No Oppo Supporters CAS hands down guilty verdict - Players appealing - Dank shot - no opposition - (cont in pt.2)

[Nifft]

You missed the bit where Norf couldn't afford the programme

Maybe they could have taken supplements via enema, are they cheaper than injections? You'd certainly be worried about taking any mysterious Mexican substances at an offsite enema room though.

 

[Zach Package]

did lol at 'ronnie' calling up twr and bringing up the 11 other clubs.

Immediately shouted down by the chimp that walks upright, who's parting line was 'only essendon was proven to have taken illegal drugs'

I salute you Ronnie, you never even had a chance

 

[pepsi]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-18/holmes-afl-spring-clean/5031326

Have we secretly hired Tracey Holmes? I will have none of this sensible journalism around here!

Seriously though, it is a good article, wish there was more of that this year.

 

[IggypopsTshirt]

Maybe they could have taken supplements via enema, are they cheaper than injections? You'd certainly be worried about taking any mysterious Mexican substances at an offsite enema room though.

Meanwhile at Tullamarine.

 

[Beerfish]

Have we secretly hired Tracey Holmes? I will have none of this sensible journalism around here!

Seriously though, it is a good article, wish there was more of that this year.

Great article.

Could only read the first few comments before it started to feel like the HTB had set up camp though.

 

[Darealrath]

Tried talking about this with some people at work during the week. People I consider intelligent, and certainly with no bone against Essendon, yet I got absolutely nowhere. They kept referring to infractions, found guilty of drug use etc.

Very sad to be honest.

 

[DrKrieger]

I think I've found the reason for the disconnect! The HTB use a language very similar to English, but some English phrases have very different meanings.

For example, saying "all of the 12 clubs need an inquiry to determine what was taken and how widespread the problem is" is translated by the HTB as saying "Essendon did nothing wrong, and furthermore, NO U!"

 

[theboxmike]

I think I've found the reason for the disconnect! The HTB use a language very similar to English, but some English phrases have very different meanings.

For example, saying "all of the 12 clubs need an inquiry to determine what was taken and how widespread the problem is" is translated by the HTB as saying "Essendon did nothing wrong, and furthermore, NO U!"

The HTB are completely delusional.

 

[Matthew_Lloyd]

Wronged Bombers deserve an apology from the AFL

• GRAHAM CORNES​
• THE ADVERTISER​
• OCTOBER 18, 2013 8:52PM​

Has suspended Essendon coach James Hird been wronged? Source: News Limited
WHAT a dilemma the AFL now has. After hitting Essendon with the harshest of all penalties, and an unprecedented disqualif-ification from a finals series for its supplements program, it now finds that 11 other clubs had been doing something similar.
Of course the Essendon situation was nowhere near as bad as we had been led to believe and its penalties were far too severe.
It's just that in the face of negative opinion that had been driven by some subjective sections of the media, the AFL had to be seen to be acting tough.
What is true is that the Bombers did supplements better and more professionally than everyone else.
They certainly invested a lot more time and money in its program. And contrary to some public opinion, Stephen Dank, the man driving Essendon's program, is not some sort of mad scientist.
He just knew his stuff and was prepared to take it to the limits of what was prohibited and what was not.
Dank, in various capacities, had been working with several AFL clubs, including Melbourne with Neil Craig, our former Crows coach, fitness and conditioning coach, and a highly qualified and vastly experienced sports scientist himself.
I would back Craig's sporting integrity against anyone's. If Dank's practices had been unethical, there is no way Craig would have tolerated an association with him.
But there were other clubs as well, one in particular, which did not care if they stepped over that faint line of sporting propriety, as long as they weren't caught.
They weren't, and only Essendon, in the face of political interference and opportunism, rang the AFL and ASADA and said "come and investigate us, we may be doing something wrong".
Ten months later, the politicians who grand-standed are gone, and nothing has been proven against Essendon or its players.
Yet to appease certain sections of the media, and some sections of the football public, the Bombers had to be sacrificed.
No wonder their new chairman, Paul Little, fought so hard and took the AFL to the brink of a long and expensive legal stoush.
In the end, the AFL won, as it always will. You can't fight City Hall and you can't fight the AFL, so eventually Little and coach James Hird choked on their unprecedented, unfair penalties but had no real alternative but to accept them.
Hopefully, this whole mess will have a positive outcome. The AFL will make significant changes to its Anti-Doping code, although I doubt it can take it far enough.
As a coach and a father of footballers, it has always worried me just how far players and their teams will go.
Nutritional and strength supplements have been used now for decades. How can you ever be sure what is in them?
Ahmed Saad is a classic example. The young St Kilda player tested positive to a banned substance that he had apparently ingested in a freely available supplement.
How many others have done that and not been caught? It worries me that players take so many nutritional supplements and pills. If the AFL is serious, it must ban all supplements. All supplements!
All the nutrition that a footballer needs can be found in natural foods. If you think you need something more, take up power lifting as a sport.
It worries me that players are allowed to take as much caffeine as they like before a game. It particularly worried me one day watching Carlton warm up, that so many of the Blues players were using a puffer. Surely, they weren't all asthmatics.
It worries me that doctors can inject an injured player with local anaesthetic to get him back on the field.
It worries me that in the face of revelations 12 AFL clubs (without counting individual players at other clubs) had supplements programs, the AFL chose only Essendon to hit with sanctions.
Somebody needs to say sorry.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/sport...ogy-from-the-afl/story-fnii08h3-1226742771503

The bolded got my attention. Where the fk are ASADA?

