Fair enough, I'll tell you what I think for your interest and everyone else can just ignore it.
Apologies for the long post but there's a lot of ground.
For what it's worth here my take on it all is two things happened, one, Essendon were made a scapegoat for competition wide issues and two, the wrong people were punished for the sake of appearances.
On the first point, there is no doubt there were issues at most of the clubs in the competition in terms of potentially operating outside the drug codes and the AFL knew it. My personal view is there were three other clubs who were on the 'Essendon' tier, and then 10-12 others who had at least some degree of question around their conduct in this area, either on a club wide or individual player basis.
So by my take, there were up to 15 of the 18 clubs who were dirty, and four that were filthy. The former part of that is on public record, the latter is my educated guess based on things that I now know. (Full disclaimer the club I worked at was in the second group).
My view is that the AFL knew there was an issue and wanted to put a stop to it and rather than blow up the competition selected Essendon as the fall guy.
Why Essendon? Like most questions in this saga the answer is Stephen Dank. He was the differential between Essendon and the other clubs on the same level, because he was an unqualified moron who was running wild. There were also unquestionably links to organised crime there which made Essendon a good choice for the AFL/federal government relationship.
Had the codes been applied to the letter I believe the 2014 season would have been destroyed, 4 clubs unable to play at all and a large percentage of players across the entire competition suspended. It would have taken a very long time to recover. Hence the scapegoat.
On Essendon itself, what happened was absolutely diabolical. When you are in a position to understand the trust that young men and their families put in clubs to protect them and be responsible for their welfare, it makes you sick in the guts to think about what was allowed to happen to them. Disgrace doesn't even begin to cover it.
Having said that I absolutely believe that there was never anything but the right intentions from anyone at Essendon, including Dank.
In terms of actions (As opposed to process, procedures and governance) , Dank was the entire issue at Essendon.
The problem was he had no training or qualifications for the position, nor the knowledge or expertise to perform it, as well as being incapable of performing the critical tasks of the role. In short he was a buffoon playing at being a sports scientist who never should have been there. The fact that he was there is a combination of Essendon's poor process and him being a skilled con man.
So who is responsible for him being there in the first place? Ultimately the chain here goes the board, the CEO (Ian Robson), the Head of Football (Paul Hamilton), High Performance Manager (Dean 'Weapon' Robinson) and then Dank. So if Robinson brought Dank in to the club, then Hamilton and Robson had to sign off on his job. If the guy was not qualified and didn't have the skills to do the tasks he was charged with aren't they responsible for that? Remind me what sanctions they copped again?
Then you get to what actually happened at the club. You've got this unqualified buffoon running around the place, getting hold of all sorts of supplements, thinking they will do all sorts of things and saying he is doing things he isn't like keeping records, or paying attention to and understanding the codes. So how does that happen?
Firstly the guy who was his direct manager could be politely described as a meat head. When the underling is the smarter person, the manager finds it very hard to challenge them. Again who is supposed to be making sure Robinson is capable of, and actually is managing Dank. Hamilton and Robson. The only plausible explanation for Dank being able to run amok is that wasn't happening.
So where does Hird fit in all this? People outside clubs have a view that the AFL coach is the all-powerful being in the footy club, that nothing happens without their say so but that is just not the case. Hamilton is Hird's boss. Hird sits as an equivalent to Robinson in terms of organisational rank, he just has a more glamorous role.
Everything I have seen and heard reported or attributed to Hird in this is absolutely consistent with every other coach I have ever seen in sport in terms of their relationship with sports science or medical teams.
To a person they want their players faster, stronger, fitter and healthier than the opposition and they want you to use an legal means necessary to do so.
Hird's role in this is closer to the players. He trusts these guys implicitly to do their jobs at the highest level because these are the people his club has carefully selected to guide them. A football coach doesn't have the time, capacity or expertise to understand the drug codes, the sports science or the chemistry involved in these programs, legal or not and nor should they have to because it is not their place in the chain to have oversight.
Hird's role in the organisation is football. If his players are fit and healthy and performing well he is happy. When Dank texts him and says he is going to use Thymosin with Uniquinon he may as well tell him he is going to use blue tic tacs for all it means to Hird. Unless the word is panadol, Hird is out of his depth.
Hird doesn't care, his players are playing well and feeling good. This bloke wouldn't be giving them anything that wasn't right, or safe, or helpful or legal. He's the expert, right?
So whatever these guys do Hird has implicit trust. As he should be able to. As the players should be able to. But they have all been horribly let down by the chain of command I outlined earlier.
At this point people say what about them going off site? or having heaps of injections? Or using IVs? Or signing disclaimers? Or cutting out Doc Reid? Hird must have known that was dodgy.
My answer to the procedural things is why would he? Again he is trusting the 'experts' and if they say this is the way we need to do it why would he challenge that? It would be like Dank popping out to training and telling the team he had a new kick in strategy he wanted them to try. As for Reid, the simple answer I think is Hird was dealing with a con man and a moron managing him and they worked him over. Dr Reid is old school, this is cutting edge stuff and he doesn't understand it. We know what we are doing, this is best practice in the industry now. It's an easy story to sell.
Then people get to player welfare. Why didn't Hird care about his players and watch what was happening to them? Again why would he and how would he even manage that given his workload as an AFL coach. Do we expect coaches to head into the canteen and make sure the food handling is up to scratch? Or to pop into the property office and make sure the drink bottles are cleaned properly? Sit in on player's surgery and make sure the ACL is repaired correctly?
Once again they trust other people in the organisation to perform their roles and that their managers are having the correct oversight to make sure that occurs.
Hird is one thing but how they ever came to the decision to penalise Mark Thompson beggars belief. It's like when Stewart cleaned up Prestia they gave Joel Selwood two weeks just for being there.
No question in my mind the outcome should have been the Essendon board, Robson, Hamilton, Robinson and Dank all copping sanctions. Hird's culpability is tiny, Thomson's even less. I'm not sure where Danny Corcoran even fits in to be honest.
Understand most people will dismiss all that and be adamant Hird is the worst bloke around and got what he deserved and that's fine. That is my opinion, based on 30 years working in professional sport and with a reasonable understanding of what happened at Essendon. Other people think differently and that's fine with me.
