Dees2014

The Irish are hardly in a position to judge though...

WADA does not get involved until the local punishments are handed down, apart from issuing guidances of various kinds.we won't know Wada's attitudes until it has had time to assess the local penalties. This could be second or third quarter next year. As we have said many times here, there is a long way to go in this saga. And that is as it should be in view of the importance of the issues involved and the implications for the individuals. If a Hird wins his case, then both ASADA and WADA have made it very very clear the whole process starts again including possibly re interviewing all parties. So what has Hird's obsessiveness achieved? Well apart from wasting a lot of other people's money, precisely nothing except [censored]. In fact it is worse than that - it has very substantially delayed a settlement to the very great cost to players and especially the club he professes to love so much. The whole thing has been a catastrophe for the club and its players, engineered almost entirely by Hird and his wife.

There is no basis at all to expect WADA to "chicken out". Their record in enforcement of the rules is impeccable especially in the face of very substantial pressure on local affiliates like ASADA and USADA. They have had no hesitation in enforcing the international law where their local affiliates squibbed it either through corruption or political pressure. This after all is why WADA was set up the way it was because there was the perception that particularly in the "Third World" international rules would not be enforced transparently. Ironic isn't it, that first world Australia has been the most public miscreant but still lectures the rest of the world how to behave.

This would never get past WADA. Their intransigence has condemned them even if the AFL wants a way out.

Don't forget, WADA is watching. If the AFL goes soft on penalties ie less than two years, WADA will take it to the international Court of Arbitration in Sport and they are likely to end up with more than two year bans as a result of being so intractable. Either way they are gone!

I think it's great. When the penalties are handed out, Hird is banned, ESSENDON goes broke, the board resigns en mass and are charged, Connolly and Robinson will both be totally discredited. Don't hold your breath though waiting for them to be held accountable by losing their jobs (as they should do as this is seriously sloppy journalism) - both the AGE and the HS are playing the marketing game:,ie there are seriously large numbers of people who agree with these two so they are catering for their needs. At least the AGE has the likes of Caro as a counter - I can't say the same for The HS. Robinson after all is chief football writer. He should no longer be employed either by News ltd or Foxtel. He has no credibility left.

Well normally if you admit guilt and FULLY cooperate it is reduced from 2 years to six months which if you are smart can be taken in the off season which is what Cronhulla have done. By fighting it, and tying it up in courts, there will not only be no reduction, WADA/ASADA can increase the penalties which is what I believe will happen to ESSENDON. in addition of course, Worksafe are about to start an investigation which won't necessarily affect the players, but could very substantially effect Hird and the Board including heavy fines and even jail terms.

No, I am saying ESSENDON under Evans would have sought to negotiate a settlement, kept everything out of the courts, probably admitted guilt, and be given a 6 month sentence in the off season, instead of fighting every inch of the way. I know Cronhulla are not directly analogous, but that is effectively what they did. It is also what the AFL originally sought to do. Once Evans left and Little and Hird came to power with THEIR litigious hangers-on, it has all been downhill for the EFC and many of their players. Once they started fighting WADA/ASADA they were doomed, and Hird and his sociopathic wife have only made it 10 times worse than it need have been. However, I still think there are other issues yet to come out, and an early settlement for the players would have not saved the coaches, doctors and board members from justice when it eventually arrives.

Can I also add that I believe much of this article is either libellous or is factually incorrect. For this reason I am not endorsing it directly. What I can say is it illustrates very graphically the need for an ICAC in Victoria with teeth. It also shows why neither party wants one because then all this stuff will be exposed, and there will be a plague on both their houses. To illustrate the distortions and untruths in the article, I can tell you the Essential Media Communications (EMC) are not a Brisbane based company. Whilst they have an office there, they are very strongly Melbourne based and are the preferred PR company of the AFL, especially in crisis management, and have been directly involved in nearly all of the PR crisises the AFL has had to deal with in the last 10 years. A senior member of their team was brought into ESSENDON when the drugs scandal broke, but she was advising to settle and was turfed out when Evans left/was sacked/ resigned whichever you prefer. I can tell you though if they had have continued in this, the scandal would have been over in 2013, and there would have been no infraction notices issued. By Hird/Little allowing the money hungry legal profession to take over, they have guaranteed this to go for years. They are a gift which just keeps on giving!

