Essendon = Entitlement

[jimbob]

Yep. They would have been investigated TBR. ASADA was ready to pounce on the bombers. The AFL found out, went “oh sh-t, we better get on the front foot”…… It would have been much worse for Essendon and the AFL if they hadn’t made the infamous call that was never made.

ASADA is an offshoot of WADA. I can’t buy in at all to a “ we want to get Essendon and don’t care about anyone else. Just Essendon…”

In the end WADA reached in over the top as they weren’t happy with the kid gloves approach here. Particularly by the AFL. Do you really believe the yanks give a flying one about AFL? They got Lance Armstrong and well played by them I say in doing so.

The Zigmeister (Switkowski), a coterie member at the bombers was hardly effusive in his praise of the Club’s involvement in his report. If you want conspiracy, there is no way a coterie member should have been completing the review. It should have been independent.

The Court for Arbitration in Sport upheld the WADA verdict. So…the Swiss don’t like Essendon either? If this keeps up, all of Asia, Africa,South,Central and North America and Europe will be against Essendon too.

The bombers got what was coming and haven’t been able to suck it up. For this to be resurrected 10 years later by the same goose (Robbo), who was in tears that his bestie is no longer at the Club is childish. He will, no doubt, continue his sooking on AFL 360 in the first week or so. Brad Scott must be stoked that it is all being brought up again. The current list weren’t there a decade ago and are probably copping abuse from tool supporters every week over the boundary and they are pure as the driven snow.

Expect Robbo to try again in 2033.

In the meantime, the great man James Hird, who is lost forever to the Essendon Football Club, will just sharpen his knives in the background. Like he does.

It’s mind boggling that he expected to get the job as coach. But damn funny that the cultists thought he would get it and are now kicking up a stink. Good on em I say cos…..for us non Essendon supporters “it’s good for football!”

 

[Bennnny]

Yep. They would have been investigated TBR. ASADA was ready to pounce on the bombers. The AFL found out, went “oh sh-t, we better get on the front foot”…… It would have been much worse for Essendon and the AFL if they hadn’t made the infamous call that was never made.

ASADA is an offshoot of WADA. I can’t buy in at all to a “ we want to get Essendon and don’t care about anyone else. Just Essendon…”

In the end WADA reached in over the top as they weren’t happy with the kid gloves approach here. Particularly by the AFL. Do you really believe the yanks give a flying one about AFL? They got Lance Armstrong and well played by them I say in doing so.

The Zigmeister (Switkowski), a coterie member at the bombers was hardly effusive in his praise of the Club’s involvement in his report. If you want conspiracy, there is no way a coterie member should have been completing the review. It should have been independent.

The Court for Arbitration in Sport upheld the WADA verdict. So…the Swiss don’t like Essendon either? If this keeps up, all of Asia, Africa,South,Central and North America and Europe will be against Essendon too.

The bombers got what was coming and haven’t been able to suck it up. For this to be resurrected 10 years later by the same goose (Robbo), who was in tears that his bestie is no longer at the Club is childish. He will, no doubt, continue his sooking on AFL 360 in the first week or so. Brad Scott must be stoked that it is all being brought up again. The current list weren’t there a decade ago and are probably copping abuse from tool supporters every week over the boundary and they are pure as the driven snow.

Expect Robbo to try again in 2033.

In the meantime, the great man James Hird, who is lost forever to the Essendon Football Club, will just sharpen his knives in the background. Like he does.

It’s mind boggling that he expected to get the job as coach. But damn funny that the cultists thought he would get it and are now kicking up a stink. Good on em I say cos…..for us non Essendon supporters “it’s good for football!”

Beautifully summed up.
They keep doing inside jobs, can't believe that the Lords of the Universe approach doesn't work. You need the management to work, the board be in the background. It took Brendan and Peggy to get rid of the cult of personality, ironically creating a cult of personality (albeit of being great at what they did.
But the Lords of the North insist on the Board having a divergent board, of competing rich men shouting their ideas.

