Essendon = Entitlement

[23.21.159]

Not only are we 10-0 in the last ten against Essendon, but we beat them twice in our annus horribilis of 2016.

 

[123cups]

Just watching us play the Bombers from 2016, geez the orange sash looks crap now, love the Premiership Puma Yellow

We look totally different in the old orange jumper. There’s a little something to the colour psychology change I reckon.

The neon yellow radiates excitement, I loved it the second I saw it.

 

[artball]

It really is closer to orange than yellow. What happened? Didn't they know the club song?

 

[Brodders17]

They always seem to get lauded for winning trade period. Such a shame that they’re no good at the most important part of footy; the games played out on the ground!!

imagine being so rubbish that you never win finals, and the trade and draft period are the most exciting time of the year.
Thankfully as Tiger supporters we dont know that feeling.

 

[CarnTheTiges]

Not only are we 10-0 in the last ten against Essendon, but we beat them twice in our annus horribilis of 2016.

It was their annus horribilus, too. That was the year 12 of their best 22 were suspended as drug cheats.

 

[Baloo]

Heard a couple of Bombers supporters on the radio today saying their list is vastly overrated and their coterie group runs the club. Has the penny finally dropped? Everyone outside of them have been saying this for years, particularly about their list. FFS Robbo picked them to be premiers in 2018, probably 2019 as well.

Said they are light years away from Richmond, and that none of their players would make our team even Ridley their B&F winner. Conversely said there are players in our 2s who would walk into their team. Another one said they need a bold vision as Benny gave us.

Oddly one of those callers introduced himself as Blake from Brisbane

 

[Sintiger]

I know quite a few Essendon supporters and I am not sure I would call them entitled. In some ways they are like we were for so many years, sort of disillusioned and bemused. They find it hard to understand how such a big club can be so unsuccessful and in many ways that’s the way we felt as well.
Probably the big difference to RFC is the drugs saga. Some of them at least still can’t accept they received their fair whack still and feel victimised.
I think the overwhelming understanding they all have is that they need to get the club well run again and they look at what Benny Gale has done with a lot of envy.

 

[CarnTheTiges]

I know quite a few Essendon supporters and I am not sure I would call them entitled. In some ways they are like we were for so many years, sort of disillusioned and bemused. They find it hard to understand how such a big club can be so unsuccessful and in many ways that’s the way we felt as well.
Probably the big difference to RFC is the drugs saga. Some of them at least still can’t accept they received their fair whack still and feel victimised.
I think the overwhelming understanding they all have is that they need to get the club well run again and they look at what Benny Gale has done with a lot of envy.

It’s taken them a while, but the drugs thing aside, they’re taking a realistic view of where they are at present.

 

[yandb]

I think your post is a very good summary ST, but I have sympathy with them in regards to the above.

Many people with experience in the industry, including myself, feel they were very hardly done by in lots of ways.

Hardly bone by, they received a reduced penalty for self reporting.

Vlad rings Essendon the day before and suggests that they should self report a it looks better for the AFL and they the crap is about to descend on them.

That is not self reporting, that is telling the guilty thief who has been caught on video left his finger prints and is caught with the goods to self report and hand himself in

and the courts will go soft on him.

 

[Baloo]

Many people with experience in the industry, including myself, feel they were very hardly done by in lots of ways.

Maybe that's a sign that the industry needs a clean out and to reset the thinking. If Essendon were hard done by for the injection programme they ran on the players without keeping any records of what the players were injected with, then something is very wrong with the thinking.

 

[Tenacious]

I think your post is a very good summary ST, but I have sympathy with them in regards to the above.

Many people with experience in the industry, including myself, feel they were very hardly done by in lots of ways.

FWIW - I’m the other way and have absolutely no sympathy for the Club or for Golden Boy especially the way he shirked responsibility after initially inferring that he’d cop it sweet.
And none either for that remaining percentage of their deluded hardcore fans who still moan about their “injustice”.

 

[Mr Brightside]

I think the karma of having Dodoro as there list manager for 20 plus years is penalty enough

 

[artball]

I think the karma of having Dodoro as there list manager for 20 plus years is penalty enough

the $1 gangster

 

[Sintiger]

I think your post is a very good summary ST, but I have sympathy with them in regards to the above.

