Plenty of emotion but nothing new in Weapon's claims

FORMER Essendon fitness guru Dean Robinson may have poured his heart out on TV, but much of it was irrelevant to the drugs debate.

Former Essendon high-performance manager Dean "The Weapon" Robinson. Picture: Scott Barbour/Getty Images.

FORMER Essendon high performance manager, Dean Robinson, aka "The Weapon'', poured his heart out on national television this week.

Heart-wrenching stuff it truly was, particularly when his wife spoke and the kids played in the background.

He seems to have been harshly treated - marched out of the club and left on the footpath with no understanding of why he had been sacked.

His wife and children put a human face on the controversy and evoked much sympathy. It's a pity all that is irrelevant to the debate.

We gained nothing from the interview that could further incriminate the Essendon players, the club or its coach, James Hird.

Certainly a different picture emerges of the iconic Hird, who is portrayed by Robinson, as a narcissistic, dictatorial tyrant, but so what.

Which senior coach isn't? Hird and the club may have been ruthless in the treatment of Robinson but as emotive as it was, the interview did nothing to prove Hird, the club, or controversial sports scientist, Stephen Dank, breached any WADA regulations. And surely that is what this whole controversy is all about.

Lost in Robinson's attack on James Hird was the perhaps the real reason that Essendon lost confidence in him.

After the Bombers had such a great start last season, winning eight of its first nine matches, the team was hit with an epidemic of soft tissue injuries, lost the last seven matches and ultimately missed the finals.

The players lost confidence in Robinson's strict regimen which featured much heavy lifting.

Admittedly, the first thing that players blame for soft tissue leg injuries is the heavy leg weights program, but Robinson then asserted that they started losing because they stopped training.

There is nothing worse in a football club than a disgruntled fitness coach. As vital as a good strength and conditioning coach is, he has to defer to the football coaches.

I would wager a difference in football fitness philosophy was as much a reason for Robinson's departure, as brutal as it seems, as any involvement he had in the supplement program.

Hird does not completely escape. There is too much discrepancy in how many times Hird said he was injected with anti-ageing and enhancement products and what Robinson claims.

Hird says he was injected twice, Robinson said he was injected on "30 odd occasions''.

It is not illegal for Hird to receive such treatment and, in fact, the anti-ageing specialty of medicine is becoming a big business, so why would he lie about it? Simply because it's not a "good look''.

This is what this whole controversy has been all about - "the look''. Terms like "black ops'' and "rogue scientist'' and "human guinea pigs''have been thrown about with no regard for the facts or the real science.

Confidential does not mean "black ops''. Pushing the envelope does not mean cheating. Injections do not mean doping.

Former Bulldogs champion Luke Darcy, who conducted the interview with Robinson, is a rising star in the media.

The only thing that marred his performance was the "holier than thou'' attitude he adopted when Robinson explained how many Essendon players had embraced the supplements program and what they were injected with. It distorted the reality of footy clubs.

Footballers may be psychologically malleable but they are not completely stupid. For all but two of the Bombers players to embrace the program suggests that there was much more substance to it than the promise of magical performances.

Fortunately, former Bomber Mark McVeigh was a member of the forum that dissected Robinson's explosive claims. He brought sanity and balance to the debate, as well as an insider's perspective to counter the opinion of those who want Essendon thrown out of the competition.

The ASADA report into the whole sorry saga will be released this week. It is long overdue.

My bet is that James Hird will survive and Essendon will play finals.

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