Essendon doping saga: Inside the secret CAS appeal hearings
THE Essendon drugs debacle was likened to a grainy Danish arthouse film, with iconic actor Jimmy Stewart deemed “too abrasive” and “not clean enough” to play James Hird.
Essendon
Don't miss out on the headlines from Essendon. Followed categories will be added to My News.
THE Essendon drugs debacle was likened to a grainy Danish arthouse film with Stephen Dank cast in the role of an “unhinged backyard scientist” and iconic actor Jimmy Stewart deemed “too abrasive” and “not clean enough” to play James Hird.
The bizarre cinematic analogies were made during final submissions in a secret five-day Court of Arbitration for Sport hearing held in Sydney last November.
AFL counsel Jeff Gleeson, QC, led the arthouse theme when questioning whether the full truth behind the Bombers saga could ever be known.
“In a perfect world, a prosecutor is able to direct and present a movie that is Disney-like in its linear narrative and leaves nothing unknown,” Gleeson told the world’s highest anti-doping court.
“But this is rather more like a Danish arthouse film ...”
According to transcripts of the hearing seen by the Herald Sun, CAS chairman Michael Beloff interjected: “Enigmatic parental guidance.”
TRANSCRIPTS REVEAL AFL’S ‘CULT’ HIT ON HIRD
“My wife doesn’t let me watch those,” legendary World Anti-Doping Agency counsel Richard Young chimed in.
Gleeson continued.
“It’s grainy and it’s enigmatic and you’re deliberately given by the director only little bits. I typically find myself, towards the end of the movie, leaning across to my wife and whispering, ‘So the guy in the hat is with the blonde?’ And she says, ‘No. No, the guy in the hat is with the brunette’, and then we read the review afterwards and we find that we’re both wrong and it was all about a rites-of-passage thing about children.
“There’s gaps in our movie, but the gaps are not, in my submission, to do with whether Dank wanted TB-4. He didn’t want thymosin alpha. He didn’t want anything else. Thymomodulin, that’s nonsense, he wanted TB-4. That part of the narrative in our movie is quite clear and I would have followed it all on my own ...
“But the movie becomes more difficult when you get to that same old path of Dank is in his room with some vials, brown or clear, in his refrigerator and it’s him and the players ... We know he injected something, but what was it?”
Gleeson saved his best for last describing the flick’s leading villain.
“Coming back to Dank, he is a person in whom the players placed considerable trust, and you might question why that was, but he was really an unhinged backyard scientist,” Gleeson said.
“He was able to pronounce long pharmacological words without stuttering, and that is a powerful combination in a football club, populated by people who are typically not Jobe Watson, who is educated, articulate and considered.
“Football clubs are populated, especially in the modern era (by players) who are relatively under-educated, they’ve basically played football for most of their teens, and this fellow presented as some sort of guru.”
The AFL’s arthouse submission was thrown up as an alternative to the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority’s failed “links-in-a-chain” analogy and WADA’s successful “strands-in-a-cable” argument.
In explaining the reputation and influence of Hird to the court, Gleeson said: “I want to go back to my cinematic analogies. If a casting director was trying to cast James Hird and the suggestion was that Jimmy Stewart play the role, the director, knowing James Hird, would think, he’s a little too abrasive, he’s not clean enough.
“That is how pure James Hird’s reputation was. Brownlow medallist, Norm Smith medallist, one of the most courageous players the game has ever seen and not a whisper of scandal or impropriety about the man.”
Young, who is credited with bringing down disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, added the names of 34 past and present Essendon players to his hit list with January’s guilty verdict.
In discussing possible motives for Essendon doctor Bruce Reid being frozen out of the Bombers’ supplements program, Young told the court: “Dank was a cowboy on the cutting edge of the cliff who didn’t want to be reined in ... by a responsible medical doctor, particularly such a fuddy- duddy responsible medical doctor who really didn’t give the players injections before Dank came along.”
Young asserted that the Essendon players were told not to tell the club doctors about the injections program.
“Because the doctors would have put a stop to it, like they did when they found out about it, because the doctors were not viewed as progressive and into the kind of things that Dank wanted to have a free hand to do.”
Dr Reid, 70, was charged in 2013 by the AFL before the league dropped its case. He is the last man standing in footy’s greatest scandal. All that remains is who will play him in Gleeson’s grainy movie.
TRANSCRIPTS REVEAL AFL’S ‘CULT’ HIT ON HIRD
INSIDE THE WADA CAS APPEAL
The secret Sydney hearings, November 16-20, 2015
DAY 5
AFL counsel Jeff Gleeson, QC on Stephen Dank
GLEESON: Coming back to Dank, he is a person in whom the players placed considerable trust, and you might question why that was, but he was really an unhinged backyard scientist. He was able to pronounce long pharmacological words without stuttering, and that is a powerful combination in a football club, populated by people who are typically not Jobe Watson, who is educated, articulate and considered.
Football clubs are populated, especially in the modern era (by players) who are relatively under-educated, they’ve basically played football for most of their teens, and this fellow presented as some sort of guru.
DAY 5
AFL counsel Jeff Gleeson, QC on James Hird
GLEESON: Don’t underestimate the significance of the cult of James Hird. I want to go back to my cinematic analogies. If a casting director was trying to cast James Hird and the suggestion was that Jimmy Stewart play the role, the director, knowing James Hird, would think, he’s a little too abrasive, he’s not clean enough. That is how pure James Hird’s reputation was. Brownlow Medalist, Norm Smith Medalist, one of the most courageous players the game has ever seen and not a whisper of scandal or impropriety about the man. He is involved in taking injections himself.
DAY 2
Bruce Reid exchange with Sam Norton, junior counsel for ex-Bombers Stewart Crameri and Brent Prismall:
NORTON: Did you understand that Dank and Robinson just sort of had crazy idea after crazy idea, as to what they might do?