Many people with experience in the industry, including myself, feel they were very hardly done by in lots of ways.

I really don’t want to get involved in a whole new round of discussions about it but my view is that there are some who probably got what they deserved. However I have always felt sorry for the players because I reckon most AFL players, especially young ones, would have done what they were asked as the Essendon players did.
Then again they wouldn’t be the first athletes to be suspended essentially because of ignorance of the rules or believing what they were told and won’t be the last I suspect.

 

[JimJessTorp]

I reckon it would take about 15 minutes for the first Richmond supporter to blow up AFL house.

*smile* Melbourne trams. So damn slow!!!

 

[Baloo]

12 clubs? Or players from 12 different clubs known to have taken "supplements"? Did any club have a similar institutionalised injection programme like Essendon? Where all the players were taken off the clubs premises on a regular basis to have their shots? Where all the records of all the shots, and by accounts in the hundreds, are not available?

There is no evidence I have read that shows any club getting within a mile of what Essendon did.

Your hypothetical fails on at least 2 counts.

1. Being paid over the salary cap will not have a player banned from all international sport for 2 to 4 years
1.5 Being paid over the salary cap does not put your health at risk
2. There was no salary cap breach if there are no records.

 

[LeeToRainesToRoach]

The hard done by part is that they got smashed with sanctions while at least 12 and possibly every other club escaped any sort of sanction for some similarly diabolical errors.

None of the other clubs ran an injection program or instructed their players to sign waivers.

Essendon knew what they were doing was wrong and did their best to leave no evidence. The only thing that can be said in Essendon's favour is that ASADA could not produce the smoking gun.

Perpetuating doubt about their guilt is in the same league as conspiracy theories about the moon landing IMO.

"For such a proud, proud club this is one of the saddest days that I've ever been involved in."

So said Matthew Lloyd on the telly last night.

And there is the problem. Still too proud by half.

 

[Baloo]

So basically, by your own admission, there is no evidence anywhere that any other club conducted an institutionalised clandestine doping programme on all it's players.

Even if there were other clubs, the injustice would be that they didn't get penalised like Essendon, rather than Essendon being hard done by. Essendon got off lightly IMO. If any other club is caught doing they same then they should get the same as the bombers, or more.

Trying to claim EFC were hard done by because no one else was caught is just *smile* ridiculous.

If a murderer gets caught and is sentenced to life without parole, is he hard done by because there are murderers out there that haven't been caught? That's your argument here for Essendon.

 

[LeeToRainesToRoach]

I think most people accept the logic that things like vitamins, minerals and things like amino acid compounds, protein powders, hydration assisters, wheys, etc are pretty clearly supplements so where does this unsatisfactory definition fit?

"Supplements" did not by itself imply anything illegal prior to the Essendon thing. This is one of the areas where Essendon and its media sympathisers have succeeded in muddying the waters by using it as a blanket term to include Dank's injections. This is similar to Essendon's policy of referring to borderline substances in-house as "amino acids".

A few years earlier Nathan Brown told the world he took caffeine tablets prior to games. Others might take creatine or drink a litre of Red Bull. This is a far cry from the Essendon regime which by Dank's own admission was based around thymosin injections.

Hird betrayed his intentions by asking an ASADA tester at Windy Hill about other clubs using peptides. Days later Hird, Hamilton and Corcoran were hauled in front of the AFL and ASADA and officially warned on the subject. Yet Essendon forged ahead and employed Robinson and Dank and the rest is history.

If you have information about Richmond or another club running a program remotely similar to Essendon's then speak up. (Yes I have heard the stories from the early 80's when "steroid" was a new word.)

 

[LeeToRainesToRoach]

16 month investigation into one club, no investigation into 12 others.

Staff from other clubs expressed shock at players (and coaches) being injected to the stomach, as well as the sheer number of injections. If you know of another club with an injection regimen that was remotely comparable and a cornerstone of weekly preparation and recovery, spill the beans. If you know of another AFL club that came to the attention of the Australian Crime Commission's Project Aperio, spill the beans.

Pretty sure Melbourne and Gold Coast were investigated.