It is time for Jobe Watson to be reinstated

[Uninformed]

Re: It is time for Jobe Watson to be reinstated

It's Essington. I don't need evidence to fetch my pitchfork.

Now that's an entirely different matter. Fully justified blind bias toward the enemy. Welcome to one of my spare pitchforks if you can't find yours!

[Uninformed]

Re: It is time for Jobe Watson to be reinstated

That's a different argument.

Once you have, then you certainly need to comply.

Why do you think it is Essendon haven't been able to prove they did nothing wrong?

Not their job. Innocent till proven guilty. The 'proven guilty' is the missing bit.

[Sedat]

Re: It is time for Jobe Watson to be reinstated

Thoughts?

It is time to give Ben Johnson the 1988 100m gold medal. Farks sake.

I give Jobe grudging respect for wearing the Canadian Tuxedo in the drug cheat press conference but that's it.

[Grantysghost]

Re: It is time for Jobe Watson to be reinstated

Not their job. Innocent till proven guilty. The 'proven guilty' is the missing bit.

Would you endorse a similar approach to supplements from the Dogs?

Offsite injections of unknown origin (into the Bont et al), Doctors ignored, zero record keeping, coaches injecting supplements and skin tanning agents, and whatever else they were doing.

I'd find it pretty difficult at any time to be ok with my club doing any of that.

You take an interesting position, almost anti authority if I'm reading you correctly. Not sure if suits this particular issue however I'm enjoying the discussion.

I am done with this story though so Mike can jog on.

[Uninformed]

Re: It is time for Jobe Watson to be reinstated

Would you endorse a similar approach to supplements from the Dogs?

Offsite injections of unknown origin (into the Bont et al), Doctors ignored, zero record keeping, coaches injecting supplements and skin tanning agents, and whatever else they were doing.

I'd find it pretty difficult at any time to be ok with my club doing any of that.

You take an interesting position, almost anti authority if I'm reading you correctly. Not sure if suits this particular issue however I'm enjoying the discussion.

I am done with this story though so Mike can jog on.

Good point, and absolutely not. I don't like the approach Essendon took. It was way too extreme an approach to, in their words, 'be at the cutting edge of supplements.' But there was no direct rule against the off-site injections when they did it. There should have been a rule and, to me, all the AFL had to do was send them a memo prohibiting it.

But it was supplements not doping. So there was no need for the public disgrace, the media pile-on, and the ruination of a large number of young men's lives. The effect that had on innocent people was horrific.

Sure they made bad choices in implementing and going along with the program, but everyone makes mistakes. Even the Bont. makes mistakes..(well, probably not..) But most people do anyway.

I am the last person that would recommend medical science as a way to improve. Eat healthy, train hard and practice, practice, practice. Its the Uniformed way: well it is what I preach but very much fail to practice - and you know how much that is worth!

[Topdog]

Re: It is time for Jobe Watson to be reinstated

Anyway. Doesn?t matter. Everyone has a point of view. Just waiting for someone to produce the hard evidence. Not inference, evidence. Still waiting?

So as long as someone is good at hiding something they can do whatever they like? No wonder everything at bomberland suddenly went missing.

Also again to clarify the burden of proof is different for WADA drug cases so the AFL did apply it incorrectly.

https://www.wada-ama.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/2021_wada_code.pdf

Article 3, page 26

[hujsh]

Re: It is time for Jobe Watson to be reinstated

So as long as someone is good at hiding something they can do whatever they like? No wonder everything at bomberland suddenly went missing.

Also again to clarify the burden of proof is different for WADA drug cases so the AFL did apply it incorrectly.

https://www.wada-ama.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/2021_wada_code.pdf

Article 3, page 26

I don't think he cares. If there's no positive test for PEDs then nothing else matters. Give Lance back his his Tour De France wins.

[Bornadog]

Re: It is time for Jobe Watson to be reinstated

That article by Sheahan is an absolute joke, how dare he even suggest it and write it.

[ledge]

Re: It is time for Jobe Watson to be reinstated

Not their job. Innocent till proven guilty. The 'proven guilty' is the missing bit.

