Over 500 people signed up to be Essendon Members today in a sign of solidarity.

Sad that the coach who has served his suspension will not be able to train the lads until they served theirs.

On a side note, I did not like this whole affair, it stank of a political stitch up and the advantages gained were obviously not gained as we are not removing a premiership off the Bombers as they did not win it.

The CAS has always sided with the League and Authorities and in this case I believe took evidence that was not ethically obtained to create this case as well as the case against the Sharks in the NRL.

It tarnished Australian sport with the bold announcement and the sports wanted to show they were tough by acting as they did. If you look at US Sports, every player in Baseball and Gridiron is on stuff qoo times more potent and definitely outside the boundaries and zero is done about it. They suspend some lowly player every three months and ignore the obvious because the players are more entertainers than sports people.

You want to be the fastest runner in the world, swimmer, walker etc, then you should all be on the same level and so no drugs allowed. If you are playing an elite level sport that is the income earner for you and your family, of which the skills are not able to be enhanced but the power is then go for it. In the US of course the players of Gridiron are on a bunch of stuff, even gym junkies who are clean can not get the bodies of these guys and they have to compete in a contact sport and not just pose on stage. If it helps you recover, and has no long term side effects detrimental to your health, then they as entertainers should be allowed to use it.

You never hear about Ballet Dancers getting done for drugs, journalists can write half pissed and quarter coked out with out issue, but for some reason a player in sport has to be perfectly clean. Why are we deluding ourselves. High level contact sports like League, AFL, Union, Gridiron are entertainment first. The banning of substances that provide minor gains when fully healthy but will accelerate injury recovery should be allowed because we know it will not help Jobe jump twenty feet higher but it will get a player back and earning money a lot quicker.

So support the Bombers either way, we need to stop being so anti performance enhancing drug in the first place, after all we celebrate the violence of contact sport and then demand that the entertainer suffer longer just because he plays in a sport. Joe Blogs can use HGH to help fix up a minor injury, but not some poor sap trying to play a game for Joe Blogs entertainment.

We either ban all drugs, not happening, or stop being so naive about their use. Hell steroids are dangerous so we should ban them from asthma medicines. Why do we demand entertainers of only one branch be clean whilst we ignore the usage by rock and roll and comedians. The rising use of ADHD drugs by writers should also be held into account. Ban authors from writing until they are clean. Ban and test all media personalities for cocaine usage.

Ban it all or grow up and make it safe for them to use by having it correctly supplied by doctors instead of scam artists. We are placing unreasonable standards on sportspersons and agencies like WADA only exist to try and raise their own profile.

Sorry for the rant, but when coked up journos come across as the saintly protectors of our game, whilst boozed up and blasted administrators demand standards of others whilst they flaunt the law with zero regard, then maybe it is time we rethink the bloody lot of it.

Do we drug test our politicians or public servants, the very same who claim that those on unemployment should be tested. Why not, they are also receiving government money mainly for doing SFA to earn it. Maybe some politicians should be on certain drugs, many seem to enjoy double standards without expressing concerns about it.

There must be a drug that can prevent them from lying, they should be made to take it during the election period so we could learn what they are really planning.

/r/AFL Thread Link - essendonfc.com.au