Former Essendon coach James Hird breaks silence on Bombers’ drugs sagaJAMES HIRD
Herald Sun
January 15, 2016 OF all of the questions asked by fans in response to Tuesday’s shocking and unfair decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, one stands out.
It is the enduring question of the past three years: What actually happened at Essendon in 2012-13?
Today is my first chance to publicly answer this question, unconstrained by the contractual obligations a coach must observe and free of pressure applied by the AFL.
I can finally offer a more detailed explanation to 34 young men and their families. Players who absolutely do not deserve this fate. Players to whom I am eternally sorry for reasons I will explain.
I can also place on the public record matters of importance to my family, friends, Essendon supporters and me. When I started as Essendon coach in September, 2010 I brought the values I hold dear.
I talked to the players about love for the club, about passion for the game, about hard work and trust.
I promised to get to know every one of them individually, to understand who they were and what motivated them to be great players and team men.
I promised the players I would create an environment in which they would become the very best footballers they could be and, in return, they would give their all.
This was our promise to each other.
At the end of my first year, we had made good on our obligations.
Several meetings to try to get to the bottom of the matter occurred in the weeks after Anzac Day 2012.
We were a tight unit. High performance was the mantra from top to bottom with then club president David Evans driving us to find the best ways to do everything we did.
This drive extended to making sure the players had the most beneficial and modern training regimens, diets and dietary supplements under the high performance program.
One of the criticisms levelled at Essendon is why we chose to inject players with compliant supplements at all.
The fact is we were not the only club to use compliant safe injectable supplements. Essendon was one of many AFL clubs doing this. It was legal, it was ethical and the logic and motivation were both sound. Why?
First, because players of both my era and past eras pushed ourselves beyond what the body was capable of, often through injuries and usually beyond pain all the while ignoring the long-term consequences.
At this time the use of painkillers, anti-inflammatory and sleeping tablets were the norm but would lead to side effects such as long-term arthritis, long-term neural pain, eroded stomach linings, addictions and sleeping disorders, to name a few.
To subject modern players to these “old world” methods and consequences would have been “low performance” at best and negligent at worst, especially given there had been so many developments in sports science since my time as a player.
Second, it would become clear our football team was uncompetitive in the “strength stakes”.
Our thinking was heavily influenced in 2011 by two-time premiership coach Mark Thompson, who was my senior mentor, and Brendan McCartney, my senior assistant coach.
Thompson and McCartney came from Geelong having built a powerful outfit.
Super strong and incredibly skilled, the Cats dominated the competition from 2007 until 2011.
Thompson and McCartney’s most poignant observation was that we lacked size and strength and so were uncompetitive.
Taking these two points together yielded a goal for our players — we wanted them to be bigger, stronger and healthier both as current players and when their career was over. To these ends, we interviewed three people for the role of head of high performance.
Our first choice at that time was at an English Premier League Soccer club. The fact he would not arrive until May, 2012 forced us to look again.
Had we secured this preferred applicant then the experience of the Essendon Football Club and 34 young men would have been very different.
Instead the sliding door we walked through introduced Essendon to the worlds of Dean Robinson and, at Robinson’s suggestion, Stephen Dank.
I don’t intend to go through every detail of every interaction the club had with them, solely because time and space do not permit and much is already on the public record.
But I’ll deal with the questions I am asked the most.
First, how did we come to trust those who were in charge of the supplements program?
The answer is that Robinson had made contributions to two AFL premierships at Geelong and NRL premierships with Manly. He was also appointed by the AFL itself to oversee the fledgling Gold Coast Sun’s strength and conditioning program.
The program contained the best group of young football talent in Australia. These facts and the background checks conducted by Paul Hamilton contributed to his bona fides.
He presented as a cross-code success story. It satisfied the due diligence.
It followed that the club would also agree to his suggestion that Dank must come with him as sports scientist and Suki Hobson, a very talented weights coach who specialised in ACL knee recovery, also had to be engaged.
This is how Robinson and Dank started their roles at Essendon.