 

[TigerMasochist]

No, but if they hadn't of self-reported they may not have been investigated at all. It doesn't mitigate what happened at Essendon but surely you must agree it isn't right for the governing body to tell one club to self report which ends with them being decimated, while ignoring major alarms with the same type of program at 11 others?

Wonder if perhaps the suggestion to self report might have had something to do with a dirty great snail trail leading to Essendrugs front door at the time.
While there might have been a fair bit of angst n hoopla going on about many clubs and players perhaps pushing the boundaries of what was legal or acceptable.
Both Dank and Charter had long n dodgy supplement reputations to my mind.

Charter previous work with Woey and *smile* while they were playing and with his long running body building dodgy steroid n supplement issues.

Dank, at the Moggies previously when they were dominant and physically ahead of many other teams, then some involvement at Mould Coast, Manly, plus Cronulla and Essendrugs. Always at the cutting edge of sports supplements with bugger all proper records kept.

 

[Legends of 2017]

No, but if they hadn't of self-reported they may not have been investigated at all.

Would they have self reported if they weren’t allegedly tipped off by a certain AFL head honcho?
Would that same certain head honcho have tipped them off, allegedly, if he in turn wasn’t tipped off that the druggies weren’t about to be investigated?
Lets hypothetically assume they didn’t get the phone call and didn’t self report, would there have been no investigation?
Im just guessing here, but I’m thinking we wouldn’t be talking about how bad the club is these days, we would be talking about ex-AFL club Essendon

 

[jimbob]

Always worth another watch for a laugh.

 

[The Big Richo]

Now you’ve gone deep conspiracy theory. It’s like the opposite of the ARC thread. On the ARC thread circumstantial evidence means AFL innocent and here it means AFL guilty. Shouldn’t you go all in on cover ups?

Supplement is a very broad term - it could mean some funky network marketing juice or some stuff off the shelf at the local body building store or it can mean a systemised injection program. There is no way we can know if and what the AFL did investigate.

It’s a super reach to say 11-12 other clubs were doing systemised illegal (from ASADA code point of view) supplement injection and the whole comp would have been shut down if the AFL didn’t cover it up. You’ve dug yourself in to at least a part of this view though so I guess carry on.

I think the difference between my conspiracy theory and the others is there is documented evidence about malpractice in supplement use and rogue use by individuals that has never been investigated.

I'm not talking about speculative thoughts or conversations between parties in that regard, or about who likes or hates who, that is on the record fact.

You are correct about supplements being a very broad term, but that is exactly what makes them so risky for athletes.

Let me give you a list of names: Shane Warne, Ryan Crowley, Ahmed Saad, Josh Thomas, Lachlan Keeffe, Travis Casserley, Graeme Rummans, Greg Ball, Shayna Jack, Ryan Napoleon, Kylie Palmer and Samantha Riley.

They are all athletes, and just to name a few, that have at one stage returned a positive test after consuming a substance that was either not what it was purported to be or that they had taken independently without seeking proper advice.

It is by far the most prominent way athletes breach drug codes.

With supplements the water is incredibly murky. You have to know that it is from an accredited laboratory so that it contains what it says it does and as you say the term can be used for all sorts of concoctions.

Supplements are so murky the official advice from ASADA is that to be safe athletes should not take them.

And yet here we have a report where the AFL clubs admit that 9 of them have players sourcing their own supplements, without any supervision or advice and ASADA, who advise those same players that taking any supplements is so risky they should never do it, say nothing to investigate here!

Forget Essendon completely and whatever any other club did, that part alone stinks to high heaven of a cover up.

 

[RoarEmotion]

They are all athletes, and just to name a few, that have at one stage returned a positive test after consuming a substance that was either not what it was purported to be or that they had taken independently without seeking proper advice.

It is by far the most prominent way athletes breach drug codes.

You answered your own question. Everything I’ve seen is that these authorities react in response to breaches/tests (or self disclosure) or actual evidence.

It’s a different standard you are looking to apply and then saying because the different standard isn’t applied it’s a conspiracy. Massive reach.

