James Hird - survivor

Benfti likes to keep it simplje and just blame dank. Obliviously he also thinks the punishment we received was of course to much. But the fact is benfti, the matter is far more complex then that. The so called conspiracy theory's are fact.

The AFL made the EFC a scapegoat when the federal government and ASADA came knocking. Sure the EFC made some mistakes but they did no more, or no less then the rest of the competition. The EFC where isolated for brand management.

All the evidence exists the EFC where conspired against, for those of us who have followed this very closely read every minuet of the court case etc. know this.

Little has done the best he possibly thought he could, but he was between a rock and a hard place. Unfortunately he chose to suck up the the AFL and by doing this has angered many of us. I fully understand why he did it, and respect the man, but it does not mean for one second that I or many of us like it.


Absolute ■■■■■■■ rank cop out, that’s what that is.
Hird and Co wanted the program to be better than the rest of the competition and you’re content with EFC having made some mistakes.
The gate was left wide open for the scapegoaters to do their thing.

It’s been well established that the program was implemented to catch up to the rest of the comp. Fair to say other clubs already had established supplement programs.

And it’s important to put it into context: there were half a dozen other clubs with equally poorly run programs.

So don’t give us that bullshit that ours was especially bad and especially ambitious.


Bullshit.
The only context you need to be concerned about is the EFC program.
The program was earmarked to be better than “them”. Dank walking through the corridors of Windy Hill unfettered and clueless about who received an injection on any particular day is especially bad. The boundaries were pushed and that’s ambitious.

What boundaries and what exactly were we guilty of doing again?

What boundaries?

Seriously if you have to ask then you need to be better informed.

I am very well informed but I am curious as to what boundaries RE was referring to in his post. Are these the boundaries that were in place in 2012 when Clothier stated that “all peptides are banned” when asked by Hird. Or are they the boundaries that were in place when neither the AFL nor ASADA could give a straight answer on the legality of AOD9604, or what about the boundaries that were established around the WADA group of unnamed peptides of unproven efficacy that were placed in S0 during the saga period (which includes TB4). Are the boundaries defined by what is on the WADA list or what ASADA says in on the WADA list?

It would be an interesting exercise to read exactly what rules and regulations Clothier has worked under for the past 4-5 years. Could be lots of redacted stuff and updates. Then, he always has that doyen of sports medicine Harcourt to help him out.


Shouldn’t have gone even close to AOD9604. That’s what pushing the boundaries is all about.

Yeah, we should have stayed with a piece of orange at 3 qtr time, that worked in under 9’s so why look at decades of scientific advancement. Its not like Hawthorn were leading the way in injection science, its not like we got a guy who had worked with Geelong while they won flags & its not as though we got the 2 guys the AFL had chosen to develop their own expansion club. Seriously, is there anyone actually simple enough to believe that Dank & Robinson just all of a sudden discovered peptides when they came to EFC? What the absolute fark do the dullards tell themselves Dank did at Gold coast or what advice he was giving to Robinson while at Geelong?

You know what- a lot of the problems stem from us following what worked at Geelong. Hird wanted bigger players, and in a hurry. It’s some degree of indictment we didn’t go with something purely out of the Essendon manuscript.

WTF is the Essendon manuscript, hope that everything goes back to the way it was in 2000, save money in the bank while the competition invest heavily in their football dept including sports science. The Essendon manuscript was resting on laurels & a resulting decade of failure. Its just pure ignorance to believe that continuing on that path was ever going to see the club return to success. The reality that you & others need to at the very least come to grips with is that sports science is a very real part of the future of all sports & ignoring it will only guarantee failure. Getting bigger, stronger, faster & more durable athletes is what sport is about, all sports.

You sound like an East German.
The Essendon Footbal Club manuscript is success without charlatans.
BTW, didn’t you chuck it all in weeks ago?

You sound like an ignorant fool who has no basic understanding of what you are talking about. On what basis do you presume to judge Dank a charlatan? This is a guy who has worked with numerous professional sports clubs & athletes for more than a decade. This is a guy who, unlike yourself has actual qualifications & experience in the field. You can choose to believe he has subverted the WADA code but FFS to call him a charlatan shows gross ignorance on your part & its a claim you have no basis for & no credible evidence to support.

BTW - I’ve heard Sheedy described as a charlatan too & his success was not built on passively waiting for success to happen. Sheedy pushed boundaries his whole career & the rules of the game were changed numerous times as a result of his influence. That’s what most success is actually built on - risk, taking a chance, pushing boundaries & breaking new ground. Your imagined manuscript is an ignorant lie you tell yourself. The club was well behind the competition & no amount of past glory was going to change that.

When did I chuck anything in? Once again you are either misinformed, deliberately obtuse or just a bit of a dill.