I’m also often asked how these roles fitted into the structure of the football club.
The answer is that Hamilton was the head of the football department. Robinson reported to Hamilton, Dank reported to Robinson and the medical department reported to Robinson as well.
Dr Bruce Reid had a direct line to Hamilton if he needed to communicate directly.
I was responsible for the coaches and the player’s football performance. These were essentially discrete units where Hamilton and I were on the same level and reported independently and directly to the chief executive, Ian Robson.
This often surprises people, but it was how Robson wanted it and so how we ran it.
I am also often asked what were the quality control measures in place for the supplements program.
The supplements program was subject to a protocol with an important quality control measure that any supplements needed to be approved by Dr Reid before they could be given to the players.
The club required this precisely because Hamilton and the coaches had inadequate knowledge about supplements and because there would be no other sport’s doctor in Australia with as sound a reputation for maximising player welfare as Dr Reid.
As has been reported publicly, I was comfortable with supplements provided they would be ASADA and AFL approved, could do no harm to any player, the players have given their informed consent and the final approval lay with Dr Reid.
The supplements program then, from my perspective, had sound logic, important goals, the people the club had engaged presented as credible and successful, the structure for the program was right and the protocol for decision-making and player welfare had integrity.
I trusted the governance we put around this program and the people directly in charge of administering it.
I concentrated on my task as head coach, satisfied that the supplement piece of the high-performance puzzle at Essendon was compliant.
It seems that what transpired was that the protocol we put in place was not always followed.
Importantly, to our knowledge at that time, this was the scope of the problem, because Dank had assured the club the supplements were compliant.
He had even presented supporting evidence. Upon first learning of Dr Reid’s concerns in January 2012 that the protocol may not have been followed I re-emphasised the protocols that needed to be in place via email to Robinson.
I was clear. Crystal clear. In addition, Dr Reid would outline his concerns with Robinson and Dank and the lack of information he had received as to the effectiveness of the supplements.
I encouraged Dr Reid to put his concerns in writing to Hamilton.
These concerns were written in a letter from Dr Reid addressed to Hamilton and myself.
Unfortunately, I was not given a copy of this letter and did not see this letter until over a year after it was written.
A series of meetings would follow to try to get to the bottom of the matter and take the action that needed to be taken.
These meetings took place in the weeks after the Anzac Day game 2012, meetings in which Hamilton, Thompson, Dr Reid and I reminded Dank that there was no situation in which he was allowed to administer injections without Dr Reid’s approval as the protocol demanded.
A meeting in which Dr Reid and Danny Corcoran expressed to the club president and chief executive that Dank and Robinson should be sacked. A request I supported.
And ultimately a decision at the end of the season by the club that Dank would not be recontracted and that Robinson’s job would be significantly diminished, despite his threats of legal action.
My understanding is that the club’s explanation for the time it took to take this action was related to the cost of contract cancellation and the potential for legal action to be taken.
Subsequently, in October 2012 Corcoran was appointed as the head of the football department and a full review of the supplements program was undertaken.
The supplements protocol was then amended so the only person allowed to inject players would be the club doctor.
That was what happened in 2012 relating to the supplements program.
I add by way of summary and to reiterate that the protocol was made clear at the club, that Tuesday’s 48-page Court of Arbitration for Sport decision carries four separate references at paragraphs 18, 22, 23 and 26 to my insistences that the supplements program had to be legal, had to be compliant, had to have the informed consent of the players and had to be approved by Dr Reid.
Again, four separate references to my insistence that supplements had to be legal, had to be compliant, had to have the informed consent of the players and had to be approved by Dr Reid.
With these serious issues addressed we enjoyed a terrific and promising 2013 pre-season.
The players were fit, the club was harmonious and I felt we were on the verge of a very special season.
That feeling and optimism did not last long.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/former-essendon-coach-james-hird-breaks-silence-on-bombers-drugs-saga/news-story/8ce79063afbb812be12e750342a4d074Tomorrow: Part 2