There is documented evidence in books of Balme baking AFL umpires.
There is circumstantial evidence of the quality of the AFLW submission we made and others made and the order in which AFLW licenses were granted.
THere is circumstantial evidence in AFL journos saying the heirarchy wasn’t happy with what happened in hub with us and silence on severe breaches by other senior officials of other clubs.

Again a reach to say we are being targeted. Not a reach to say AFL have favourites and non favourites though.

 

[The Big Richo]

You answered your own question. Everything I’ve seen is that these authorities react in response to breaches/tests (or self disclosure) or actual evidence.

There is actual evidence!

The AFL has a survey from its clubs saying 9 of them had players the had gone rogue! Where is the investigation!

There is documented evidence in books of Balme baking AFL umpires.
There is circumstantial evidence of the quality of the AFLW submission we made and others made and the order in which AFLW licenses were granted.
THere is circumstantial evidence in AFL journos saying the heirarchy wasn’t happy with what happened in hub with us and silence on severe breaches by other senior officials of other clubs.

There's no apples and apples here. Neil Balme cooks the umpires, so what? Maybe he is wrong?

Everybody makes an AFLW submission and everyone thinks theirs is good. A panel decides.

A journo prints an unattributed line in an article that says "Word has it he (Hocking) studied Richmond closely while in the hub in Queensland and grew increasingly angry at how the Tigers pushed the envelope when they stood the mark'. Word has it!

I am talking about documented evidence that players at 9 clubs were engaging in behaviour that carries an extremely high risk of breaching the drugs code and yet was never investigated.

You are talking about opinions, speculation and statements without any evidence whatsoever. Not even close to being the same.

 

[RoarEmotion]

I am talking about documented evidence that players at 9 clubs were engaging in behaviour that carries an extremely high risk of breaching the drugs code and yet was never investigated.

You are talking about opinions, speculation and statements without any evidence whatsoever. Not even close to being the same.

Carries ‘an extremely high risk’ is your opinion.

Can you point to where something similar was investigated? (Which is my point).

Think we will have to agree to disagree.

A systemised top down approach to stretching the rules vs a laissez-faire approach to managing what players put in their bodies are quite different. The former will leave a trail.

 

[The Big Richo]

Carries ‘an extremely high risk’ is your opinion.

It's not my opinion at all, it's ASADAs.

ASADA’s long standing advice is that no supplement is safe to use and athletes should not risk their careers by taking a supplement.

Sport Integrity Australia’s advice is that no supplement is safe to use and athletes should not risk their careers by taking a supplement.

I wonder why that is?

Supplements are the largest cause of inadvertent doping cases in Australia, Mr Sharpe says, with many anti-doping rule violations (sport bans) in Australia over the past five years associated with supplement use.

A 2016 survey found that of the 67 common Australian supplements analysed, almost one in five contained banned substances.

“Worryingly, none of those products surveyed listed any banned substances on their ingredients list.”

Supplements can be accidentally cross contaminated by other substances made in the same factory, Sharpe says, or can contain prohibited substances deliberately included, but not included in the list of ingredient on labels.

https://www.sportintegrity.gov.au/news/blog/2019-08/take-supplements-your-own-risk

Can you point to where something similar was investigated? (Which is my point).

Essendon? Cronulla?

You are defending the indefensible here. ASADA has direct evidence of widespread athlete behaviours that by their own advice are incredibly risky, and yet they do not investigate.

It's a farce.

 

[RoarEmotion]

It's not my opinion at all, it's ASADAs.

ASADA’s long standing advice is that no supplement is safe to use and athletes should not risk their careers by taking a supplement.

Sport Integrity Australia’s advice is that no supplement is safe to use and athletes should not risk their careers by taking a supplement.

I wonder why that is?

Supplements are the largest cause of inadvertent doping cases in Australia, Mr Sharpe says, with many anti-doping rule violations (sport bans) in Australia over the past five years associated with supplement use.

A 2016 survey found that of the 67 common Australian supplements analysed, almost one in five contained banned substances.

