Why Essendon coach James Hird is backing club doctor Dr Bruce Reid

TRUTH be known, Dr Bruce Reid wanted Stephen Dank out of there before anyone else at the club.

James Hird

TRUTH be known, Dr Bruce Reid wanted Stephen Dank out of there before anyone else at the club.

Dank, the sports scientist at the centre of the drugs scandal, unnerved Reid soon after the supplements program began.

Reid, Dank, Essendon high performance manager Dean Robinson and coach James Hird implemented the injection program, which involved supplements and peptides, including AOD9604, which Jobe Watson confirmed on Monday.

The Bombers will argue about the status of AOD9604, whether it was banned or not, and there's also their belief they had permission to use the anti-obesity drug after Dank had discussions with the world and national anti-doping bodies.

Still, by January 15, 2012, Reid's concerns about practices at the club unnerved him so much that, after consultation with Hird, he wrote a letter to the board outlining his concerns.

The letter did not reach the board.

The letter apparently didn't reach the desk of former CEO Ian Robson.

Former football manager Paul Hamilton was aware of the letter and says his "conscience is clear".

Hird's response to Reid's letter was to install parameters based around the health of the players, ASADA's position on the drugs and, most importantly, that Reid tick off all injections.

Dons in the dark on Watson

Watson's revelations and his mention of Reid as a major participant - in that the doctor had obviously approved the substances - arguably threw Reid under the bus.

The blame game has not stopped at Windy Hill since day one, and Hird, Mark Thompson, Robson, chairman David Evans and head of football Danny Corcoran have all had calls to step aside, even quit.

The feeling at Windy Hill among many is that Reid should be the last man to land in trouble.

He was wary of Dank and he warned others of Dank, and if he's guilty of anything it's that he wasn't hard enough in following up his initial concerns, and that goes to the poor governance at the club, as identified in the Ziggy Switkowski report.

Why Watson must be stood down now

I spoke to Reid once this year, at the Essendon-GWS Giants pre-season game in Canberra. Asked how he was going, he said words to the effect: "Always go through the doctor."

The inference was clear.

Reid wasn't across everything Dank implemented, be that injections or what was in the injections, or be it sending players to the hyperbaric chamber.

Switkowski also noted Reid was "'not abreast of the most modern sports science methodologies and was ... pharmacologically illiterate".

Of course Reid's governance is an issue, but unquestionably his belief in others failed him.

Hird yesterday spoke for everyone at the club: "Dr Bruce Reid is one of the greatest people you'll ever meet and I have the utmost faith in him ... if you put integrity up on the table, you put Jobe Watson and Bruce Reid right up there together."