James Hird has a big choice to make in the next few weeks.
Having come this far with his challenge against the legality of the ASADA/AFL joint investigation into the supplement program at Essendon – and four Federal Court judges have ruled against him – he must decide whether to seek leave to appeal to the High Court.
Opinion is divided as to whether this is a good idea. Leaving aside the potential impact on players, whether a coach should be concentrating entirely on the forthcoming season and so on, let’s get down to brass tracks and look at this strategically.
For whatever reason, Hird wants the evidence in the current tribunal hearings into allegations 34 current and former Essendon players were given a banned substance thrown out. Again, we’ll skip the competing argument as to why that might be. The reality is that going to the High Court is a very high risk manoeuvre with a relatively low chance of success. Failure will cost him heavily in metaphorical blood (almost certainly his job) and treasure (hundreds of thousands of dollars). But success, however remote the chance, would change the entire course of events so far. It would be a stunning victory and one that would most likely vindicate Hird and remove the threat of suspensions from his players. It would be the famous come from behind victory of his career, eclipsing even the the 1993 preliminary final against Adelaide, or the 2001 game against North.
Risk vs. Reward
Is it worth risk? Let’s look to history for some examples.
Its late in 1944, a brutal winter having taking hold, and the Allied forces in the west of Europe have broken out from the pocket around the D-Day beached the Germans had initially contained them to. With US troops and materiel pouring onto the continent from the now secure ports the German high command knows it cannot stop the juggernaut by defensive measures alone. But a bold strike that cuts the Allied supply lines and strands hundreds of thousands of troops far from the coast and dependent on notoriously unreliable air supply drops for everything from ammunition to food and medical supplies for the wounded could change the entire complexion of the war.
The German troops are man for man far more effective than their relatively green Allied counterparts. The junior officers are superior tactically and the Wermacht inflict major losses on their opponents in nearly every engagement before being driven back by the sheer weight of Allied numbers and their overwhelming air superiority. The Germans also have far superior equipment – the legendary Tiger and Panther tanks – and their 88mm anti-tank guns shred Allied armour with bone chilling ease. Not only that but Hitler’s beloved wunderwaffen are beginning to roll off the production lines. Jet powered Me262’s wreak havoc on Allied heavy bombers and their fighter escorts, but there’s simply not enough of them. V2 rockets which can’t be intercepted once launched hit London, but again, not in sufficient numbers to make a genuine difference.
So the Germans take the risk. In a surprise attack employing what is left of the Luftwaffe and the best of the armoured units, the Germans enjoy initial success, destroying Allied planes on the ground and making advances through the Ardennes in southern Belgium and northern France. But the attack slows before it can reach the coast and cut the Allied supply lines. Despite brutal fighting at places like Bastogne, the Allies manage to hold on. By late January the last German offensive of the way is over and Third Reich is unable to prevent the relentless Allied march east.
But was the attack worth the risk and what has it got to do with James Hird? I’d argue it was – just as Hird has already sunk vast sums of money and staked his reputation on these court cases, so the Germans had already been fighting for five years by late 1944. If the Battle of the Bulge had gone Germany’s way, who knows what might have happened. Hundreds of thousands of US, British and Canadian troops encircled and killed or captured would have been a massive blow to Allied morale. It would have bought Germany enough time to get fleets of Me262s into the sky and regain aeriel supremacy. And dozens of V2s raining on London every day would have had a huge impact. The Allies could well have agreed to a peace on terms Hitler could accept. It was a long shot, but victory in the west would have allowed Germany to concentrate on defending against the Red Army in the east.
A prudent gamble
The same goes for Hird. He’s come this far that spending another $100,000 at the High Court would be the greatest bargain ever if the court were to rule in his favour. The court has overturned the judgements of lower courts before, and Hird knows it will do so again. Maybe even for him. Even better if Hird can get someone else – cotorie groups and the like – to foot the bill. The problem is though that the German gamble didn’t come off. They lost and they lost everything. Hird loses and he’s at football’s equivalent of the Nuremberg trials.
But there’s another more recent example that might give Hird great hope. When the bloodthirsty legions of the Islamic State descended on the sleepy Kurdish town of Kobane nestled against the Turkish border late in 2014, everybody expected what had happened everywhere else to occur again – the inhabitants of the city to flee and those unlucky enough to be to caught killed or sold into slavery. After all, IS had taken far bigger cities like Mosul defended by far better equipped forces than the the YPG/J militia defending Kobane.
But the men and crucially – hi Tania – women of Kobane decided they simply would not lose. They would stand and fight. At first the world admired their bravery but gave them no hope of success. The IS juggernaut would soon roll over them. But said the YPG/J fighters, things change and the longer we hold on, the better the chance things might change in our favour, some unexpected outside event might come to help us. So they fought with ancient AK47s against opponents armed with modern American heavy weapons captured in their rampage across Iraq. And they held on. They retreated but the made IS pay in blood, equipment and crucially time, for every room in every house on every street. The locals began to call the fight the “Stalingrad of the Kurds” and for good reason.
Then it happened. The change the YPG/J defenders had been hoping for. President Obama gathered together a coalition of the willing and suddenly the IS besiegers of Kobane were were bombed and hit with missiles from drones on an hourly basis. The battlefield dynamics changed rapidly and the Kurds gained the upper hand. Two weeks ago the Kurds claimed they had defeated IS entirely and driven them from Kobane. Soon after the Islamic State issued a statement acknowledging their retreat. The Kurdish strategy of bloody minded resistance to the very end had prevailed.
No retreat
Will the High Court come to Hird’s rescue in the same way the USAF did for the Kurds of Kobane? It is not without precedent. Indeed, that is why the High Court exists … to overrule lower courts when they get matters wrong, or misinterpret issues.
If Hird can find the money, and given he just came into a cool $4m+ after selling an investment property, then he should indeed go to the High Court. He’s come this far. To retreat now is to guarantee defeat. To load the rifle with one last clip and hope the jets come soaring overhead to his rescue, like in a movie, is worth it, because sometimes these things do end just like in a movie.
Ask the Kurds of Kobane.