“Worryingly, none of those products surveyed listed any banned substances on their ingredients list.”

Supplements can be accidentally cross contaminated by other substances made in the same factory, Sharpe says, or can contain prohibited substances deliberately included, but not included in the list of ingredient on labels.

https://www.sportintegrity.gov.au/news/blog/2019-08/take-supplements-your-own-risk




Essendon? Cronulla?

You are defending the indefensible here. ASADA has direct evidence of widespread athlete behaviours that by their own advice are incredibly risky, and yet they do not investigate.

It's a farce.

Your take is like saying the police should follow
everyone home from the pub who gets pissed in case they get in a car. It’s just not the way police are resourced and I’m sure it’s not the way doping authorities are resourced. It’s not a farce at all - it just reflects there aren’t infinite resources.

There is a big difference between a risky behaviour and an illegal act. The former can definitely lead to the latter.

Where is the evidence of doping authorities proactively chasing athletes with risky behaviours? There isn’t - They get them with randomised testing or maybe someone who knows something giving them hard evidence (not hearsay).

Essendon and Cronulla are different because they had a systematic top down system. It’s very different. Much like Russia with a national system. That kind of thing gets investigated. That’s why they come out and fess up first.

You are comparing apples and oranges and then saying it’s a conspiracy that we only looked at the apples.

On the ARC thread you argue the opposite. There most of us are whinging about getting screwed over on anecdotal evidence which is what you point out.

 

[IanG]

And yet here we have a report where the AFL clubs admit that 9 of them have players sourcing their own supplements, without any supervision or advice and ASADA, who advise those same players that taking any supplements is so risky they should never do it, say nothing to investigate here!

And...................... what has that to do with Essendon? Just because other clubs maybe should have been investigated doesn't mean Essendon shouldn't have been as you're implying. Start another general thread about it.

 

[jimbob]

It's not my opinion at all, it's ASADAs.

ASADA’s long standing advice is that no supplement is safe to use and athletes should not risk their careers by taking a supplement.

Sport Integrity Australia’s advice is that no supplement is safe to use and athletes should not risk their careers by taking a supplement.

I wonder why that is?

Supplements are the largest cause of inadvertent doping cases in Australia, Mr Sharpe says, with many anti-doping rule violations (sport bans) in Australia over the past five years associated with supplement use.

A 2016 survey found that of the 67 common Australian supplements analysed, almost one in five contained banned substances.

“Worryingly, none of those products surveyed listed any banned substances on their ingredients list.”

Supplements can be accidentally cross contaminated by other substances made in the same factory, Sharpe says, or can contain prohibited substances deliberately included, but not included in the list of ingredient on labels.

https://www.sportintegrity.gov.au/news/blog/2019-08/take-supplements-your-own-risk




Essendon? Cronulla?

You are defending the indefensible here. ASADA has direct evidence of widespread athlete behaviours that by their own advice are incredibly risky, and yet they do not investigate.

It's a farce.

TBR, at the end of the day we will not agree. I don’t know how many staff you think ASADA have, but their resources are limited and they will concentrate them accordingly. When they have instances of positive Test results - and you mentioned several previously - Sharna Jack, Warnie, Travis Casserely etc - they were all suspended depending on the substance. Casserley was a toughie as he had used Sudafed for his hay fever. A substance that you and I can buy when we have a cold but if it has certain substances like pseudoephredrine in it, then you are in strife as that is a stimulant. Warnie got a year for using a masking agent. But they were all penalised.

Essendon were penalised for a systemic application of PED’s. Charter (the crook supplier) was under their gaze, Dank had form, Alavi the compounding chemist was also, I think under watch, so ASADA started to look closely at Essendon.

None of Essendon’s arguments stacked up. You can’t inject Thymomodulin as it is a tablet, but Thymosin you can. They stuck with the Thymomodulin argument like a drowning man clutches a straw.