 

[BomberFan355]

I wonder which club he is talking about? This might stir things up abit.

 

[Doss]

Non-specific and rather cryptic.

That's a very serious allegation if true, though...

 

[222EB]

We know the influential Melb press are AFL sycophants & are that controlled they'll do nothing, we can only hope the interstaters keep the pressure on & start revealing names & details as they come to hand.

 

[yaco55]

Cornes is a mate of Stephen Dank's so his articles will be slanted one way. But the core things that Cornes has argued during the course of the year stay the same.

 

[IggypopsTshirt]

Boy o boy wowee!! Something is going to give soon.

 

[VelvetSledge]

Jesus christ Kong your avatar is one of the best things ever

 

[rines]

You can't fight city hall.. if only that wasn't true.. if only the club had shown the balls to fight this..

We were doing the same, but maybe better, as most of the elite teams.. and yet we get singled out...

Travesty that the club accepted those punishments.. absolute miscarriage of justice..

I guess we now know why all 17 other clubs lined up against us.. make sure the AFL didn't turn the spotlight 1 inch to the left and right!!

 

[rines]

The AFL, as an entity, should be embarrassed by how it has handled all of this from start to finish.

The EFC, as an entity, should be embarrassed by and large by how we handled this from start to finish.

The football public, mostly, should be embarrassed by how they have discussed, talked about and frothed over this issue.

 

[Doss]

The AFL, as an entity, should be embarrassed by how it has handled all of this from start to finish.

The EFC, as an entity, should be embarrassed by and large by how we handled this from start to finish.

The football public, mostly, should be embarrassed by how they have discussed, talked about and frothed over this issue.

Hard to argue with any of that, to be honest.

 

[Harlequin]

The AFL needed a strong club to be the face of their anti drugs in sport campaign and we were it. They wanted a rogue Club and it was us it doesnt suit their image to admit there are others. The 17 other Clubs all stood with the AFL to suit their own agendas whether it's financial support or having the powers that be turn a blind eye to what was happening within their own Clubs.
AFL and Integrity Department never a truer oxymoron
,

 

[Go_Blues!]

Interestingly, Essendon seem not to be the only club that self reported, nor it would seem, are they the only club that are under investigation.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/a...r-doping-worries/story-fni5f22o-1226743081022

 

[Yoda_]

It's pure guesswork who the clubs are, or indeed, aren't.

If the sole motivation of any investigation was purely to clean up the game, without a care about the public relations and image consequences, then you would throw the whole kit and caboodle open. Every club, the VFL, TAC, the works.

However, no investigation will ever be purely about that because whoever heads it has an interest or stake of some sort.

under rated post

 

[Ben the Gooner]

Hopefully this momentum picks up. Cornes is the sort of big name needed to champion it.

 

[Yoda_]

The part that startles me.. is that it has taken till this point before the media started to pull the thread..

I, along with many others, posted back in Feb when this broke that "a lot of clubs will be scared".. knowing that this kind of supplement program WAS happening at almost all footy clubs..

The shameful way that the AFL and the AFL controlled media tried to paint this as an 'Essendon' issue rather than a league wide issue is disgraceful.

To kick us out of the finals is, and will always be, disgraceful.

To suspend a coach that did nothing more than delegate responsibility appropriate and not act like a control freak maniac.. is disgraceful.

The AFL can never give back our finals series for 2013.. or what might have been.. but it can have the decency to immediately come forward and admit they knew this was happening across the board, admit that they still have no evidence our players took anything illegal and admit that they have had to change the rules and guidelines to address the issue.

They should immediate suspend the fine.. suspend Bombers fine.. suspend the draft sanctions.. suspend Corcoran's suspension and suspend Hird's suspension.. pending the outcome of a FULL and FRANK investigation into each and every other club in the league.

I would add.. this should have been done at the start. a 'Ziggy' type report should have been conducted at every club, every club should have had its players interviewed by ASADA.. it should have been done properly.. rather than just prosecuting the one club that was stupid enough to try and do the right thing..

I know for a fact that supplement use is rife at at lease one other 'big' AFL club..

This whole thing rankles me..

*And yes I was referring to Saad being suspended for 2 years.. I still am extremely confident no EFC player will be suspended over this issue.

Sorry to go back a few pages, and not sure if people have replied to this but the thing that strikes me from these new articles by Tracey Holmes and the likes is the unbiased point of views, the actual content within the article, quotes and information, not just stupid profanity parading as fact that Caro and the like have done.


As for why it has taken until now? Caro, Ralphy, Mark Stevens must be on holidays, surely?

 

[Matthew_Lloyd]

Sorry to go back a few pages, and not sure if people have replied to this but the thing that strikes me from these new articles by Tracey Holmes and the likes is the unbiased point of views, the actual content within the article, quotes and information, not just stupid profanity parading as fact that Caro and the like have done.


As for why it has taken until now? Caro, Ralphy, Mark Stevens must be on holidays, surely?

Sure, let's call it "holidays". They'll be careful not to report on this and upset dear uncle Vlad. Disgraceful

 

[Darealrath]

Hopefully this momentum picks up. Cornes is the sort of big name needed to champion it.

The best we can hope for is that public opinion gets swayed back in our favour a bit. No chance the AFL will punish other clubs for anything related to governance.

The campaigners.