Fletcher book

the media are going have field day with fletcher book they are going to write bullshit after bullshit

Nah, won’t happen.

Media would NEVER do anything like that…

how much do you want to bet,cary lyon he all ready start use it when they interview j watson on football classified

Sorry. What?

how many goal…

No matter what you think about how Hird's been treated (badly) or how ASADA have farked us (badly) or how the AFL have farked us (really badly) its crystal clear after reading that extract from Fletch that the club should never ever have allowed this ■■■■ to happen to its players.

Fletch did not deserve this.

Exactly, say what you want about how a club legend was treated in the last week, but spare a thought for current legends still playing. I know we copped our just deserts for governance, but holy hell that was poor form what the players went through.

100% concur.

but, to play devil’s advocate, they could’ve declined at any time as well.

woah now, lets not dance with the devil.

No matter what you think about how Hird's been treated (badly) or how ASADA have farked us (badly) or how the AFL have farked us (really badly) its crystal clear after reading that extract from Fletch that the club should never ever have allowed this ■■■■ to happen to its players.

Fletch did not deserve this.

Exactly, say what you want about how a club legend was treated in the last week, but spare a thought for current legends still playing. I know we copped our just deserts for governance, but holy hell that was poor form what the players went through.

100% concur.

but, to play devil’s advocate, they could’ve declined at any time as well.

Yes, and who is responsible for putting the players through this ordeal? Here’s my take:

  • Stephen Dank 20%
  • Dean Robinson 2%
  • David Evans 2%
  • The players themselves 2%
  • The AFL 10%
  • James Hird 2%
  • Mark Thompson 2%
  • Paul Hamilton 10%
  • The football media, collectively 20%
  • ASADA 20%
  • WADA 5%
  • Kate Lundy 5%

And here’s the media narrative:

  • Stephen Dank 25%
  • Dean Robinson 0%
  • David Evans 0%
  • The players themselves 0%
  • The AFL 0%
  • James Hird 75%
  • Mark Thompson 0%
  • Paul Hamilton 0%
  • The football media, collectively 0%
  • ASADA 0%
  • WADA 0%
  • Kate Lundy 0%
Yes, and who is responsible for putting the players through this ordeal? Here's my take:
  • Stephen Dank 20%
  • Dean Robinson 2%
  • David Evans 2%
  • The players themselves 2%
  • The AFL 10%
  • James Hird 2%
  • Mark Thompson 2%
  • Paul Hamilton 10%
  • The football media, collectively 20%
  • ASADA 20%
  • WADA 5%
  • Kate Lundy 5%

And here’s the media narrative:

  • Stephen Dank 25%
  • Dean Robinson 0%
  • David Evans 0%
  • The players themselves 0%
  • The AFL 0%
  • James Hird 75%
  • Mark Thompson 0%
  • Paul Hamilton 0%
  • The football media, collectively 0%
  • ASADA 0%
  • WADA 0%
  • Kate Lundy 0%

wheres Ian Robson fit in?

No matter what you think about how Hird's been treated (badly) or how ASADA have farked us (badly) or how the AFL have farked us (really badly) its crystal clear after reading that extract from Fletch that the club should never ever have allowed this ■■■■ to happen to its players.

Fletch did not deserve this.

Exactly, say what you want about how a club legend was treated in the last week, but spare a thought for current legends still playing. I know we copped our just deserts for governance, but holy hell that was poor form what the players went through.

No matter what you think about how Hird’s been treated (badly) or how ASADA have farked us (badly) or how the AFL have farked us (really badly) its crystal clear after reading that extract from Fletch that the club should never ever have allowed this ■■■■ to happen to its players.

Fletch did not deserve this.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/book-extract-essendon-great-dustin-fletcher-gives-insiders-account-into-bombers-supplements-saga/story-fnp04d70-1227493303654

Book extract: Essendon great Dustin Fletcher gives insider’s account into Bombers supplements saga
August 22, 2015 8:00pm
Dustin FletcherSunday Herald Sun

The evergreen Dustin Fletcher in action. Picture: Wayne Ludbey
I’D always be the first to training at Victoria Park because I’d drop the kids off at school and then keep going.

If training was starting at 10am or 11am, I’d be there just after 9am. Often I’d sit in the car with a coffee and read the newspaper; on other occasions I’d wander out and have a chat to some of the staff.

Stephen Dank would also be there early, setting up the GPS stuff, and I figured it was his domain as he had the computer there recording all the data.

I’d never worn a GPS device before.