I think there should also be included here strong Liberal Party connections on the EFC board. I don't think this is a party political thing. It is much more about endemic corruption. There is a long way to go. I am waiting for the expose from The Age Insight Team.

OD, I think we all want it resolved, but not at the expense of justice. The players association, EFC and to some extent the Federal Government have been putting pressure on to get it resolved. However, to do it quickly would only mean ASADA/WADA would have to cut corners, thereby handing EFC, the AFL, and Hird a trivial sentence. This is what I think the EFC cabal's strategy is, while all the time slowing it down via irrelevant court cases, all designed for maximum public and political impact, and then blaming WADA/ASADA for the delays. The political pressure on ASADA/WADA to get this resolved has been immeasurable. It is exactly the same tactic that was used by Lance Armstrong's lawyers against USADA, and that resolution took four years until it burnt itself out in the US Courts.Fortunately WADA/ASADA seems to be made of sterner stuff. I have been immensely impressed with both their integrity and their resolute determination to go through the process in order to come to a just decision irrespective of the political games the EFC, the AFL and Hird try to play on them. Fortunately, there are a number of key people of integrity left in this whole sorry saga, and I for one don't mind how long it takes as long as there is a just outcome in the end, and that means the demise of Hird, and his lackies on the EFC Board.

You point being? What do you think we should do?

Or argue for roads not trains - like Tony Abbott except he banned all federal spending on trains, but I won't go there..... I think the point here is that power forwards are gold and the good MFC sides have had them in spades. Think Lyon, Schwartz, Neitz. These guys got us consistently into the finals. To forego this opportunity in my view would be stupid, but Demoneyes might be right. I fear he is, but I think we would regret it, like we have with Nicnat, Darling, Wines etc etc

And I think we are. I trust Roos and co. to look in the long term. Big guys take time to develop and he has shown enough that he will develop into something significant. Think Jolley, the Russian etc, except Fitz has genuine speed and is a fine kick for goal. His marking could be better, as could his consistency and intensity, but he shows considerable long term promise and I for one are happy we are persisting with him.

I must say I would have Grimes before Kent, maybe swapping Dunn into the forward pocket and put grimes down back, otherwise, like this side particularly with Brayshaw and Mccartin in. Mccartin and hogan could be anything, and frees up Howe to be his destructive self. Exciting line up.

I understand what you say, but I think the fallout has not yet really begun. Hird will be rubber out, probably permanently, his 34 infraction notice players will receive multi year bans, and the board will all be gone. There is not much to build upon and to attract great talent. ...

Absolutely not. Viney is very young and inexperienced and has a teenager's body; Cross is experienced but his 34 yo body is slowing down and prone to injury; Riley I think is slow and no more than a filler, and a not very good one at that; and Jones, if you mean the captain as opposed to Matt, then he is our only bona fide A-grader. Hawthorn has 10 plus a-grader mid fielders. We have a long way to go. Robertson is a mature bodied, mature age recruit, and would have been a good acquisition. As it turns out I understand he is off to Brisbane. Maybe there are some hard bodied types in the PSD. We need some tough nuts. I can't name any in the line up like the ones I listed above.

Personally, I think we need a few hard nuts. The best melbourne sides in the last 20 years have all had thrm, by which I mean finals sides: Biffen, Grinter, Pickett, Neitz, Whelan, we don't have the fear factor, however much we recruit sublimely talented athletes. Robinson is the closest to this in the draft. We should get him.

l.In my consulting business, I have advised a couple of people who have been thinking about going for senior management jobs at Essendon. Frankly, there is only a limited pool who are prepared to take the risk of damaging their personal brands with that of a potentially fatally tainted brand of the EFC, and they are almost never the top flight. Although I wish Neeld well, I suspect there was an element of this in the latest appointment: the fatally tainted (in football terms) Neeld brand meeting the potentially tainted Essendon brand. Although Essendon are one of the best payers in the AFL, they will struggle to attract elite talent whether it be on the field or off it until the unfolding scandal is resolved which is a number of years off IMHO.

I have stated as recently as yesterday if you look back on my threads on this topic that I think legal action against Essendon from various stakeholders (including players) will lead to the current Essendon going into liquidation and the liquidator will sell the brand into a new entity, but it will take them years to recover. I also think the penalties from WADA on the players may well be above the mooted 2 years and I think there is every likelihood Hird will get a life ban, and some EFC directors may get jail terms as a result of Workcover investigations which are likely to commence before Xmas. I don't resile from those predictions one iota. I would have thought these outcomes are pretty substantial. Further investigations are difficult to predict until the wider scandal becomes apparent, but if the information I have is true it will be massive,

Unfortunately, I can't reveal what I know for obvious reasons, but if you look at the nature of this scandal, the people involved, it is not difficult to draw certain conclusions. I'm sure it will come out in the end, but beyond that I don't think I should comment further.