REID:Yes, I had a lot of arguments with Dean Robinson.
NORTON: You didn’t think they were actually going to do them?
REID: Well — no — do what? Because there were no discussions.
NORTON: So there’s no discussions as to specific things that they were talking about?
REID: There were things like, Dean Robinson sending any player that had injured calves off to osteopaths without telling doctors, things like that mentioned in the notes, what he’d done at different clubs and stuff, but nothing specific, there was no specific program ever spoken to me about.
DAY 2
Bruce Reid cross-examination by Brent Rychener, WADA attorney
RYCHENER: Good morning, Dr Reid, I’m Brent Rychener, one of the attorneys for the World Anti-Doping Agency. As I understood it, you have been at Essendon as club doctor for over 30 years?
REID: Yes.
RYCHENER: Over those years you’ve gotten to know the players very well; is that fair to say?
REID: Your microphone’s a bit quiet at this end.
RYCHENER: Over those years you’ve gotten to know the players very well?
REID: Very well.
RYCHENER: And formed close relationships with many of the players?
REID: Yes, I have.
RYCHENER: And was that true during the 2012 season as well?
REID: Yes.
RYCHENER: There was a fairly high level of trust between you and the players?
REID: Yes. Yes, there is.
RYCHENER: Players would come to you for medical issues of all kinds?
REID: Yes.
RYCHENER: In January 2012, if I read your interviews correctly, you became concerned that injections were being given by Mr Dank, Mr Robinson to the players without your approval?
REID: Yes.
RYCHENER: And you had a big meeting with the coach and club management about that?
REID: Yes, I did.
RYCHENER: It was agreed, after that meeting, that there would be no further injections without your being fully informed?
REID: Yes.
RYCHENER: But, after that meeting in January, you’ve since found out that Mr Dank and Mr Robinson continued giving injections of substances that you hadn’t approved?
REID: Yes, at a fair later date.
THE CHAIR (Michael Beloff, QC): Q. Sorry, you discovered it at a later date, or they were giving injections at a later date?
REID: I discovered it at a later date.
RYCHENER: You discovered that, I believe you said in your statement, February 2013; does that sound right?
REID: No, in February 2013 we had a meeting where we set down absolute guidelines as to any new supplement, what the procedure was to be, that was February 2013.
RYCHENER: Just to clarify that, the season we’re talking about with Mr Dank was 2012, right?
REID: Yes.
RYCHENER: Did you become aware after the fact that Robinson and Dank had held a meeting to ask players to sign consent forms?
REID: I did not know of that meeting actually until the following year.
RYCHENER: And that’s what I was referring to as, you learned about the meeting in February of the next year, right?
REID: Yes. Sorry, 13, yes, sorry, yes.
RYCHENER: That was after there was press coverage of the investigation that was being conducted?
REID: Yes.
RYCHENER: So you were not in the room in that meeting in February 2012, were you?
REID: No.
RYCHENER: You never saw the consent forms that the players signed at the time?
REID: No, I never did.
RYCHENER: You said in your interviews, the interviews which were given in 2013, you indicated several times that you never knew anything about Thymosin injections until February 2013?
REID: Yes.
RYCHENER: You had never approved Thymosin injections?
REID: No, I had not.
RYCHENER: And fair to say, you were very upset that the players had been injected by Dank and Robinson without your knowledge or approval?
REID: Yes.
RYCHENER: If you had known about Thymosin injections, you would have done something about it?
REID: Yes, I would have.
RYCHENER: But, as it turned out, looking back from February 2013 when you found out by (sic) Thymosin, none of the players had told you about those Thymosin injections during the 2012 season?
REID: No.
RYCHENER: And not one player during the 2012 season told you that they had signed a consent form to receive Thymosin injections?
REID: No, they were just reassured that we approved.
RYCHENER: I’m sorry, during the 2012 season ——
REID: No.
RYCHENER: –– had any player told you that they had signed a consent form for Thymosin?
REID: No.
RYCHENER: Some of the players were actually your own patients, right?
REID: Yes.
RYCHENER: They came to you as a personal physician?
REID: Yes.
RYCHENER: And even for those players, you were never aware that they were receiving Thymosin injections until February 2013, the next year, right?
REID: I knew they were having injections three weeks after the hypobaric; I did not know what they were.
RYCHENER: And again, as you indicate in your statements to ASADA, that you never knew anything about Thymosin until February the following year, right?
REID: Correct.
RYCHENER: Do you know why, given the level of trust that you had with the players, that they didn’t come to you and tell you about Thymosin?
REID: Could you repeat that one, sorry? Could you repeat that question please?
RYCHENER: Given the level of trust that you had with the players, were you surprised that they didn’t come to you to tell you about the Thymosin or the meeting they had?
REID: Yes, I am, but speaking later, they said, “Well, we were totally convinced that Dr de Morton and myself approved of the program.”
RYCHENER: Are you aware that no Essendon player disclosed any of Dank’s injections on their doping control forms in the 2012 season?
REID: No.
RYCHENER: Do you have any idea why that would be the case?
REID: No.
RYCHENER: Have you gone through the AFL anti-doping training?
REID: Yes, I have.
RYCHENER: Is it made clear in that training that all medications and supplements must be disclosed on the doping control forms?
REID: Yes.
Best 23s: How trade period changed every club
Trade period is behind us and the clear winners and losers have emerged. How will every club’s best 23 look for 2025 after the exchange period? FIND OUT HERE
‘Let her footy do the talking’: Cats’ star hits back at sister’s trolls
Geelong star Georgie Prespakis has come to the defence of her sister Maddy after she was the victim of body-shaming from online trolls. See why she believes it could have a much bigger impact.