The joke among my teammates and the coaching staff was that they’d throw me one and I’d just throw it straight back because I knew it was (fitness coach) the Weapon’s way of catching me out in terms of the kilometres I covered at training compared to my younger teammates.

Most mornings I’d sit down with Dank and we’d chat. I enjoyed watching the rugby, so often we’d talk about what was happening in the NRL.

Stephen was a different sort of character but was clearly smart.

My first thoughts were that he had a good head on his shoulders. Truth be known, I actually quite enjoyed Stephen Dank’s company.

I wasn’t alone. It wasn’t long before Dank moved up the pecking order at Essendon. One week he suddenly had an office at Windy Hill and seemed to be on board in a full- time capacity.

There was one other significant change he introduced around this time: the GPS devices were gone and supplements were in.

I’d taken supplements throughout my career but not by injection, which was what Dank introduced.

DUSTIN FLETCHER’S BRILLIANT CAREER

The only injections I’d been given previously at the club were flu shots. It was standard practice that at the start of each year you would sit down with the club’s nutritionist and figure out what supplements you needed.

Often I would take them for a few weeks but if they weren’t doing anything for me, I’d stop using them. I’d usually neglect to tell the nutritionist this news, just to keep her off my back.

The program Dank put us on at the start had supplements that were similar to what we’d been using in recent years, but I noticed there were a couple of different ones in the mix.

When I parked myself in Dank’s office of a morning I would ask him questions about the stuff we were taking.

I’d even flick through the books he had on the supplements. For every one of my questions he had an answer, and his answers always seemed to add up.

He said everyone was on a different program but mine was focused more on the recovery side of things and keeping the body strong on a weekly basis. That seemed to make sense.

To this as an AFL veteran.

Fletcher went from this as a junior footballer.
The first alarm bell rang when the frequency of the injections started to increase. I’d had the odd injection in the stomach over the years but this was going to another level.

I was still taking the tablets, which I’d read about and signed off on as they were ASADA and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) approved.

But the injections — which were given either in the stomach or the buttocks — were getting more and more frequent. Over the course of the season I would have between 30 and 50 needles.

That sounds excessive now, but at the time we all thought it was just part of a program that had been ticked off by the various authorities, including the club’s medical staff.

And every time we asked a question about what we were taking, we were assured it was not only beneficial but legal.

From there it just became routine.

We’d been convinced that the supplements program was above board, we’d been shown documents which suggested it was and told that it was going to give us that extra couple of per cent advantage over our competitors.

Fletcher is chaired off after game 400 on May 30, 2015, by Jobe Watson and Brent Stanton. Picture: Colleen Petch
Whether that was in the gym or in our recovery or ability to run harder for longer, it varied from player to player but the bottom line was we would be a better football team because of all these needles.

As players, that’s often all you need.

Was it naive? Trust is a big thing in football clubs. You need it between players to be successful on the field, and behind the scenes there is trust that everything the coaches and staff are doing is for your benefit and the ultimate goal of success.

It wasn’t unreasonable for us to think this was what was in play here.

However, Dank’s recording procedures became more haphazard as the season progressed. On several occasions I’d get injected by Dank in his office in the morning and then go and train or do my weights sessions but Dank would seemingly forget to tick it off, and then in the afternoon he’d be chasing me up for another injection.

I don’t think he was trying to do the wrong thing by giving me a double dose, but I did find it odd.

Again, at the time I shrugged it off and put it down to him having 40 blokes to organise — even though I was developing strong suspicions he was not properly on top of the recording process.

Fletcher and his former coach, fellow Bomber playing legend James Hird.
Dank also introduced an intravenous setup in what I assumed was a doctor’s surgery — it was actually an anti-ageing clinic — across the road from Windy Hill.

This was sold to the players as a crucial process in our recovery from training — those same exercises, drills and processes that had been ramped up yet again by the Weapon.

Walking across the road to be put on IV drips didn’t seem odd at the time. There were always nurses there so it all seemed legit.

For most of us in the playing squad it was another acknowledgment that we were training hard, so we simply accepted it when they told us it was the quickest and best way of putting the vitamins and nutrients back into the body that we were losing during the tough sessions.

Brisbane had apparently used the system with great success during their premiership run a decade earlier.

Even so, at the start of the new program our leadership group had asked for a form, which each player would sign, listing all the peptides and amino acids that were being used and confirming they were all WADA and ASADA compliant.

There was also a confidentiality clause, which was more about ensuring other clubs didn’t get on to what we were doing; apparently it was at the “cutting edge”.

As a playing group we put our trust in Dank and the Weapon.

On face value we had no reason not to. They had the backing of James Hird, the coach, and we presumed that Bruce Reid, the club doctor, and his medical staff were also on board.

