Mark Robinson has lost the plot

After today's opinion piece, Mark "Slobbo" Robinson has shredded any possible claim to credibility as a writer about AFL issues.

There is obviously a lot of kool-aid being consumed both at HWT building and AFL house.

 

HS paywall means I cannot read it Jase !!

 

Think he's just looking for a reaction with that one.

 

Does it work through google? Try this:

https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&...u3WVwkxb5vG50g&bvm=bv.113034660,d.dGo&cad=rja

 

thanks but no luck

I may have to pretend like its 1995 and head to the newsagent (I know these still exist because I bought a tatts ticket at one 6 months ago) for a look-see at the HS or Mercury

 

Spoiler

Jobe Watson should keep his Brownlow Medal despite doping ban, Mark Robinson writes
I WAS a sheep and I was wrong.
Like many others, I thought Jobe Watson should lose his Brownlow Medal.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport finding, which suspended Watson and his teammates meant they were “drug cheats’’ and it was initially ludicrous to believe Watson could keep his medal from 2012 in the face of such a stunning and comprehensive finding.
I’ve changed my mind.
And the AFL should have the courage to be equally independent in its thinking.
They are signatories to the WADA code and hence the CAS decision, but in this case they don’t have to follow like sheep.
Every one of the commissioners must find the fortitude, the fearlessness, to make the right decision.
And the right decision is not necessarily the instinctive decision that because Watson is suspended for the 2016 season for what happened in 2012, then the Brownlow won in 2012 must also be surrendered.
The right decision might not be one that everyone agrees with.
I don’t think the AFL Commission and chief executive Gillon McLachlan want to take the Brownlow off Watson.
Time and again they said the players were duped and its submission to CAS, they asked that the players escape any penalty.
It’s a curious situation.
Three weeks ago the AFL wanted the players off. Now, they are considering ripping away the most prestigious award in AFL from a player they deemed innocent enough to plead for mercy.
The AFL can’t have it both ways.
They wanted mercy, but now they might want blood.
Time and again the AFL have said this whole saga was about the players, about helping and protecting the players.
It’s time the AFL actually stood up for the players, and in this case one of the players.
Jobe Watson feels he did nothing wrong. Unlike others, he questioned medical and coaching staff at Essendon through 2012 about what he was taking. So much so, in 2013 he famously admitted to using AOD-9604.
Watson is an honest, respected member of the AFL fraternity and it was staggering to read in the CAS finding that Watson’s evidence was “wholly unconvincing”.
Watson has never shied away from what happened, from admitting AOD use, to questioning Stephen Dank about thymosin, to criticising those in charge at Essendon.
It’s only an opinion, but could never imagine Watson being wholly unconvincing about at anything, let alone in an interview with anti-doping investigators.
The CAS verdict is being shredded by sharp minds, including those of QCs and a decision on an appeal will be known within days.
This is not a defence of Essendon or Watson in particular, for Essendon landed Watson in this mess, but I find it difficult to be comfortably satisfied that CAS need only be comfortably satisfied the Essendon 34 took a banned a drug.
To strip the Brownlow Medal surely can’t be an act based on comfortable satisfaction.
Could’ve, perhaps, probably, maybe ... are they strong enough words to justify an extreme and irreversible decision?
Is circumstantial evidence enough to rewrite and uproot history, to categorically table Watson as a dirty rotten drug cheat by swiping the Brownlow Medal?
The AFL Commission has asked Watson to appear before it on February 15.
It’s an insulting and degrading gesture towards Watson.
Is he supposed to go to the Commission and plead for his medal?
He’s not going to do that. If nothing can be organised beforehand — and it’s likely Watson will meet AFL officials before the Commission meeting — Watson will appear and simply hear the decision and walk out.
The AFL has an opportunity to finally do something it has promised to do for a long time — look after the players.
They have the power to look after Watson and its medal.
Will it have the courage to do so?

 

What if you open it in an incognito tab?

 

Or just look under the spoiler in post #6

 

Give a man a fish, he'll read for a day.

Teach a man to fish, and he'll be swimming through the paywall.

 

thanks Jase

Personally I am less up in arms about the article, sure it's not what I would consider balanced but it does touch on the core issues

Is the AFL obligated to "strip" the medal? Is the hearing simply a formality?

Can the AFL exercise discretion in that a player has been found Guilty with what a number of people see as a rather low burden of proof, that if in its determination, and having read the details of the CAS findings thoroughly, Watson did not "deliberately" act to cheat - presumably then he can have a reasonable claim to the medal?

What impact would this have on AFL/WADA/government relationships heading forward?

People will no doubt have a range of views and whichever way it goes it will be contentious.

 

Disagree with that statement.
Watson (and the others) may have been duped by Dank into taking a banned drug that was purported to be legal, but they certainly intended to get an edge over the rest of the players at the other clubs. Naievety is not a defence that works for me.

 

emphasis on the bolded part Jase, I am not in any way myself "buying" naivety, just interested in whether the AFL can/will make a distinction in its own mind that you can get suspended for 12 months but still keep the medal

if in its (ie the AFL's) determination, and having read the details of the CAS findings thoroughly, Watson did not "deliberately" act to cheat

 

The AFL simply has to take the medal cause I'm sick of hearing the outrage.

 

Can I have some of that kool aid, preferably by Friday night?

Plenty of appeal to emotion and straw men abound in that article.

Of course he should be stripped, the question is whether it should be re-rewarded or just an asterisk which at end of the day is up to AFL.

If you are deliberately covering up taking anything (not just Thymosin) to the relevant authorities then that sounds like cheating to me.

The players as victims angle in this is just proof of the power of media spin.

 

Did you know that that part of the form is optional and that no players really fill them out?

Would that change your thoughts?

 

The part where they have to report even the tablets they've taken for a headache - that's optional?

The Ben McDevitt press conference and the CAS report would suggest it's not.

"Complete failure of the vast majority of players who had to fill in a doping control form during the season to reveal the receipt of injections does not encourage confidence in their statements as to the limited or sporadic nature of what they were injected with"

If you have nothing to hide, why hide it as they were?

 

Yes, recommended, but optional.