Deecisive

does anyone know was there prize money or other benefits from winning the brownlow that the new winners would be expecting?

Looks like the AFL is holding off making a call on the other clubs being allowed a topup player until Essendon has had their pick of the pack. We may then get to choose from what is left. While we may be looking for a rookie, I would assume that we would be constrained by the same rules as Essendon, i.e. only pick an ex player who has left the game in the last 2 years.

So when is Dank looking to clear the Essendon players, October or November this year?

How can the AFL give the medal for the best and fairest player go to a player found guilty of taking drugs, this defies common sense and logic. Taking a vote on it shows a total lack of leadership and ownership by the AFL who will be looking to use the opinions of other clubs to sanction their dishonesty.

I would assume that any payments by Essendon, Melbourne, Port, Dogs or Saints to disqualified players would be not be permitted under the CAS ruling. The players will need to sue to get paid compensation for the loss of past, present and future earnings. This could get very messy as Essendon tries to battle their own players.

I wish Jamar all the best at which ever club gets him, most likely essendon because port is unlikely to get to top up. I doubt Jamar will do much at Essendon, his last year with us was pretty ordinary and his now another year older. I hope that Spencer can step up and help Gawn, their game together against Geelong last year was pretty damn good from both of them. It would be fantastic if they could both continue to play at that level.

has anyone seen any progress with smith?

Shows Eddie loves Bucks more than he loves Collingwood.

just another attempt to find some way to give Collingwood another chance at getting into the finals without getting into the final 8. Nice try eddie, but final 8 is more than enough as those in 6-8 position really are only also rans to pad out the finals.

lawyers will continue to push any and all grounds for appeals and delays, when they run out the they will have other lawyers push for the players to sue the club and the original lawyers will push to vigorously defend the suit. Years of income and xmas bonuses for the legal fraternity on this still to come.

if they go ahead and continue to appeal they will only drag this out longer for the players. This strategy has allowed Essendon to move from 34 players in trouble to 12, another couple of years it will be 8. the problem is that this will continue to hound these players and will have a significant impact on their health and wellbeing. I doubt you are going to get the best performance out of them under the circumstances. In fact they are likely to get sued for a lot more money as a result of this. but this is more about the club than the players, a club that has shown they have happily discard and trade players to reduce the impact of any suspensions on themselves. I would not be surprised if quite a few of these players want to walk away from the club at the end of the year as you can bet they will sue the club and you can bet Essendon will fight them which means that they will further be entrenching the club vs the player attitude. I guess what p*sses me off the most is the complicit nature of the AFL in this, letting them take more players, letting them have more salary cap, etc... these are things that undermine any penalty handed out. Any funding contribution by the AFL to any appeal would only continue to show they prefer a strong essendon even at the cost of the games integrity.

I cannot wait to see him play, he seems to have poise that even when facing someone tackling him, he has time to side step, or the strength to still get the ball away. He seems to like to move the ball on quickly and not afraid to tackle and appears hungry for the ball. All excellent attributed that we have lacked in some of our previous mid fielders.

What date are the Essendon players suspended to, if suspended around draft time would they be eligible to be traded?

I thought I read in an article somewhere that the essendon players may go overseas to do some high altitude training to help maintain their fitness. I would assume the club would not be allowed to pay for or sanction or support such activities. One wonders if they did if this would count towards their salary cap?

Wasn't there also mention of nude self pleasuring action videos which is a little bit more serious than just sending around a selfie.

This like the Essendon saga comes down to comfort level on the level of proof of an offense. The police would only be looking for a crime, as there was insufficient evidence of a crime the police were not issues. The AFL and Richmond therefore took the easy way out as there was no crime Dusty was absolved of wrong doing even though he clearly demonstrated extremely poor judgement/behaviour, whether he threatened with a chopstick or not he was most likely drunk and offensive and by his very size and demeanour would likely be seen by the woman as being threatening. The fact he was given a suspended sentence indicates that the AFL and Richmond both figure he has not really done anything wrong. This does send the wrong message to players, a few grand out of dusty's pocket would not have been a big deal and would have sent a message to both him and other players to take care.