Sheeds has nothing to do with this ■■■■■, so ■■■■ off on that score.
You sound like someone who would be cannon fodder for a charlatan.
You obviously are too simple to even know what a charlatan actually is. Like I said, Sheedy does have something to do with this because he pushed boundaries & it was part of his success. Anyone suggesting a conservative continuation of the club lagging behind the competition was somehow the "Essendon manuscript" is simply showing they have no understanding or appreciation of where the club was before Sheedy & what he actually did to help the club succeed. You want a conservative approach to modern sport & no boundaries approached let alone pushed then that equals failure. I get that many don't see, don't know & can't appreciate where professional sport has progressed. Its a part of sport that's not romantic, not publicised much, not even talked about openly but again I ask you a simple question - WTF do you think Dank did at GC? What do you think sports scientists actually do in all sports? Are you claiming all sports science is bunk? Do you have even a high school level science basis for your position because its certainly not 1 supported by the medical & scientific community & its certainly not 1 shared by the world sports community who spend millions on sports science programs. Got anything of any substance at all because frankly so far all you've provided is dribble.

Don’t be a dunce. Dank and his "science"wasn’t good for Essendon Football Club.

Wasn’t it? What are you basing that on? You are the one making these defined claims but providing no substance to support them. You’re the dunce who basically is unable to give an even mildly intelligent response. Maybe Essendon football club wasn’t good enough for Dank’s science. Maybe you are too uneducated to be in position to make any claim about anything remotely scientific. Maybe you are just a troll. The evidence suggest the players were bigger & stronger. The evidence supports the position that the overall program (including Weapon’s regime) had the players performing at a better level in 2012 than they were in 2011. Its also strongly supports the position that many players were unable to maintain & sustain that level & broke down, while others (Jobe for example) had their best ever years.
Now if you are in any way capable of mounting an evidenced based scientific case to support the notion that it was Dank’s supplements & not Weapons weights program that caused the soft tissue injuries then by all means, the world is waiting to read your insights. Until that time your ignorant opinions on the validity & efficacy of Dank’s or any other sports science program is frankly as useful as a truckload of dead rats in a tampon factory.


Do you really believe Dank could establish the validity and efficacy of his program when he couldn’t even be bothered keeping good records? You’d be a real dill to think there was anything scientific about the way Dank conducted his “business”.

His science also got the ■■■■, in case you may have forgotten.

Just remember RE that Dank was found not guilty by the AFL Tribunal of any impropriety or illegal actions during his tenure at the EFC.

Can you point me in the direction of where it has been stated by any of his peers, not journos who googled peptide and are now experts, that Dank was not a competent and knowledgeable Biochemist. The efficacy of the supplements contained in his program are supported by many research papers. There exists a wide range of opinions amongst scientists who work in this field about the effectiveness of individual supplements but the theory of his program was sound and based on good science. This information is freely available online for those who are able to wade through the jargon.

His inability to be disciplined in his record keeping is a completely different matter and the extent of it is not exactly clear. Especially when Hird and others claim that a spreadsheet did exist (and may have been conveniently “lost” by ASADA or the “leave bits out” mantra of the AFL).


I don’t think anyone is glowing about Dank at the minute. As for record keeping, don’t be so flippant and ignorant about the spreadsheet. It was a piece of crap, and the program ran by Dank had to be monitored and recorded meticulously to get anywhere near efficacy. Don’t forgetl, there was a whole lot of crap being pumped in to those guys.

And examples of “a whole lot of crap” would be? You can give me the generic name if you don’t know the scientific name.

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Think I might have over-estimated this guy.
Thought he was someone involved with the club.
Starting to think he’s five.

The AFL would sneak away from responsibility because the decisions that were made, the ones we have already admitted were bad decisions, were our decisions to make and were removed from the AFL's direct line of responsibility ie poor record keeping, poor oversight of Dank, insufficient pre-evaluation & approval of program by Doc Reid etc. Drawing the line from the AFL to the program requires proof that the AFL could have and had knowledge whereby they should have stopped it. That is a helluva lot more difficult than finding us guilty of something we have already admitted to.

Exactly, this was always going to happen. We left ourselves at the mercy of the AFL as soon as Evans self reported. Who knows what happened to any records that did exist is anyone’s guess. We know for a fact (both Hird and Bomber) have said spreadsheets did exist of what players took. To what extent we will never know.

All I know is with everything the AFL have orchestrated, It would not surprise me at all if the conveniently disappeared before ASADA could get there hands on them. I also think Ben Mc Divot suspects something is missing in relation to the records from the comments we have heard from him.

Evans would have been all to happy to see this happen, as he was ■■■■ scared we had done something wrong. AFL didn’t want a whole team of players out of action if there was something in them that was illegal. Also the AFL could play the governance card, charge the club, officials, and head coach because of the records not existing.

Which is exactly what they set out to do, before the club even self reported.

