Undeeterred

Completely agree. They'll find someone to manage for a week, but nobody is getting dropped off the back of the last two weeks.

This is a terrible game of footy. Long chains of under pressure handballs then bombs to nobody. Awful stuff.

If that's the case, it has changed. Kids have been drafted straight out of high school for years (Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant are the best known examples that jump to mind)

That is a very, very good point.

Well sure, assuming Goodwin works out. Won't look so smooth if we win 6 games next year.

I probably should have resisted and not given it the oxygen it so richly does not deserve...

You have an indescribable knack for making them about you, so stop complaining when it happens.

I think if this were brought in, we'd see even more of a change towards athletes rather than footballers. The way the game has changed since the 1980s and 1990s makes comparisons with those eras a bit redundant in my view.

Sorry, you're right. I should stop expressing opinions on a forum, then spelling out my argument for other posters who respond as if they can't read. Well done.

Why would they do that the day before the B&F? They'd have to have rocks in their heads.

Go on mate, let go of the restraint you edited out and tell me what you really think.

That was crafted expertly. I reckon you spent a while getting that one right!

It. Should. Be. Private.

Mate, you've lost track of what you are arguing about. The original point that DG made was that footballers shouldn't be being tested for illicit drugs, because it is none of their employers' business whether they take them. Mine was slightly different, in that I said if they were, the results shouldn't be in the public domain. You said 'breaking the law is breaking the law'. I then asked what makes footballers different to everybody else, in that they should be actively drug tested because 'breaking the law is breaking the law'. If you go down that path, why aren't we all subject to drug testing every day, to make sure that we are not breaking the law. Because breaking the law is breaking the law, after all. Your argument is absolute nonsense. You say that footballers should be tested for illegal drugs, because they shouldn't be allowed to get away with breaking the law. But you only pin this on footballers, not everybody else. What makes them different to you and me? I'm subject to complying with laws in exactly the same way as they are. As are you. I'm going to stop here, because there is clearly no point debating this further with you.

Being in the papers. I don't take drugs, for the record, but it is still a private matter.

Sorry, but that's complete nonsense. The logical endpoint to your argument is making everybody line up as they get off trains at Flinders St to get drug tested. Hopefully you can see the flaw in your reasoning.

Not sure. I certainly don't care if they administer this one or not! That's separate to my more overarching argument that it shouldn't be in their policies at all, but that's another story. And I should make clear, of course PEDs are different. I'm just talking here about your routine weekend party drugs, which I assume is all we're talking about in Whitfield's case.

No more than any other employee who is subject to private, confidential drug testing, where it is reasonable. You can't draw a line and say footballers shouldn't be permitted to break the law, because the logical endpoint of that argument is that so should everybody. And that is clearly non-sensical.

This, perhaps, is the problem. What they really are is young kids paid buckets of money and given lots of spare time and adulation. The sooner we all see this, the quicker stories like this will become nothing!

The point is, though, who cares?

This.

I'm not talking about drugs in general, in society. Believe me, I see enough of the problems caused by that. My point is, why do we as the public have a right to know about a footballer's interaction with drug testers? In any other employment situation, this is an in-house process with your employer. Why are footballers different? Tell you what, if I failed a drug test (which I am subject to in my work) and it ended up in the papers, I'd be spewing. It's just not appropriate for the public to be involved in these issues as they related to AFL footballers.

Why the hell does anybody give a [censored] if some kids take drugs? It's just none of anybody else's business. I just have never understood the public nature of player drug testing, notwithstanding the three strikes hooha.

I agree, incidentally, but wouldn't want to dredge up the pages and pages people went on about Hogan v Cripps last year

Definitely. But you're clearly not processing what I'm saying, so let's stop here.