• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

AFL (Aussie Rules) 2015 |OT| Women's Round presented by Stephen Milne & Majak Daw

Status
Not open for further replies.

AxeMan

Member
Hoping for some lengthy bans but fear it'll only be a few weeks. They need the whole season off.
Interesting that the media campaign has stated to ramp up again and with a clear narrative - Dank bad, players good

The cynic in me says it's conditioning the public to accept that the players won't be banned but it'll all be pinned on Dank. Hird getting of scott free grinds my gears
 

bomma_man

Member
I think they're going to use the fact that it's been going on for so long to give them reduced sentences.

On one hand they (Essendon) have intentionally dragged the whole mess on for as long as possible.


On the other hand leaving the players hanging for so long goes against a whole bunch of legal principles.
 

legend166

Member
At least we can be confident that the AFL will act quickly and swiftly with dealing with the rising PED problem in the league. They've certainly shown a desire and willingness to deal with these issues with utmost integrity and not at all attempt to sweep things under the carpet.
 

Yagharek

Member
So that's players at st kilda, fremantle and now collingwood who have tested positive to PEDs.

Boy oh boy wowee what irony.

Edit also wife beaters at north melb and carlton, drug dealers at gold coast, meth users celebrated as state heroes in west coast, and rapists in st kilda and essendon. Oh and assault with machetes by Melbourne player.

Define disrepute for me please. I'm confused as to what it means.
 

jambo

Member
ABC Grandstand are live tweeting the presser

Collingwood boss Gary Pert: This is a major issue. It is really important that we talk about this

Pert: Today the players (have been) named so there is no question of the players on the list

Pert: I got a call on Friday morning from ASADA... when they rolled out who the two players were, I must admit I was pretty devastated

Pert: We are talking about two of the highest quality young men in our program. I think everyone would have felt the same surprise

Pert: My role was to make sure that we got hold of the players, linked them up with ASADA and allowed ASADA to go through the process

Pert says Keeffe and Thomas were "shell-shocked" when they received the news

Pert: We sit here very confidently today and can say this is not something has come from our program

Collingwood football director Neil Balme: It doesn't make any sense for either of them to use this. It was disbelief for both of them

Pert: The first question I asked ASADA when we found out it was two players was "is there any more?" They said no

Pert: There is no breach unless the B sample comes up with the same readings. Everyone is assumed to be innocent until then
 

HolyCheck

I want a tag give me a tag
So that's players at st kilda, fremantle and now collingwood who have tested positive to PEDs.

Boy oh boy wowee what irony.

Edit also wife beaters at north melb and carlton, drug dealers at gold coast, meth users celebrated as state heroes in west coast, and rapists in st kilda and essendon. Oh and assault with machetes by Melbourne player.

Define disrepute for me please. I'm confused as to what it means.

Which essendon player was a rapeist?
 

Yagharek

Member
Should I say alleged? That word never seems to apply in afl talk when players clubs or coaches get banned before it hits the courts.
 

HolyCheck

I want a tag give me a tag
Should I say alleged? That word never seems to apply in afl talk when players clubs or coaches get banned before it hits the courts.

No no, it was more I didn't remember it! But googling, it was Lovett after he moved to st kilda, that's why I didn't remember.


Or if you're a crows supporter, it was lovett-murray
 

Yagharek

Member
At least we can be assured every club has perfect governance and thus know richmond and west coast closely supervised ben cousins meth addiction whilst gold coast ensured no hiccups while their cocaine shipments were on the road.

Good to know collingwood and fremantle are perfect too

Also club legend of west coast tried to burn his ex wife's house down a few weeks ago.

Top blokes all round in this league
 

AxeMan

Member
At least we can be assured every club has perfect governance and thus know richmond and west coast closely supervised ben cousins meth addiction whilst gold coast ensured no hiccups while their cocaine shipments were on the road.

Good to know collingwood and fremantle are perfect too

Also club legend of west coast tried to burn his ex wife's house down a few weeks ago.

Top blokes all round in this league


The bitterness is strong with this one
 

Chaosmidas

Neo Member
Too much non-football football talk in here! Especially the OT tag referencing two near irrelevant players (one retired, one outside the 22).