It was a co-ordinated program under the Club auspices. How can you blame a first year player who is told, this program is for you, it’s top secret to give us the edge and he sees older players following it. I feel sorry for the players to a point. I am surprised that more senior players didn’t push back a bit but it’s not they were doing this because they were all independently going to the pub to see the bloke in the overcoat about something to help them gain muscle mass.

I am very confident that if ASADA had the smoke signals that were coming up from Windy Hill for any other Club in the comp, we would have seen a similar process for them.

Anyway - we will agree to disagree on this. Quite strongly I suspect.

The only reason this is back on discussion is because of that tool Robbo, who is still smarting about Hird missing out on the coaching job and decided to kick off again on the 10 year anniversary.

I earnestly hope we don’t lose any players to taking a PED, but i think our potential bigger issue to be ultra wary of, like the rest of society is recreational drug taking.

 

[Letsroar]

Was talking to the publican at a hotel in Mackay this week
She was not impressed when I mentioned that people who weren’t born when Essendon last won a final could walk in and have a drink legally
Essendons issues start well before the drugs scandal
The drugs issue is just another symptom of an underlying issue

 

[The Big Richo]

Your take is like saying the police should follow
everyone home from the pub who gets pissed in case they get in a car. It’s just not the way police are resourced and I’m sure it’s not the way doping authorities are resourced. It’s not a farce at all - it just reflects there aren’t infinite resources.

There is a big difference between a risky behaviour and an illegal act. The former can definitely lead to the latter.

Where is the evidence of doping authorities proactively chasing athletes with risky behaviours? There isn’t - They get them with randomised testing or maybe someone who knows something giving them hard evidence (not hearsay).

Essendon and Cronulla are different because they had a systematic top down system. It’s very different. Much like Russia with a national system. That kind of thing gets investigated. That’s why they come out and fess up first.

You are comparing apples and oranges and then saying it’s a conspiracy that we only looked at the apples.

On the ARC thread you argue the opposite. There most of us are whinging about getting screwed over on anecdotal evidence which is what you point out.

I completely disagree and feel like you are totally missing the point, but I'm sure it's getting tiresome for both of us and everyone else so will move on.

And...................... what has that to do with Essendon? Just because other clubs maybe should have been investigated doesn't mean Essendon shouldn't have been as you're implying. Start another general thread about it.

Forget about Essendon, they are irrelevant. They copped what they had coming.

But before anyone feels too superior to them understand that there is a black cloud over every single club in the competition at that time.

Every club, every player, every coach, every official, myself included, because ASADA and the AFL failed to preserve the integrity of the game despite having evidence of widespread illegal activity in the game far beyond Essendon.

 

[RoarEmotion]

Every club, every player, every coach, every official, myself included, because ASADA and the AFL failed to preserve the integrity of the game despite having evidence of widespread illegal activity in the game far beyond Essendon.

Are you sort of whistleblowing without actually having to whistleblow? If that was the case and you know more than you can say then I would see why you are arguing what you are arguing.

Otherwise there is ZERO evidence - just risk factors.

I dont disagree there is a chance other players weren’t following all the rules - some will have gotten away with it. We may disagree on the likelihood and whether you should run investigations based on that risk or not. No different to the rest of life IMo - people do all sorts of rule bending to follow self interest. Some get caught and some don’t.

 

[The Big Richo]

Are you sort of whistleblowing without actually having to whistleblow? If that was the case and you know more than you can say then I would see why you are arguing what you are arguing.

What I know doesn't really matter, the facts are on the table.

The AFL itself says 11 clubs were taking medium to high levels of supplements, without a clear definition of what a supplement is, in programs lacking accountability and being run by unqualified people.

Additionally the AFL says players from 9 clubs were sourcing supplements without any guidance or supervision whatsoever.

In the context of the manner in which the AFL usually communicates a crisis, that revealing of information of that gravity is incredibly instructive, and we are talking about an area so fraught with danger that the ASADA advice is do not take those substances under any circumstances.

I cannot believe anyone would see that information and feel comfortable that the integrity of the sport was intact.

 

[RoarEmotion]

What I know doesn't really matter, the facts are on the table.

