AFL’s secretive code laid bare in handling of Jesse Hogan

Very few coaches can manipulate a news conference as well as Ross Lyon. He could turn a giraffe on its head.

Fremantle coach Ross Lyon was giving the media a stern lecture. Putting journalists in their place if you like. Making them feel guilty for asking a question. Very few coaches can manipulate a news conference as well as Lyon. He could turn a giraffe on its head.

At a midweek news conference Lyon was, unsurprisingly, asked questions about Jesse Hogan, the former Melbourne forward, recruited by Fremantle to give height and substance to a chronically underachieving Dockers offensive combination.

Hogan has been ruled out of the Dockers team indefinitely after the club said he suffered “clinical anxiety”. This was announced by the football manager, Peter Bell, after Hogan could not join last Sunday’s training because he was suffering the effects of a long drinking session. It was said Hogan was suffering a mental health issue, which appears the AFL’s new cover-all for poor player behaviour.

A player’s mental health is nobody’s business other than those who must ensure he will return to full health. And in normal circumstances the explanation for Hogan’s absence should never be doubted.

But the football environment has been contaminated. It has been soiled by season after season of club officials and players deliberately lying. The public is told a player will debut when he is five weeks away. One former coach’s standard reply to any injury question was “he’s two to three weeks away” even though the family buried the player two days before.

Club presidents made famous the stock reply to the future of underperforming coaches: “He has the full support and confidence of the committee” just as board members were finetuning details of his eulogy.

Players aren’t bad either. As a teammate clings to life in the hyperbaric chamber a player might be asked about his chances of making the side for the next round and he replies: “Oh, yeah. He was as good as anyone on the track this week.” A journalist interjects that that must be unlikely given he was in a hyperbaric chamber. “No problems. It’s got special wheels with tyres left over from the Grand Prix. It goes like the clackers. And an unbelievable tank.”

The AFL also adds to this environment where Doubting Thomas plays fullback. For more than a decade its illicit drug policy allowed players who twice tested positive to play. Their names only became public if they failed a further test. It meant, according to former league chief executive Andrew Demetriou, that any player suspended but not publicly exposed, was placed on the injury list with some invented issue. When revealed by this newspaper, the deceit only further tore away at community confidence in the league’s integrity.

Especially when former St Kilda captain Nick Riewoldt clearly saw the folly of the policy. “Here’s where the system is a bit ridiculous,” he said this week. “If a player goes out after a game, he’s got a corkie and he goes out and has six beers, on Monday he’ll be in front of the leadership group … and he might even miss a game of footy. But if you want to go out on the weekend and take drugs, no worries, go your hardest, because the worst you’re going to cop is a strike that no one knows about.”

And please don’t fall for the AFL and its players’ association line that it is a voluntary code. That the players agreed to be subject to the policy because they so treasured the sanctity of the game. They agreed to the illicit drug policy as the AFL tried desperately to squirm out of its moral obligation to become WADA-compliant as the federal government demanded.

Under the WADA code, as written in 2005, a player who tested positive to even marijuana, faced a lengthy ban. And the AFL had in-house results that showed marijuana use by players was commonplace. Under WADA’s rules the AFL might lose a team a week. So the suggestion that the AFL agreed voluntarily to submit to an illicit drug policy is disingenuous; a glorification of a cynical decision. The players’ association was more than happy to co-operate with the AFL’s attempt to set up alternative codes to WADA.

So it is always a suspicious media that greets any sort of news in the AFL world where lying is the second language of football.

Thus Lyon was interrogated over his much touted but absent recruit in Hogan. Not wanting to engage in anything more than the basic information, he worked hard to make the media feel insensitive and callous. It did not work. The media would continue to probe.

Lyon responded once more. “We need to respect this is a mental health issue, this is a wellbeing issue and you probably need to back off a little bit,” Lyon said.

“I can only be guided by our club doctors in this space. If you’re more inclined to overrule our doctors and think you’re more skilled in that area, I’m happy to hear that but I’m telling you I’m not skilled in dealing with that.”

Lyon would not comment on Hogan’s behaviour nor if he would have played against the Kangaroos tomorrow had he not been intoxicated last Sunday.

“I’m not denying anything but I’m not prepared to go into what the outcome of him not being well looks like in detail because it’s not appropriate,” Lyon said. “This has been an ongoing issue with Jesse in regards to working and feeling well and handling his wellbeing issue. We’re dealing with what we’re dealing with and the facts are the facts.”

The Fremantle position wobbled a little later that day when the term “clinical anxiety” was questioned by several doctors. The West Australian reported the medical profession said “clinical anxiety” was an invented term.

The West Australian also reported Fremantle had deleted the reference to “clinical” from its website. Fox Footy also said the paper reported medical experts had warned that club “spin” managers were hardly qualified to decide “on the terminology for psychological disorders”.

As well, the AFL keeps too much secreted away and opaque decisions are further protected by loyal, possibly scared stiff, AFL staff and a building full of bladders the size of Uluru.

Chief executive Gillon McLachlan, desperate to clean up the mucking style of football now cherished by coaches, sought the help of Steve Hocking, a former Geelong player, seemingly with a holy man’s faith in his own beliefs about the game and interpretations. He devised radical rule changes to open up the game.

The AFL’s football boss tried pre-season to keep practice matches played under the new rules secret but they were uncovered. The football community felt betrayed. The rules of a game, which was born in the 1850s, are the property of the supporters.

Lyon said at his news conference that he had spoken earlier to Riewoldt, his captain when Lyon coached St Kilda. Riewoldt said he was stunned at the cynicism that greeted the Fremantle announcement about Hogan’s unavailability. He shouldn’t have been.

No doubt Hogan has a medical issue and Lyon was seeking to protect his player. It is just that sometimes the giraffe is not for turning.