I suspect once Bomber Thompson put his name out-there for the Don's Job at their B&F night, and then the club subsequently reneged on firing Hird, that Thompson has now thrown his hands put in the air and said "I give up, I am out of here" and therefore sees no reason why he should pay the fine if he no longer has any AFL ambitions. The question I ask though is what does Tania and James Hird have on Little and the current EFC board. My lawyer friends tell me this is a pretty straight forward case: Hird has been negligent and there is a very clear case for him to be dismissed for gross incompetence without compensation. Instead he was signed on for an additional two years for just about the top salary for a coach in the AFL, he was then rubbed out for 12 months for failing to implement adequate governance, but was not only paid his full salary but he and his family was sent off to France on a prestigious short form MBA at one of the top universities in the world accompanied by his wife and kids. Conservatively would have cost Essendon all up between $1.5 and $2m. Now, when 34 of the players who played under him received infraction notices, he still is able to hang onto his job in spite of the fact that he is pursuing legal action directly against the wishes of Little and the EFC board supposedly for legal technicalities. I say again my legal mates think this is very straight forward case of incompetence. He must have something else on them, possibly unrelated to the drugs saga. That seems the only explanation. If I am right then it will come out, and it will become an even bigger scandal than it is now. My contacts in the legal profession have a very good idea of what it is, and if they are right, it will make the other sporting/social scandal in the last three years look tame by comparison, and will create international headlines even if there is no awareness of AFL as such in the international news outlets. There is much more behind this than meets the eye and it is eye-bogglingly scandalous! Hird is a creep.

Yes Roos has also said on more than one occasion after Casey received hidings under Welsh that is very important that the Seconds are competitive and have a winning culture. This has been true really up until the Welsh/Neeld era where Casey was usually in the finals and before that Sandringham was nearly always competitive and won several flags under us. I suggest Roos has been dying to do this all year.

Mm mm......what a strange thing to say. Frawley was all Australian, Maloney/jamar combination was the best ruck on baller combination in the AFL under Bailey, McLean almost single handedly won us our last finals win. Rivers was rookie of the year and lived up to that for most of his Melbourne career and is a permanent fixture in one of the top three teams in the competition.The rest I agree with.

I agree there are no direct precedents, but there are plenty of indirect ones. It is just, as far as I know, there are none where there has been such a systematic attempt to cheat through drug taking in a major sporting club at a major sporting code. I go back to the WADA world congress in South Africa last November when John Fahey was still President. They apparently had a half day session on I think the topic was something like "Drug taking in major professional team sports". It turned out to be almost entirely about Essendon and to a lesser extent about Cronulla. As I have said before on this forum, the world is watching Australia on this issue. We have been regarded in the past as having the gold standard when it comes to drug control in sport as well as having the gold standard in our overall excellence in sports performance. In sporting politics, we are a superpower. The sporting world was greatly shocked at the revelations relating to our major football codes as we were previously regarded as probably the least likely to have this sort of thing happen. Now world sports have expectations we will keep our previously high standards in place, and that is exactly the reason why this issue was given such extensive coverage at the peak world anti doping body's world congress. Basically, if we can't clean this up, no-one can, or could reasonably be expected to. We simple can't afford, neither can WADA, to let vested interested bodies like the AFL, or if it comes to that, the Federal government influenced ASADA, drop the ball in this issue. If anything, since that congress, Essendon and the players' association have become even more intransigent. For this reason, it would not surprise me if WADA are thinking a penalty of even greater than two years is in order for the players and a life ban for Hird. Then watch the writs fly. It will break Essendon in its present form, and some directors will go to jail under Workcover rules, The old Essendon brand will be sold into a new entity by the liquidators, and the AFL will wipe their hands of it. It will take "the new Essendon" though years to recover, as it seeks to build a brand new set of players, and to recover financially. The financial fallout though will be felt by a multitude of entities tied up in this for decades to come. Let's hope it doesn't diminish the strength of the code itself though in the face of increasing challenges from Football and changing lifestyle stemming from Social Media and other technological changes.