 listed players might end up getting paid in full but it's the 17 players who are no longer listed who the EFC should concern themselves with .. plus those other 10 players who may well have been part of the injection program who didn't sign consent forms (Hunter is already taking action whilst Zaharakis may be the only player of the whole 46 who stood apart)

Here's that Four Corners exposé on corruption in sport (shown earlier tonight) Tennis was a large focus of the investigative report with the sport having alleged links to illegal betting agencies throughout Asia. Well worth a look.

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It does seem quite apparent that San Diego and Oakland will both lose their teams though (sooner rather than later) ... I often hear Jacksonville's name being brought up too. And don't they want a team in London eventually?

And the Raiders could end up in Vegas ... the "Vegas Raiders?" There doesn't seem to be a lot of sympathy for the fans who lose their team ... in fact, the fans often get blamed. The money in the NFL is just ridiculous though - these decisions to move cities often involve vast sums of potential future monies. However, it does add a lot of interest to have a major sporting team operating out of Las Vegas ... not sure if that slogan "Whatever happens here, stays here" will necessarily apply though.

Just add an extra week or do away with the bye* The MCG doesn't need to be available for cricket until mid November (to get the surface ready for cricket from mid December onwards) ... Shield games should be played elsewhere (Junction oval, Albert ground) It's just a pure hypothetical anyway ... realistically, the AFL aren't going to change the format of the season proper or the finals ... at least, that won't be happening in the foreseeable future. *I'm not sure the bye idea will last long anyway (in my opinion) ... the fans won't like having a whole weekend without any footy. Also, the AFL will be handing the NRL a free hit over that non-footy weekend ... and that's not good for business. .

Excellent idea dc ... keeps the 22 games, spreads the interest and solves the issue that the current ladder poses (a bit too cumbersome in my eyes) I'd take things a step further and have initial "group stages" (as what happens in the soccer World cup) for part 1 of the finals series ... 2 groups of 4 could all play each other once (over 3 weeks) with the top 2 teams from each group* to meet in preliminary finals (with the GF to follow) A 5 week finals series with no week off for any team. The current finals system works too well. There's nothing that is particularly wrong with it but let's face it, the teams outside of the top 4 continue to just make up the numbers ... it's time to spruce things up. "The higher placed team (or higher seeded team) would always have home ground advantage in all the finals games (except for the GF) The groups could be made of a mix of seeded teams that have qualified for the finals (say, teams seeded 1, 4, 5 & 8 in one group with those teams seeded 2, 3, 6 & 7 in the other group) .

The same shady types who can supply the "substances" can often also supply the PED's. There's more separation now because some PED's may well be available through prescription but any sportsperson wanting to get hold of these drugs would probably not want any sort of trace of the drugs (PED's) that they might get hold of. I've always felt one might go with the other just because it carries similar risks (but not always, obviously) There could be any number of sportspeople who are prepared to go down both paths ... either/or shouldn't necessarily be the default thinking. I'm not siding with Cousins but we tend to point the finger at the more obvious types ... my opinion is that if any AFL player wanted to take PED's in the AFL, they could and can do so without a whole lot of risk. We're brainwashed into believing otherwise but the AFL aren't really trying to nail drug cheats (PED users) ... if they were, they would have ramped things up at least 10 fold from their 1 or 2 'urine' tests per player, per year (that's on average) ... that amount of testing has been in operation for a number of years now. Apart from anything else, the league should be conducting blood tests and lots of them. After the Essendon debacle you'd reckon the AFL might have gone on the offensive with a new "mission statement" but in a lot of ways, nothing has changed. However, I'm not at all surprised with that - transparency has it's price (as many sports have found out) But here's the other issue - the footy public aren't really demanding a tougher stance on PED use. Most are just glad the whole thing is over which to my way of thinking is rather dismaying. We can have clean sport in this country but the sporting bodies need to be on the front foot (big time) in order for that to happen. 9 years ago Paul Roos was calling for weekly or twice weekly testing ... tough penalties are all well and good but what if the testing procedures, standards and quantities of testing aren't up to scratch? I'm specifically talking about individual athletes going forward. The Essendon debacle involved a brazen and arrogant operation that was fatally flawed (as it turned out)

Roger fought hard but the joker too good Hoping Murray gets through as I reckon that match-up with Novak could produce a classic final.

