Author Topic: Essendon face AFL probe/Players found Guilty by CAS  (Read 547349 times)

Offline one-eyed

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Offline one-eyed

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Re: Essendon face AFL probe/Players found Guilty by CAS
« Reply #3977 on: October 19, 2019, 02:31:09 AM »
In a book to be released later this month, Bombers champion Hird describes the events that saw him go from AFL coach to mental health patient in the wake of the Essendon 34 being banned for doping.

“There’s a lot of agendas and I’m extremely sorry for what I’ve done,’’ Hird said.

“Like, it’s horrendous what happened.

“I think the whole saga hurt so many people in so many ways.’’

The Brownlow Medallist and dual premiership star said he was shocked the players were suspended for a year by the Court of Arbitration for Sport for being injected with a banned substance.

“I still don’t think they took anything illegal,’’ he said.

Hird revealed he had not spoken to Dank since the scandal but said the sports scientist banned from the AFL for life and former high performance manager Dean Robinson “shouldn’t have been employed by our footy club’’.

“If Dean Robinson hadn’t been employed, none of that would have happened,’’ Hird said.

Hird said Essendon supporters had been “damaged greatly’’ by the scandal but the players sidelined fared worse.

“People say it hurt the game, and it did,’’ Hird said.

“But the lives of 34 young men were damaged, they were unfairly targeted,’’

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/more-news/new-book-reveals-hird-and-sheedys-views-on-drugs-scandal/news-story/0512becd6c0eb367c5d4a36909907f64

Offline WilliamPowell

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Re: Essendon face AFL probe/Players found Guilty by CAS
« Reply #3978 on: October 19, 2019, 07:54:04 AM »

https://www.asada.gov.au/news/asada-statement-responding-media-reports

Well that completely debunks  Mick Wagner's article

Surely ends this sorry disgraceful cheated in AFL history

As for James Hird, still blaming others and not taking responsibility. Noth9ng new there either
"Oh yes I am a dreamer, I still see us flying high!"

from the song "Don't Walk Away" by Pat Benatar 1988 (Wide Awake In Dreamland)

Offline Gracie

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Re: Essendon face AFL probe/Players found Guilty by CAS
« Reply #3979 on: October 24, 2019, 04:49:49 PM »
James Hird's father was on the Bolt Report last night.

More of Warner's article but no mention of the WADA media release



Offline one-eyed

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Re: Essendon face AFL probe/Players found Guilty by CAS
« Reply #3982 on: February 04, 2021, 01:22:43 AM »
8 years later and still in denial :facepalm.

-----------------------------

Lawyers for the AFL and Australian Sports Anti-Doping Association have agreed to share their Essendon doping investigation correspondence with former Test cricketer Bruce Francis, who is seeking exoneration for the 34 Bombers players who were suspended for breaching the WADA code.

The retired batsman has initiated the tribunal proceedings as part of a crusade to absolve the Essendon players, as well as former Bombers coach James Hird and sports scientist Stephen Dank, alleging that ASADA manipulated evidence to charge them with doping breaches.

Francis alleges that ASADA had insufficient evidence to charge Essendon players with the administration of Thymosin Beta-4, and that ASADA either lied in its November 3, 2014 presentation to the Anti-Doping Review Violation Panel about the evidence it had, or that the ADRVP were incompetent.

ASADA has strongly denied allegations of evidence manipulation.

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/afl-asada-to-share-essendon-drugs-saga-documents-after-tribunal-hearing-20210203-p56zaz.html

Offline one-eyed

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Re: Essendon face AFL probe/Players found Guilty by CAS
« Reply #3983 on: September 17, 2021, 01:49:28 PM »
Jobe’s Brownlow pain: Stripped medal is still mine

Jay Clark and Michael Warner
HeraldSun
17 September 2021


A defiant Jobe Watson says he never should have been stripped of the 2012 Brownlow Medal in a new Essendon documentary that lifts the lid on the club’s darkest days.

Opening up on the toll of the devastating supplements saga, Watson declared: “If I felt I had cheated, then I wouldn’t have accepted the medal in the first place”.

Asked whether he still feels he is the deserved winner of the 2012 medal later awarded to runners-up Trent Cotchin of Richmond and Hawthorn’s Sam Mitchell, Watson replied: “I feel like I am.”

“Whether or not someone else has it, or whether or not someone else views it that I wasn’t the deserved winner then that is fine.

“But it doesn’t change how I felt or how I feel about it.”

It is 10 years this month since the ill-fated supplements program began that would trigger the greatest scandal in Australian sports history.

Watson’s father, club great Tim Watson, said the “injustice” of the decision to strip his son of the Brownlow because of a doping ban was “like the final crushing thing about that whole episode”.

He said he “worried” about how his 36-year-old son would cope with the aftershocks of the saga “for the rest of his life” considering Jobe became “the face” of the scandal.

“I found that (handing back the Brownlow Medal) the most difficult thing, that you could have that taken away from you without there being any … I don’t believe real justification,” Tim Watson said.

“It has been a tough journey for him and, as a parent, it has been difficult at times to observe it close hand. Injustice is a very difficult thing for people to get over.”

Asked how he reflects on the experience, Jobe was adamant he had “forgiven” and “moved on” but said his overall emotion was “sadness”.

“It has been really challenging,” Jobe Watson said.

“I look back on it and wonder how I was able to get through it.

“It was such a drawn-out process and moved so much from one extreme to another and emotionally — it was just exhausting.”

Former Essendon chairman Paul Little, who likened the drugs saga to “a war”, said he hoped the 2012 Brownlow would eventually be returned to its rightful owner.

“I’m hopeful one day it will be reinstated,” Little said.

In an eight-part documentary series titled ‘The Bombers: Stories of a great club’, to be aired on Fox Footy and Kayo from October 19, former Bombers president David Evans speaks for the first time about the drugs scandal and admits mistakes were made in dealing with the saga.

“Some things in hindsight that you would have done differently, but there was no playbook for it,” Evans said.

“This was something that we were thrust into that there was no precedents.”

Evans led the fateful decision at the start of the saga that saw the Bombers “self-report” to the AFL and Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority, triggering a five-year storm.

Coach James Hird said “what happened to Jobe was horrific”.

“I don’t believe anything they took (was) illegal,” Hird said.

“I certainly don’t believe that Jobe got any unfair advantage during that year and should definitely still have his Brownlow.”

Watson in 2013 opened up on the supplements program, saying “having that many injections was something I had not experienced in AFL football before”.

The late legendary club doctor Bruce Reid, who wrote a letter of complaint to club chiefs about the injections program, said Watson should not have been stripped of the medal.

“Jobe Watson should still have his Brownlow,” Reid said.

Essendon champion Matthew Lloyd said Watson had masked the pain.

“I’m sure that eats up at him, as much as he doesn’t show it,” Lloyd said.

Former coach John Worsfold said: “He was the one, even after the suspension happened, who was still trying to be (the) strongest and hold that group together, and be that leader.

“He was probably the one we felt was the most vulnerable to the big let-down.”

After a break from the game, Watson, a two-time All-Australian and three-time best and fairest winner, has returned to football in a special comments role with Channel 7.

Essendon chief executive Xavier Campbell said the whole drugs affair was “heartbreaking” and particularly unfair on Hird, who was a “really good person”, and Watson.

“He (Watson) was put in a really difficult position. That was unfair on him, it should never have happened. And that shouldn’t, and won’t, define Jobe Watson,” Campbell said.

Campbell said the club had sought closure on the saga.

“The Essendon network didn’t fracture,” he said.

“It could have (fractured) at so many different moments.”

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/news/essendon-documentary-jobe-watson-and-tim-watson-on-the-2012-brownlow-medal-as-bombers-lift-lid-on-supplements-saga/news-story/43170ad224b5e01023cee3d1472aa3dd

Online Chuck17

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Re: Essendon face AFL probe/Players found Guilty by CAS
« Reply #3984 on: September 17, 2021, 02:01:49 PM »
its all about consequences Sonny

Offline one-eyed

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Re: Essendon face AFL probe/Players found Guilty by CAS
« Reply #3985 on: September 17, 2021, 04:14:11 PM »
An eight-part documentary is being released about the Essendon Football Club, including the events of Essendon's 2010s drug saga. 🍿

The documentary will be aired from October 19 on FOX Footy and Kayo Sports.


https://www.facebook.com/AFLTRDON/posts/4555921234474480

Offline Diocletian

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Re: Essendon face AFL probe/Players found Guilty by CAS
« Reply #3986 on: September 18, 2021, 03:28:41 PM »
Fox Footy - what odds it's sympathetic to the Bumblers and a bunch of Essendon apologist crap...probably produced and presented by Slobbo & Sarah Jones... :shh
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Offline one-eyed

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Essendon’s greatest coach Kevin Sheedy says the AFL should apologise to the club, players and fans for how it handled the infamous supplements saga.

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/kevin-sheedy-says-the-afl-should-apologise-to-essendon-over-its-handling-of-the-supplements-saga/news-story/77ce2c4680e703cfcd51ebfeb40c86d3


 :facepalm

Offline Andyy

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Re: Essendon face AFL probe/Players found Guilty by CAS
« Reply #3988 on: June 06, 2022, 09:28:21 PM »
True.

Because Demitriou tried to help them cover it up and the AFL wool a limp wristes approach hoping ASADA would stay out

Offline mightytiges

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Re: Essendon face AFL probe/Players found Guilty by CAS
« Reply #3989 on: June 08, 2022, 07:02:00 AM »
So they should get an apology for injecting players with goodness knows what, not keeping medical records, forcing their players to sign waivers, etc while still many deny Essendon did anything wrong ::). Take the red and black glasses off Sheeds.
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