How wrong we were.

THE CALL

THE 02 prefix had me intrigued.

I was checking my mobile phone during a break in training and had two missed calls from the same number.

There was no voicemail on my phone so there was no message, but it wasn’t long before my curiosity got the better of me and I dialled the number.

“Welcome to the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority …”

I nearly dropped the phone.

Why was ASADA ringing me now? My heart started beating a bit faster. What had happened? Everything had seemed to have gone quiet for a couple of months. On the field we’d been inconsistent but we had strung two wins together after the bye to be just a game outside the eight after 12 rounds.

It felt like we were starting to find a rhythm again as a team after all the distractions. But I knew this phone call could only mean bad news.

I turned to Cale Hooker, who was sitting next to me. “Have you got any missed calls from an 02 number?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“I have and it doesn’t sound flash, but I’m not sure if someone is taking the ■■■■ out of me.”

He quickly picked up what I was talking about. “I think someone is winding you up.”

Fletcher takes a mark in defence. Picture: Wayne Ludbey
I hoped so and went back to training, but just before the 2pm weights session I was checking my phone again when it rang.

The book cover: ‘Fletch’ by Dustin Fletcher, published by Pan Macmillan Australia.
I hoped so and went back to training, but just before the 2pm weights session I was checking my phone again when it rang.

It was the same number. After a couple of rings I pressed the green button. The voice at the other end was clinical.

“Can I check your email details?” it asked.

“Yeah, no worries. But what is this regarding?”

“I’m not obliged to say.”

My frustration was rising. “Well, what do you need my email for?”

“It’s ASADA and this is just the way it is,” he replied.

I gave over my email details but then pressed him for more information.

“What is this regarding?” I asked again.

“If you are contacting me, sending me a message, I would like to know what it is about.”

“The appropriate people will deal with it. You’re going to get an email from ASADA.”

It was time to ask the million-dollar question. “Is it a show-cause notice? Is it something along those lines?”

“I’m not obliged to say over the phone.”

And with that, he was gone. I stared at my phone for several moments. What the hell had just happened?

I slowly wandered towards the weights room like a zombie.

But then I noticed that a few of my teammates also looked a bit shocked. You could tell who’d received a phone call and who hadn’t, but no one was saying anything.

Word had obviously got upstairs to the administration, because as I pretended to focus on my weights, some of the staff were quietly going around asking players if they’d received a phone call.

I didn’t say anything and got out of there as quickly as I could.

The shock of the call had set in. All along, the club and the lawyers had said it would never reach this point.

They had been confident that ASADA didn’t have the evidence to issue infraction notices.

I rang Suzie and explained what had happened. I got home just after four o’clock, checking my phone for emails every two seconds.

The clock ticked past five and still nothing.

At 5.45 my phone buzzed. It was a message from a teammate: “I got one.”

Over the next couple of hours I received several more text messages from Essendon players confirming they’d received an email from ASADA.

But I still hadn’t. Maybe I wasn’t part of it. Maybe. Maybe … I couldn’t sit still.

They didn’t know it at the time, but Fletcher and coach James Hird would end up travelling in different directions when Hird was forced to resign from his post in August 2015.
Then at 8.45 it happened.

The thousandth check of my inbox revealed that a new email had arrived. I clicked on it and felt my body deflate.

The Australian government’s coat of arms was in the top corner. Next to it in red capital letters it said: ‘SENSITIVE: PERSONAL’.

The letter read that it was possible I’d used the prohibited substance thymosin beta-4 during the period under investigation.

It named Stephen Dank and that I’d allegedly used thymosin beta-4 as part of an injection program at Essendon.

I didn’t get far through the letter until I had to stop reading. My head was going to explode.

The letter went on for another couple of pages talking about the process from now on, but none of it registered.

What was becoming more and more clear was that this was now very real.

Everything before had been just talking.

There had been meeting after meeting with lawyers, parents, club officials, the AFL and the AFLPA. The same message had come through every time — that nothing was going to come of it because we’d done nothing wrong.

But now, in my hand, for the first time was correspondence from ASADA with my name on it.

And they were calling me a drug cheat.

*THIS is an edited extract from ​​Fletch by Dustin Fletcher, published by Pan Macmillan Australia and available from Tuesday​, ​ August​ 25​.

Originally published as Fletcher: The day I was branded a drug cheat

Purple monkey dishwasher

Article up noting aiming for last round, retirement not announced.

“I can still run and still move, and believe it or not, I actually went and did an eight-kilometre run and didn’t feel too bad.”