Yep, like I’ve said here before, the strategy of blaming “rougue staff” was decided upon long before we ever heard anything about our records not being up to scratch or non-existent as its now become. Did our governance conveniently fit in with what had already been decided OR has the truth been manipulated to fit the agenda? IF there were no records then how the fark did anyone know that any player had been given AOD? How did the AFL & ASADA know that players had taken actovegin, tribulus, pigs brain extract & cream of sum yun gui if there were no records? Remember the weeks of attacks on the club about all those scary sounding concoctions (most of which were freely available at the local health food shop). Did the AFL simply guess & then pass onto the media a list of substances there was no record we even used? Think people, use your memories here & try to remember what the narrative was in the early days. How did Ziggy determine substances were exotic if there were no records of those substances? Remember when the story was Dank was conducting his own trials…seriously think about that for a second, sports science & any breakthroughs would be worth millions to international sport. Dank like all sports scientists know its the holy grail & its exactly what kept him in professional sports with numerous clubs & codes. I find it difficult to believe Dank would not have kept a record of what players were given. Again, he worked with other AFL clubs & NRL clubs, its baseless to suggest he suddenly became Dr Lazy Jekyll only once he came to EFC. Did he not keep records at GC & the AFL didn’t notify EFC he was a poor employee??? Seriously does anyone actually believe Dank was just charlatan who managed to fool not only 4 NRL clubs but the AFL’s own fledgling club before moving onto EFC then Melbourne? The guy must be a genius to have fooled so many for so long, hell even Leigh Matthews conceded he knew of Dank & his reputation.
Also there is the elephant in the room of offsite injections, remember when that was in vogue? Well here’s the thing with that, Hypermed is a registered medical facility & as such has regulations its expected to comply with. This includes very well defined standards for record keeping. Now if Hypermed doesn’t have records of the hundreds of injections we were billed for then why haven’t they been shut down or at a minimum investigated for misconduct?

You’re dumb - we all know Dank had records but they were ■■■■, because he was incompetent. Why do you reckon he got the ■■■■. He was not good at “science”, but good at worming his way in to an organization like EFC. You are probably too dumb to also realize that there are some cunning operators out there.

How about you read JBomber’s post and answer his queries instead of going off half cocked. Your comments might have some credence if you are able to tell us your qualifications in Biochemistry and Physiology that then allows you to understand the intricacies of sports supplementation and then be qualified to critique Dank’s abilities as a Biochemist.

And why you are at it perhaps explain to me how our supplement program was going to affect Paddy Ryder’s unborn child. I suggest you can explain it starting at the cellular level.


Lay it on the line 5au- were you happy to have had Dank and his particular program at Essendon?

I will answer your two questions this way.

  1. Was I happy to have had Dank at Essendon - in hindsight given how everything has turned out - NO
  2. Was I happy to have his program at Essendon - Yes, because the concept based on available evidence was scientifically sound. The supplements used have been proven to be WADA compliant and confirmed by the AFL Tribunal.

You mentioned in another post about the crap being pumped into the players bodies. Please define “crap”.

Don't waste you breath Bomber5au, the guy is an absolute simpleton and most likely a troll.

Your probably right munna1. As my old man used to say “no brains and happy without them”

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Feel free to PM me if anything new even remotely connected to Hirdy happens. Till then, go and argue in the Saga thread.

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Miraculously, it seems the wheels only fell off and Dank and Robinson were only duds at the EFC. Easy to understand for the average footy supporter and punter considering how the club were punished and the players banned.

Strangely, the same thing happened to Robson, Hamilton, Evans and others. So, it must have been the environment at the EFC. That is what the AFL and ASADA would have everyone believe.

To any thinking and curious person, this explanation lacks substance and doesn’t make sense because most people are creatures of habit.

James ‘I’m not a businessman, I’m a BUSINESS, Man” Hird on the Santo, Sam and Ed podcast talking round ball game. Great interview.

https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/santo-sam-eds-total-football/id581451011?mt=2

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Love ya Jim bob, and hope all is well in hirdyville

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He could pick an apple and I’d think it was amazing. Love you long time Jimmy.

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Imagine what he could be right now.

If it wasn’t for one inhumane organisation

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This was a great listen, really interesting to hear some of his knowledge and what he is getting up to business wise. Cheers for sharing

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Seems hypocritical of The Age putting this on their home page. Still using him to sell newspapers.

Eh what do you expect? People are interested to hear what he does with himself.

The Age seem somwhat miffed that there was no mention at all of the saga in the podcast, thereby acheiving a reference to the saga, because The Age never fails to mention it in connection with James Hird.

Can stick a fork in the prospect of the next generation of Hird’s as father-sons going by that article

James Hird, still a class act. And dare I say, would be an asset to any organisation.

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Very disappointed in the kids wanting to play soccer. A massive massive loss for the club. Imagine having a centre line of Hird - Hird - Hird!

But overall I’m glad him and the family seem to have found some peace

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As much as I would love to see that centreline, I would actually prefer Hird juniors to be away from the spotlight the AFL would inevitably put on them. Unfortunately, I’ve lost all hope in humanity and it wouldn’t surprise me if the general public booed a Hird Jnr on the footy field. I hope that they are able to grow up as normal teenagers and young adults from here in.

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I think the afl was a large factor in getting them on that career path.

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They’ve been playing soccer for ages, and was always going to go this way.

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