Cannot see it happening, WADA has too much invested in this and what grounds do they have. Really all judges found them guilt, but 2 to 1 on whether they deserve a lighter sentence. I wonder what happens if they start to fight it does the penalty clock still keep ticking or does it stop, so if it takes 3 months to get a court ruling then they add another 3 months on to their sentence, after all they have not accepted it.

Questions I would like answered are: - so what did the players take. - why do you not have records on what they did take - Why was dr reid kept in the dark about the program. - Why has Danks not come forward to testify on your behalf if nothing is wrong, why has he not produced the records if he does not want to testify - why have you not tried to force him to provide the documentation on the program. - How could you sanction a treatment when you did not even have a clue about what the players were given. - How could the club spend $700k without any for or accountability or governance program in place to monitor safety and its effectiveness. - if you don't know what they were given how can you say they were not given prohibited substances. - You mentioned early on you would accept responsibility, just what did you accept responsibility for. - Do you believe your self righteous crusade has helped or harmed the players - The Essendon football club is likely to be sued for $60m+ by 30+ players for lost earnings, shortened careers, pain and suffering.who at the club should bear responsibility for this situation. Just have to wait to see how many of these are answered.

I think Garry made a good point, Essendon is probably not the only one team that had players that took prohibited drugs just like Melbourne was not the only team that tanked. He is demonstrating the manufactured outcomes the AFL creates to sweep things under the carpet.

I hope Jamar does get a gig with Essendon and I hope he sucks as much money out of them as he can...

As has been mentioned many times clubs measure everything, they know what a player eats, what his training times are, how he sleeps, how often he goes to the toilet. All essendon had to do was provide the documentation they or Danks kept on the program to break the cable. You cannot run a program if you are not measuring a baseline then the deviations from the baseline as the labrats, players react to the treatment. There is no way this stuff was not being measured, even in the essendon players times you may have seen some sort of change in behaviors. So Essendon is saying NOONE but Danks new what they were being given, and only one set of records existed and it walked out the door with Danks. And that Essendon the owner of the data has not tried through legal processes to get copies of these records returned to them. looks to me like Essendon pulled the chain that flushed their players season down the drain.

I think we did the right thing, a 2nd rounder would not have gotten a lot of air time unless we have a lot of injuries he would still take a year or two to grow into the role. Melksham was a gamble and I believe the club expected some sort of sanction but were happy to go with it. He will be a big bodied player again next year and ready to play. We need players who can play in the next 2-4 year as our window of opportunity opens. getting youngsters is for rebuilding your list. we are pretty well past that, only have a couple more to get rid of at the end of the year and we should have our list to take us into finals.

They will put a team on the field and that team will be trying their heart out, they may not be quite as good as those they are replacing but they will push sides. We fell foul of their top up team last year so it is possible that they will win a few, I just prey they don't beat us.

interesting that it is suggested that we should not take him because he is a drug cheat, where as the mighty Melbourne football club was just a tanking cheat. Football is game is full of cheating, people staging for frees, people suggesting the touched balls that they didn't. that their fist did not actually make high intentional contact with another players face... When people or teams get caught they serve the time, when they get away with it as other tankers and probably drug cheats have then they just keep quiet.

I find it difficult to believe that a Team doctor would not show more interest in what is going on, he obviously had some concerns, what was the basis for those concerns. So he writes one letter and figures I don't need to do anything more? How can he be an effective team doctor without knowing what the players are injecting so he can consider the impact that these drugs could have on any treatment he prescribes. I also find it utterly incompressible that no-one other than Danks knows what they really took, or has records, receipts, etc.. and that if they took nothing illegal then why has Danks not come out with the records to prove it. I would assume that as his employer at the time and as the matter is about health and safety that Essendon could have tried to legally compel him to provide that information. but they did not and again I wonder why?