Well, Dave Culbert interestingly fingered the Hawks the other day. Don't forget, this is the bloke who was aware of issues at Essendon as far back as 2011, when they were asking around for info within the Athletics community. He stated "that the AFL had concerns around what the Hawks were doing, and the Lions prior to that" whatever that may mean. I think he's a guy who has established some credibility during this saga, so it certainly pricked my ears as a statement of interest. Of course, we know that Hawthorn were into injection science, there is an article on that matter out in the public domain. Certainly, the Hawks have somehow managed to seriously defy conventional football gravity. A large group of their best players are playing career-best football well into their 30's. This traditionally hasn't been a normal occurrence, and certainly wasn't the case with the current era Cats for example. So it would appear the Hawks may be doing something better or different to their current rivals, and those of days gone by.
On the Cats, people can certainly continue the discourse, but just for the sake of accuracy the Cats weren't "investigated and cleared by the AFL". At the time of Essendons self-reporting, Geelong (along with Gold Coast) had an investigation begun by ASADA on the issue of whether illegal doping occurred. This saw the Cats hand over full records and their hard drives to ASADA, as well as provide full access to individuals for interview. The AFL's audit of the time was to investigate systems concerning governance, and was conducted on all AFL clubs. The Deloitte audit was an additional external audit commissioned at the time by the Cats. Certainly, like everyone else, I put zero store in any AFL audits findings, but it was ASADA who investigated us for any illegal doping and they clearly haven't uncovered anything that alarmed them. These are facts. And very recent history shows us that ASADA acts without fear or favour where the AFL is concerned, the Ess34, Saad, Crowley, Thomas and Keeffe are evidence of that.
Certainly, there is also plenty of circumstantial evidence that supports the claim the Cats weren't up to mischief. Firstly, Bomber had his role stripped back after the 2006 review significantly so it's hard to envisage a situation where he would've been intimately involved in Geelong's program with Robinson and usurping Balme and Steve Hocking, as was the case at Ess via Hird. Secondly, if Dank really had a Geelong grenade to throw he would've thrown it ages ago. It would be a massive story and certainly could net Dank more than a fistful of $$$. Those bullets have been fired and extended as far as Geelong legally sourcing some Actovegin from a company Dank was a part-owner in. Further, we had Investigative journos digging for info under every rock, and given the Bomber/Weapon link certainly on the lookout for a Geelong angle. Given the voluminous amount of dirt that was uncovered on Essendon, it's hard to believe some vast treasure trove of Geelong dirt has disappeared into the ether. Furthermore, given most of the internal football industry tends to know others secrets, it's hard to believe Collingwood would've poached Geelong's football manager (Balme) and Doctor of the time (Bradshaw) if there were genuine industry scuttlebutt about the Cats.
