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Performance enhancing drugs

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TroyUgle

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West Coast Eagles
I'm a big fan of Open Mike, but I must admit I'm not pleased with the way he insinuates we were on the gear during the early 1990s - which he seems to glean some sort of sardonic amusement from.

When interviewing David Rhys-Jones, who levelled these accusations against us and Fitztroy in his book, Sheahan said: "I was in the media at the time and was aware of these suggestions, and certainly some strong suggestions about the rapid development of players at West Coast."

Then on Monday when the Paul Couch episode aired, he led him into a question about our development during that time. Couch responded with:-

"They were massive, from '92 to '94 they had muscles on their muscles. I couldn't believe how big they were."

"At half-time I was going off the ground and I seen the little league roll onto the ground and I'm going 'I should be with these blokes then I could get a kick'."

"Jakovich and Mainwaring they got pumped right up, I don't know what they were on, they were good steaks over there."

After this, Sheahan chuckles and says: "Good steaks, you reckon?"

I know Trevor Nisbett publicly shot down the Rhys-Jones claims in 2002 with: "It is not true and never was true. Hard work is a very good substitute. Our players had never previously done weights programs and that is why they improved so dramatically."


So, what is the story? Is there something grave that could be unearthed here? Should the club write to Sheahan, or do anything to respond to these insinuations?
 
TroyUgle said:
I'm a big fan of Open Mike, but I must admit I'm not pleased with the way he insinuates we were on the gear during the early 1990s - which he seems to glean some sort of sardonic amusement from.

When interviewing David Rhys-Jones, who levelled these accusations against us and Fitztroy in his book, Sheahan said: "I was in the media at the time and was aware of these suggestions, and certainly some strong suggestions about the rapid development of players at West Coast."

Then on Monday when the Paul Couch episode aired, he led him into a question about our development during that time. Couch responded with:-

"They were massive, from '92 to '94 they had muscles on their muscles. I couldn't believe how big they were."

"At half-time I was going off the ground and I seen the little league roll onto the ground and I'm going 'I should be with these blokes then I could get a kick'."

"Jakovich and Mainwaring they got pumped right up, I don't know what they were on, they were good steaks over there."

After this, Sheahan chuckles and says: "Good steaks, you reckon?"

I know Trevor Nisbett publicly shot down the Rhys-Jones claims in 2002 with: "It is not true and never was true. Hard work is a very good substitute. Our players had never previously done weights programs and that is why they improved so dramatically."


So, what is the story? Is there something grave that could be unearthed here? Should the club write to Sheahan, or do anything to respond to these insinuations?
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I think if there was Anything to worry about, we would have known about it already. There would have been too many people to keep quiet for waaay too long. Including partners, family etc who may have become estranged over time.

Also, I think with all the focus on PEDs in the last 24 months it would have been brought out if true.

Just jealousy, we took "their" cup away.
 

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Wouldn't that be a story... the Eagles were a phenomenal team back then.
 
jesterwester said:
I think if there was Anything to worry about, we would have known about it already. There would have been too many people to keep quiet for waaay too long. Including partners, family etc who may have become estranged over time.

Also, I think with all the focus on PEDs in the last 24 months it would have been brought out if true.

Just jealousy, we took "their" cup away.
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absolutely this

Yeah Jako was big, but as already mentioned, if Kempy was on the gear he got a very bad batch.
 
the harry said:
Mainy's first contract was "$100 a win, $50 a loss". If they were full time, it wouldn't have been long before making the GF in '91.
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I've never seen Mainys contract but I did see/discuss contracts with a fair few Eagles at the end of the 80's and early 90's and they certainly made a lot more than that.

They all had base salaries too. And anyone who saw Mainys house, bought from his earnings in football would likely agree he stretched those $100 win cheques a fair way.

The Eagles were more or less pro from the beginning. But certainly they were essentially pro by the Mick era.

The link to drugs was our use of Matt Barber as a strength coach but the bigger issue was that we committed to it and frankly other clubs didn't have strength coaches in any meaningful way.

We were a big team, but look at the videos now and we don't look that big.

It was started by Leigh Matthews and his "they are so far ahead of the rest of us its like they are from outer space, maybe they should be called the Asteroids instead of the Eagles" ....

I know several from that era very well and it's just bollocks


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Taking into account all the replies so far, someone needs to have a word in Sheahan's ear. Acts like it's an open secret we were juiced up to the eyeballs.
 

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At the end of the day though, the AFL wasn't signed up to the WADA code back then either, so what does it really matter?

Like others have said, after all these years, someone would have spilled the beans by now you would think.
 
Eagle87 said:
I've never seen Mainys contract but I did see/discuss contracts with a fair few Eagles at the end of the 80's and early 90's and they certainly made a lot more than that.

They all had base salaries too. And anyone who saw Mainys house, bought from his earnings in football would likely agree he stretched those $100 win cheques a fair way.
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That was from his book. Been a while since I read it (obviously), but always struck me as not much, so wouldn't be surprised if there was more to it.
 

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the harry said:
That was from his book. Been a while since I read it (obviously), but always struck me as not much, so wouldn't be surprised if there was more to it.
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That might have been his original contract the harry because I recall he stalled contract negotiations because the Eagles didn't want to pay much and he was threatening to leave if they didn't stump up the cash. The story went that he then went on to a $3k per match bonus, or something like that.
 
UpForGrabs said:
Paul Couch is shocked that Glen Jakovich got muscles?

My god, imagine the surprise when you take an already large 18 year old boy and put him on a full-time weights program!
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The thing is, Jakovich was playing at 6'4/100kgs. That's not exactly absurd when you consider Wayne Carey was 6'3/97kgs and Paul Couch's own teammates, Gary Ablett Senior was 6'1/97kgs and Billy Brownless was 6'3/102kgs. Sure you can argue muscle composition, density skin-folds etc but it's not unreasonable to believe that West Coast was simply better conditioned than their opponents.

People see what they want to see.
 

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