You are guilty if you do not have records of your injection , time and date .
That is a rule that is clear , otherwise athletes would just not take records.
The players said the club has the records , they didn’t and it’s irrelevant anyway as it clearly states the players must have them.
The club certainly did the players over but In saying that the players did themselves over by not having kept records themselves.
Guilty due to not keeping records whether it was illegal or not .
Essendon fans still don’t understand the fact they didn’t keep records is why they were found guilty not that they were taking illegal injections .
They have still not come out with the records so still guilty .
Watson did the wrong thing that year like all players no matter how many years down the track that year was still wrong.

[Mofra]

Re: It is time for Jobe Watson to be reinstated

At the time there was no rule against offsite injection programs. The rule was introduced subsequently. A sound decision but one that could easily have been done without the alphabet people. It could have been treated like Mathews' Brisbane team's fluid injections on the plane down. Stopped without a fuss.

Essendon did nothing wrong. They were not using performance enhancing substances.

Jobe was a tremendously fair player. Always has been and was a deserving winner. He, like Hird, would never cheat. He did nothing wrong or unfair.

On the basis of character, labelling Hird and Watson cheats is as untrue as applying that label to people the character of Bevo and Bont.

How does anyone know? They 'lost' the spreadsheets, went behind their club doctor's back, and the players still aren't sure what was actually taken (TB4 as a best guess was part of the mix).

[Mofra]

Re: It is time for Jobe Watson to be reinstated

Not their job. Innocent till proven guilty. The 'proven guilty' is the missing bit.

They were investigated and found guilty of incorrectly keeping records.
How can you be found to have breached a code then be found not-guilty?

[Mofra]

Re: It is time for Jobe Watson to be reinstated

As an aside, I did listen to a podcast with Edwin Moses who has dedicated his life to catching drug cheats in sport.
We're very very close to not testing for substances at all and just analyzing blood samples to get a complete profile of an athlete's 'natural' genetic potential which means the smoking gun isn't needed anyway. It's far more complex than I can write here and a fascinating development.

[jeemak]

Re: It is time for Jobe Watson to be reinstated

It wasn't just about not keeping records, it was myriad reasons.

Here's the Wikipedia breakdown, and you can be sure if it wasn't accurate Bombres fans would be all over it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essendon_Football_Club_supplements_saga

[hujsh]

Re: It is time for Jobe Watson to be reinstated

It wasn't just about not keeping records, it was myriad reasons.

Here's the Wikipedia breakdown, and you can be sure if it wasn't accurate Bombres fans would be all over it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essend...pplements_saga

Good link. I feel like this section in particular is quite relevant

Vital to the case was determining whether or not the unspecified Thymosin used in the program was the banned Thymosin Beta-4 or a different, legal variety of Thymosin. A paper trail had confirmed that Dank had been dispensed Thymosin Beta-4 by the Como Compounding Pharmacy; however, no direct evidence was found that it was this Thymosin rather than a different legal Thymosin which had been administered to players, and this missing evidence link had been key to the AFL Tribunal's not guilty verdict under the 'links in the chain' method. Part of the WADA submission to the appeal, which the CAS accepted in its verdict, was that Thymosin Beta-4 was the only form of Thymosin which would have had the soft tissue recovery effect that Dank had attributed to it – text messages from Dank had specifically described Thymosin as the cornerstone of the soft tissue recovery program. Two urine samples taken from Essendon players during 2012 were also found to contain elevated Thymosin Beta-4; the levels were not high enough to fail the drug test, but they added to the cable of evidence against the players

[jeemak]

Re: It is time for Jobe Watson to be reinstated

^It was the approach to evidence that ultimately did the Bombres in, so essentially not having documentary evidence of what they were doing saved them at the AFL tribunal, while it didn't cut it with the WADA/ CAS processes.

The dog ate my homework excuse is bush league stuff which is fine if that's how you want to run a competition in a local market. It just doesn't cut it if you want to play in the big leagues from a doping perspective.