Retired # 4: Jobe Watson - Retiring end of 2017 - farewell to a champion

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Aussie Assault

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Reappointing him as captain is the best news of the offseason in my opinion. He seems determined to turn the club around and can go a long way at leading by example on field. I'm not sure if Heppell can really do that, and falls into the same category for me as Murphy, Cotchin & Swallow who can quite easily be shut out of a game. I understand there's more to a captaincy than just on field, but when you're sides up against it, you want a captain that can stand up and lead by example.
 

Liberator

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He is a gem. Seems to be a bloke of high moral principles - would have been mortifying for him to have been impugned and pressured and dogged the way he has been over the last years/aeon. Guilt, self-doubt, second-guessing: these kind of things can afflict you even when you weren't 'guilty' as such, when something traumatic happens, particularly to those you care about. Bloody awesome that he spent some time by himself, and had a few quiet pints at the oval or wherever it was. Looks lean and freer from the sidelines. Reckon he might surprise a few this coming year. Onya Jobe.
 

Mr Mojo Risin

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His dad did alright after he took a break from footy. Omen.

If he fires this year I'm starting a business running mid season sabbaticals for established players needing a break (might extend it to blokes on 3 strikes and those who play for teams going the tank). Just need to come up with a wanky name (Leaving Teams?) and have drones like Luke Darcy pump it up.
Gold :D
 

SherbertLemon

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His dad did alright after he took a break from footy. Omen.

If he fires this year I'm starting a business running mid season sabbaticals for established players needing a break (might extend it to blokes on 3 strikes and those who play for teams going the tank). Just need to come up with a wanky name (Leaving Teams?) and have drones like Luke Darcy pump it up.
Underrated post.
 

Ess_don

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If theres one thing I want to see out of this shit situation, is Jobe feeling fresh and fit and not only going around again in 2017 but that he kills it.

Feel like he has unfinished business and he was raring to go this year, would love to see him out there again. Bloke deserves to go out in a blaze of glory and stick it to all the nuffies who rip into him.
 

ant555

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Going to put the Brownlow talk here. They can take it away from him and give it to someone else but nothing changes the fact he played well that year
and on the night he was the bloke up there collecting the medal.
I had a conversation with one of the ex storm players through work last year and he said they can never take the memory of the day away even if their name is no longer in the record book.
Personally i would take the medal back to AFL and tell them to get ****** if it was me but i tend to be on a different train than most people.
 
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Going to put the Brownlow talk here. They can take it away from him and give it to someone else but nothing changes the fact he played well that year
and on the night he was the bloke up there collecting the medal.
I had a conversation with one of the ex storm players through work last year and he said they can never take the memory of the day away even if their name is no longer in the record book.
Personally i would take the medal back to AFL and tell them to get stuffed if it was me but i tend to be on a different train than most people.
I wouldn't keep the medal either.
 

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Lore

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Jeffrey Browne says Jobe Watson should be allowed to keep his 2012 Brownlow Medal
ONE of footy’s most influential legal figures says the AFL must “assert its authority” and allow Jobe Watson to keep his 2012 Brownlow Medal.

Lawyer turned TV boss Jeffrey Browne said the AFL Commission had the right to “prefer the decision” of its own anti-doping tribunal, which cleared the Essendon players last March, when deciding Watson’s fate next month.

Browne, an AFL life member, was the league’s senior legal adviser for 21 years, playing a key role in some of the game’s most significant developments, including the formation of the draft, salary cap and illicit drugs code.

He said removing Watson’s name from the Brownlow honour roll because of this month’s Court of Arbitration for Sport’s guilty verdict was “an appalling prospect which just doesn’t cut it in any application of common sense, fairness or the AFL rules”.

“There are two decisions on the liability of the Essendon players — both are different,” Browne said.

“But if any real sense is to surface through this mishmash of allegations and counter-allegations, the AFL Commission must — as it is perfectly entitled to do — prefer the decision of the AFL anti-doping tribunal for the purpose of determining if it should retrospectively interfere in the awarding the game’s highest individual honour.

“The AFL anti-doping tribunal, comprising two eminent former County Court Judges and a former player, delivered a carefully considered decision, arrived at after lengthy submissions by the parties, who were all fully represented.

“It has been suggested that the case before the AFL anti-doping tribunal was botched by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority, but that is nothing more than a convenient excuse for those now gunning for Watson.

“ASADA confirmed following the decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, that the evidence presented before CAS was the same as that before the AFL anti-doping tribunal.

“It is also alleged by ASADA that the AFL body applied the wrong test as to the level of satisfaction it must achieve before reaching a guilty finding, but again that is simply incorrect, the test in both cases being ‘comfortable satisfaction’.”


As a signatory of the World Anti-Doping Agency drugs code the AFL is required to enforce the 34 suspensions handed down by the CAS, but the results of individual awards, like the Brownlow, are decided at the discretion of the AFL Commission, headed by chairman Mike Fitzpatrick.

Watson has been invited to front the commission on February 15 to argue why he should not be stripped of the Brownlow he won in 2012 — the year CAS declared he and 33 Bombers teammates were administered the banned peptide, thymosin beta-4.

Collingwood football boss Neil Balme last week urged the AFL to walk away from the WADA code.

Two Magpies players, Lachie Keeffe and Josh Thomas, were suspended last season after testing positive to banned performance enhancing drugs.

Browne told the Herald Sun on Monday: “It is clearly open to the AFL Commission to prefer the decision of the AFL anti-doping tribunal to the split decision of the Swiss-based CAS in determining any further consequences beyond the suspension of the 34 players, a result the AFL has to accept having agreed to the WADA code years ago when its reservations and protests about having to do so were drowned out by threats from government to withdraw critical funding for proposed stadia development.

“Jobe Watson has never tested positive to a banned substance and has been cleared by the independent AFL tribunal.

“To strip him of his medal would be the pinnacle of injustice in a regrettable saga where too many errors of judgment have occurred.

“The AFL Commission should assert its authority, over its game, according to its rules and either jettison debate on the topic altogether or confirm Jobe Watson as Brownlow medallist for life.”

Essendon chairman Lindsay Tanner has also declared that Watson should retain his Brownlow, despite being rubbed out for the entire 2016 season.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/a...l/news-story/aabec6e2b2b172d3683b11a60d6217ea

P.S. If the paywall screws you over, clear your cookies ;)
 
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