Melbourne Demons are kings of the crisis

MELBOURNE hit rock bottom just a few weeks ago - and has kept digging ever since.

Jack Trengove

MELBOURNE hit rock bottom just a few weeks ago - and has kept digging ever since.

Uncompetitive on the field, deceiving off it.

It's crisis after crisis and there could be more issues to come.

The possible use of banned substances by the players remains the foremost issue in all the investigations in drugs in sport, and there are no suggestions that has taken place at the Demons.

Melbourne is confident the players are untouched, so to speak, but as this story continues to throw grenade after grenade, that confidence cannot be absolute.

Any reference involving Stephen Dank - the sports scientist at the centre of this situation - has hair all over it.

Dank says he never gave banned substances to Essendon players and you'd expect he'd say the same about his involvement with Melbourne players.

Certainly, Dank is a name that would send shivers up every football official.

Apparently, not at Melbourne.

The AFL rightfully is furious. It asks, demands, expects transparency from the clubs, and does not like to be deceived.

When the AFL spoke to Melbourne officials, as it did every club after the "darkest day in Australian sport", it spoke of the need for strong ethics and integrity, and a duty of care for the players.

The AFL asked the clubs if they had they had anything they needed to tell.

The Demons kept mum.

The AFL believed them. Trusted them. And that trust has been savagely broken.

Demons doctor Dan Bates did not tell the AFL of his workings with Dank. Why he wouldn't alert the AFL can be answered only by him.

What was going through his head when he knew his comrades - president Don McLardy, football manager Josh Mahoney, coach Mark Neeld, then chief executive Cameron Schwab and high-ranking coaching official Neil Craig - had fronted AFL boss Andrew Demetriou, Gil McLachlan and AFL integrity officers?

He had information and kept it to himself.

"That is a very, very serious issue," Demetriou said yesterday.

Extremely so.

Late last night, Bates stepped down pending the investigation, and after discussions with the AFL.

It was revealed Bates was interviewed by the club three times after the Essendon investigation began.

The clear inference was that Melbourne was thorough in its review of the club's supplements program, and that it was not told about Dank.

Craig was also named in text messages released on Thursday, which centred on a planned meeting between Craig and Dank.

It's not known if that meeting took place.

Craig, too, has some explaining to do.

He did not speak to the AFL yesterday.

The question is: Did Bates act alone?

Melbourne's press release on Thursday night didn't answer anything.

It didn't say the club had been shocked by the revelations on ABC TV's 7.30.

It didn't refute the text messages, or try to explain them, and offered only a point by point assessment that the club was confident its players had not taken banned drugs.

Last night, Melbourne was more aggressive.

"We have sufficient concerns about an identified breakdown in reporting protocols that we believe it is appropriate that Dr Bates stands aside until these matters are further investigated," McLardy said.

The Demons face more issues.

The Herald Sun has reported about a confrontation between club recruiter Jason Taylor, who was wooed from Collingwood, and a brother of an AFL player on the recent AFL-AIS training camp in Europe

There is a suggestion there is another incident on the tour also under investigation.

The AFL said last night it had not received a complaint.