The AFL itself says 11 clubs were taking medium to high levels of supplements, without a clear definition of what a supplement is, in programs lacking accountability and being run by unqualified people.

Additionally the AFL says players from 9 clubs were sourcing supplements without any guidance or supervision whatsoever.

In the context of the manner in which the AFL usually communicates a crisis, that revealing of information of that gravity is incredibly instructive, and we are talking about an area so fraught with danger that the ASADA advice is do not take those substances under any circumstances.

I cannot believe anyone would see that information and feel comfortable that the integrity of the sport was intact.

I get your take. I’d call that widespread evidence of risky behaviour and not widespread evidence of doping.

I think what you know is important because if you know others were breaking the code but hadn’t been caught it certainly explains why you would want an investigation and consider it a farce that one hasn’t been done.

I can’t think of an organisation that would conduct incident investigations into widespread risky behaviour. You would make an example of someone who is known to be guilty, set clear expectations, communicate the incident and put in place deterrents and probably do extra levels of random testing to catch anyone stupid enough to keep doing it.

If we had a safety breach where I worked in a hazardous facility we knew it was more than likely others were breaking the same rule. But this approach above is exactly what would happpen. We didn’t have the resources to go and find out who else had done it already - we focused on preventing it recurring.

We made large distinctions between people who knew the rule and willingly broke it, those who directed to by their supervisors and those who just didn’t know / had poor habits. The drug code doesn’t make that distinction which I get is part of your point. I’d imagine the AFL had undetected Warne like cases out there but only one supervisor directed; willingly violate the rules scenario. We had the Justin Charles one in the past which was more about performance recovery but was also a willing violation.

I don’t know how anyone could think the integrity of any sport is 100% intact all the time. Self interest is always at play. I still want an investigation into the gambling account of the ARC operator and their friends/family on line betting in rich v bris final because I think their is a small risk they had that influence on them and then the AFL who rarely admit they are wrong buried it (not wanting to know or even considering that possibility). Me saying that is widespread evidence of gambling corruption given we found another umpire had messed up earlier in the year and a dark cloud over the integrity of the competition and painting every ARC operator with that guilty until we investigate brush is a bit of a long bow though. And I would almost guarantee another official has messed with betting and not been caught.

 

[TigerMasochist]

I think the difference between my conspiracy theory and the others is there is documented evidence about malpractice in supplement use and rogue use by individuals that has never been investigated.

I'm not talking about speculative thoughts or conversations between parties in that regard, or about who likes or hates who, that is on the record fact.

You are correct about supplements being a very broad term, but that is exactly what makes them so risky for athletes.

Let me give you a list of names: Shane Warne, Ryan Crowley, Ahmed Saad, Josh Thomas, Lachlan Keeffe, Travis Casserley, Graeme Rummans, Greg Ball, Shayna Jack, Ryan Napoleon, Kylie Palmer and Samantha Riley.

They are all athletes, and just to name a few, that have at one stage returned a positive test after consuming a substance that was either not what it was purported to be or that they had taken independently without seeking proper advice.

It is by far the most prominent way athletes breach drug codes.

With supplements the water is incredibly murky. You have to know that it is from an accredited laboratory so that it contains what it says it does and as you say the term can be used for all sorts of concoctions.

Supplements are so murky the official advice from ASADA is that to be safe athletes should not take them.

And yet here we have a report where the AFL clubs admit that 9 of them have players sourcing their own supplements, without any supervision or advice and ASADA, who advise those same players that taking any supplements is so risky they should never do it, say nothing to investigate here!

Forget Essendon completely and whatever any other club did, that part alone stinks to high heaven of a cover up.

Might not have been an AFL left if the bus hadn't been steered at the most obvious target.

Oh! look over there at that massive bus crash. Sweep Sweep Sweep. Hope no-one got too badly hurt. Sweep Sweep Sweep.

 

[The Big Richo]

Might not have been an AFL left if the bus hadn't been steered at the most obvious target.

And there you have it.