The aftermath isn't coming as a complete surprise bub ... a few here (Sue, LH?) alluded to what might occur. Let's face it, the AFL is big business and they are acting like many a big business would.

And there's no better time for the coaches to make a statement than right now.

Ha! Just imagine the boards here if we'd also given up pick 7 for the other Jake. As it stands, we were seemingly always going after a KPF with that pick. Anyway, that's 9 years ago now (the Roos comment re testing players weekly/twice weekly) I wonder what brought him to say such a thing? Would any coach say it now?

Rampant use can mean a minority of athletes in a sport using PED's ... with a large majority being clean (eg ... 12-15 sprinters out of a total of 150 competitors) Most athletes in most sports? ... I haven't seen anyone here state that. Anyway, there are PED's for any sport one can think of ... for instance, EPO and HGH could definitely help a soccer player. Nandrolone could be quite helpful too ... of course, FIFA aren't really interested in testing their athletes properly - transparency has it's price. The AFL and it's member clubs would be fully aware of how so many other sports have rampant PED use ... they must hate the agreement they signed off on with WADA but guess what, they're stuck with it (for now) It won't mean that the AFL is suddenly going to be a clean sport from here on in though ... what is it, 1500 urine tests per season with close on 800 players? (a very knowledgeable poster here reckons it's only 700 tests) Weekly/fortnightly blood tests are required in my opinion if we really want a clean AFL ... blood passports were close to 'World's Best Practice' a few years back but that may not be applicable now. An old article but it could still apply today ... Paul Roos: Chase drug cheats harder

Well, he's not perfect then is he? ... everyone makes the odd error of judgement (if indeed, it was an error of judgement - see link below) However, on an overall basis, he's been a fantastic crusader for clean sport ... trusting in the wrong areas (sometimes?) might have been a legacy of his job. He would probably feel compelled to trust certain individuals even if he did have doubts. Such is the nature of what he was and is up against. In the following article Pound does hint that he may have thought Coe wasn't necessarily to blame ... Pound held Sebastian Coe's IAAF career at his mercy - and let him live

This article was from 2 years ago but it echoes what I've felt for some time ... Drugbuster Pound says doping is so widespread that he no longer has faith in sport at the top Some quotes from the article ...

In a lot of ways we are on the same page but where we differ is I'm quite cynical and highly suspicious of PED use ... but it's been a slow burn to reach this point. Every year my view has got stronger. Mine is a minority view and therefore an extreme view ... I doubt many will agree but my aim is to make people at least think about the issue.

By "most sports" I was being specific to high impact sports (it didn't need to be stated as such) Other sports under that banner include many of the Olympic sports, professional cycling, tennis & golf. I'm quite surprised that someone like you doesn't seem to have large concerns like I do. Where do you stand on PED use from a worldwide point of view? I'm genuinely interested.

Wrong I stated that PED use is in every sport and I stand by that comment. By most sports I was obviously meaning those sports that have a large impact. Minor sports would still have levels of PED use.

You want a 10 page essay? (because that's what it would take) I watch the 5 big sports I mentioned (quite extensively) and have done for a number of years. My views have been formed over a long period of time and there is extensive proof that at least 2 of those sports (NFL & MLB) have had widespread PED use .. the other 3 have shockingly poor testing procedures and standards (and penalties) so I have very strong views on those 3 sports as well.

There is PED use in all sports Chris ... even if it's only minor infractions in some of the more obscure sports (like rock climbing)