I ran 8km last week. I should play!
Could probably beat Zaharakis for the contested ball

“Probably” ? Sheet, you or I could beat Zaharakis for the contested ball!

my head hurts

No matter what you think about how Hird's been treated (badly) or how ASADA have farked us (badly) or how the AFL have farked us (really badly) its crystal clear after reading that extract from Fletch that the club should never ever have allowed this ■■■■ to happen to its players.

Fletch did not deserve this.

Exactly, say what you want about how a club legend was treated in the last week, but spare a thought for current legends still playing. I know we copped our just deserts for governance, but holy hell that was poor form what the players went through.

100% concur.

but, to play devil’s advocate, they could’ve declined at any time as well.


woah now, lets not dance with the devil.

Its unfortunately true. Rightfully or wrongfully, WADA is set up on the basis that you control your own fate. It does this for the very good reason that no doubt there are teams who would scapegoat a doctor or backroom member to get players off if they didn’t do that. You can just imagine some Tour de France team going “oh, the doctor gave X? What a shame, he’ll now fall on his sword. Good thing the riders didn’t know”. So you can understand their attitude.

Unfortunately, team sports such as AFL haven’t treated this approach with much respect, and certainly haven’t pushed the players to take individual responsibility within the team environment (obviously they have if you want to take drugs on your own time). And players haven’t sought it. Which leaves this grey area where WADA understandably may think the players have a case to answer. If there is enough evidence, you can’t blame ASADA/WADA for trying it. We decry criminal prosecution bodies and sports bodies in other circumstances where they aren’t willing to take a risk prosecuting.

But in this situation, it does mean you’ve got two to three years of investigations, trials and appeals. Which again, is hardly unusual. But we’re just use to assuming anyone who is going through a criminal case has brought it on themselves unless their in our social group and know a bit about them. In this case, we know a bit about the EFC players, so we’re up in arms. The guy who spends 2 years in remand waiting trial doesn’t get any sympathy at all.

People always have double standards when its a stranger versus someone who is a friend or part of the social group. Which is why when normal standards apply to that person people get so upset.

Book extract: Essendon great Dustin Fletcher gives insider’s account into Bombers supplements saga
August 22, 2015 8:00pm
Dustin FletcherSunday Herald Sun

I’D always be the first to training at Victoria Park because I’d drop the kids off at school and then keep going.

Detailed in parts but disappointingly light and not terribly convincing concerning details of the supplements program. Probably restricted in what he’s allowed to say at this point.

Yes, and who is responsible for putting the players through this ordeal? Here's my take:
  • Stephen Dank 20%
  • Dean Robinson 2%
  • David Evans 2%
  • The players themselves 2%
  • The AFL 10%
  • James Hird 2%
  • Mark Thompson 2%
  • Paul Hamilton 10%
  • The football media, collectively 20%
  • ASADA 20%
  • WADA 5%
  • Kate Lundy 5%

And here’s the media narrative:

  • Stephen Dank 25%
  • Dean Robinson 0%
  • David Evans 0%
  • The players themselves 0%
  • The AFL 0%
  • James Hird 75%
  • Mark Thompson 0%
  • Paul Hamilton 0%
  • The football media, collectively 0%
  • ASADA 0%
  • WADA 0%
  • Kate Lundy 0%

If Dean Wallis had bothered to fill in a few forms, which was his job, we never would have got done for governance and ASADA would have never proceeded with their case. That’s a bigger fark up than taking on Fraser Brown in the dying seconds of the 99 Prelim.

Yes, and who is responsible for putting the players through this ordeal? Here's my take:
  • Stephen Dank 20%
  • Dean Robinson 2%
  • David Evans 2%
  • The players themselves 2%
  • The AFL 10%
  • James Hird 2%
  • Mark Thompson 2%
  • Paul Hamilton 10%
  • The football media, collectively 20%
  • ASADA 20%
  • WADA 5%
  • Kate Lundy 5%

And here’s the media narrative:

  • Stephen Dank 25%
  • Dean Robinson 0%
  • David Evans 0%
  • The players themselves 0%
  • The AFL 0%
  • James Hird 75%
  • Mark Thompson 0%
  • Paul Hamilton 0%
  • The football media, collectively 0%
  • ASADA 0%
  • WADA 0%
  • Kate Lundy 0%

If Dean Wallis had bothered to fill in a few forms, which was his job, we never would have got done for governance and ASADA would have never proceeded with their case. That’s a bigger fark up than taking on Fraser Brown in the dying seconds of the 99 Prelim.

Nothing is a bigger screwup than taking on Fraser Brown in 99. Nothing