What are your thoughts on who will be playing finals this year? If we take Hawthorn, Port Adelaide, Sydney, Geelong, Fremantle and North Melbourne as given (though discuss if you disagree...) that leaves two spots.

As a Power fan I hate to say it but I think this year Crows will make the finals. Their list has been top 8 for years now (the infamous 'one kick from the GF in 2012') and with the new coach maybe the culture of mediocrity will dissipate...

As for the last spot, it's up for grabs. My favourite would be Gold Coast or Richmond, with Brisbane as a smokey. Gold Coast is probably still going to be heavily Garry-dependent again but if he can stay fit most of the season they might have it. I don't rate Richmond that highly but they snuck in last year so they can probably do it again, even after having such a poor start to the season. Brisbane have an elite midfield but not much in the way of key position players... Maybe Rocky and Beams can win it on their own though.
 
Dusty Dusty!!!
QO3vef.gif
 
Hawthorn, Port Adelaide, Sydney, Geelong and North Melbourne are givens for me. Freo should be there but you never know. The last two could been handed out to a bunch of teams, Eagles, Crows, Tigers, Pies, Lions and Gold Coast the likely ones. Though none of these will challenge the other teams.

I'll predict the top 4 to be Hawks, Swans, Port and North. Hawks more than likely to win again.
 

AxeMan

Member
What are your thoughts on who will be playing finals this year? If we take Hawthorn, Port Adelaide, Sydney, Geelong, Fremantle and North Melbourne as given (though discuss if you disagree...) that leaves two spots.

I'm not sold on North at all. They finished 6th last year.
In the finals Essendon had them on toast in their first game and luckily won that after Essendon stopped 10 minutes too early and in their second game they played Geelong who were done for the season a few rounds before finals started. Geelong just didn't care about that game.
They got smacked against a finals quality team in Sydney in their only proper final.
 

Yagharek

Member
The competition is completely unbalanced anyway, may as well go all-in on PEDs now seeing as half the teams have already got unofficial programs on the boil.
 

Chaosmidas

Neo Member
Yes. Discussion of PED usage within the AFL is "non football".

Utterly unsurprising comment.

Fair enough, it is worthy of discussion. But we're a few days out from the start of the season, isn't your excitement growing? With mates, the conversation is more "will swanny turn back the clock this year???", "we wuv wobbie gway!!!" and "what stupid fucking thing will 'Roo' say next" (the last one probably isn't relevant in Melbourne) - though obviously everyone wants to see what happens tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to the first home game, Adelaide Oval has a great atmosphere.


I'm not sold on North at all.

You might be right, and I thought the same thing last year. When you think about it they don't really have any freak players that stand above the rest. Life is easier with a Selwood, Fyfe or Boak type that can make a huge play that lifts the team over the line. Still, they made it to the prelim (though as you say only through shitty bombers and tired cats).
 

Omikron

Member
I couldn't be less excited about the AFL season. The only reason I 'follow' it is to participate with friends in fantasy football. So all I care about is tracking scoring rates etc.

The current drug incidents are deliciously ironic as the AFL has always projected itself as 'clean' for as long as I can remember. Yet they have had numerous positives tests in the last few years, never mind the whole Esssendon situation which stinks to high heaven.

Speaking of, shall we get some predictions going?

I suspect it will be guilty, Watson will lose his Brownlow, but the players will be 'ok' to start round 1.
 

HolyCheck

I want a tag give me a tag
I couldn't be less excited about the AFL season. The only reason I 'follow' it is to participate with friends in fantasy football. So all I care about is tracking scoring rates etc.

The current drug incidents are deliciously ironic as the AFL has always projected itself as 'clean' for as long as I can remember. Yet they have had numerous positives tests in the last few years, never mind the whole Esssendon situation which stinks to high heaven.

Speaking of, shall we get some predictions going?

I suspect it will be guilty, Watson will lose his Brownlow, but the players will be 'ok' to start round 1.

Completely non commital answer that aludes to something having happened and that players wwill be under a strict one strike and you're out poliicy and further club fines.
 

Yagharek

Member
I predict mass guilty verdicts, minimum 22 round bans, all backdated, legal action by players against the club.

Four more years. Four more years. Four more years of drama dragging on.
 

Grug

Member
I predict mass guilty verdicts, minimum 22 round bans, all backdated, legal action by players against the club.

Four more years. Four more years. Four more years of drama dragging on.


I'm expecting a wet lettuce leaf and a WADA appeal.
 

HolyCheck

I want a tag give me a tag
I'm honestly more concerned by the fact that, if this was going on, aren't players drug tested?

How did it never get picked up?
 
I'm honestly more concerned by the fact that, if this was going on, aren't players drug tested?

How did it never get picked up?

The tests for detecting prohibited substances are not 100% accurate, and sometimes, prohibited substances cannot be detected.

Thymosin beta-4 may also be hard to detect.

I believe they were caught based on evidence surrounding Dank, not actual blood tests. Someone can correct me if I am wrong though, I cant remember exactly how it went down two years ago.

I hope the players and club gets severely punished.
 

Yagharek

Member
I'm pretty sure the evidence was written on confetti and scattered to the winds in the general direction of The Age and Herald Sun offices.

The reports have been reconstructed from that.
 
I'm pretty sure the evidence was written on confetti and scattered to the winds in the general direction of The Age and Herald Sun offices.

The reports have been reconstructed from that.

from wiki, it sounds like it was Dank himself that threw the confetti, haha, what an idiot.

In February 2013, Essendon announced that had asked the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) to investigating the supplements program that Dank had overseen during 2012 season. A former player, Kyle Reimers, had claimed that the players were asked to sign waivers and were injected with supplements that were "pushing the boundaries".[3] Another former player, Mark McVeigh countered that the injections were only vitamins and all were completely legal and not on any World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) banned substance list. Dank left Essendon at the end of the 2012 season, and high-performance manager Dean 'The Weapon' Robinson was suspended from the club after the announcement of the investigation.[4] Stephen Dank controversially admitted to a Fairfax journalist that he had been using thymosin beta 4 on players form Essendon. When journalist Nick McKenzie pointed out that that drug was prohibited by WADA under its S2 classification, Dank hesitated and then seemed extremely surprised: "Well, that must have just only come in this year and I will get someone to speak to ASADA about that. That's just mind-blowing." After 24 hours, Dank informed Fairfax media that he was actually really talking about thymomodulin which was a permitted substance. Following the publication of the Australian Crime Commission report into Organised Crime and Drugs in Sport,[5] lawyers acting for Dank launched a $10m defamation suit alleging that various media outlets had falsely accused him of providing illegal drugs to elite athletes.[6] [7] [8]
 

Omikron

Member
Not guilty

Wowee

Going to be interesting to hear why.


"The tribunal determined that there was insufficient evidence to uphold the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority's belief that the 34 past and present Bombers were injected with the banned drug Thymosin beta-4 during 2012."
 

legend166

Member
I'm gonna need a break down of why there wasn't enough evidence. That AFL charge sheet from back in 2013 was incredibly damning, and the investigation continued for months after that. The behaviour of Essendon, Hird and Dank for the last two years has basically been evidence enough they were guilty as anything.

I've got very little doubt TB4 was used, but it will be interesting to see the decision. Was it a case of "We don't believe TB4 was used" (which would be ridiculous), or a case of "We believe it was used but we can't exactly say on which players" (which makes more sense but has to bring about further club sanctions).
 

HolyCheck

I want a tag give me a tag
I'm gonna need a break down of why there wasn't enough evidence. That AFL charge sheet from back in 2013 was incredibly damning, and the investigation continued for months after that. The behaviour of Essendon, Hird and Dank for the last two years has basically been evidence enough they were guilty as anything.

I've got very little doubt TB4 was used, but it will be interesting to see the decision. Was it a case of "We don't believe TB4 was used" (which would be ridiculous), or a case of "We believe it was used but we can't exactly say on which players" (which makes more sense but has to bring about further club sanctions).

That charge sheet was never officially published. Soo yoou can't use that. Thatw as a blooody media leak and not official.
 

Rezbit

Member
Honestly pretty surprised. I never thought they'd be prevented from playing, but insufficient evidence is an interesting one.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom