Given the colossal amount of trouble it’s caused, you would think the supplements program at Essendon last year might have given their players an almighty AFL boost.
But after all the failures that led to this mess and the public trauma of the last six months, there’s a damning comment from former Essendon high performance manager Dean Robinson.
Asked in his paid TV interview on July 31 about the effectiveness of the injections, Robinson replied: “If you really ask me, `did they work?’ – I don’t think they did.”
Regardless of whether the supplements made any difference, last year’s secret campaign at Essendon to help fast-track the physical development of their players has become a catastrophe.
It’s one of the biggest scandals in Australian sporting history.
Coach James Hird, the central figure in this disaster, was not being melodramatic late last month when he spoke of the toll it was taking on people.
That same night, Essendon chairman David Evans collapsed in the Essendon changerooms and tendered his shock resignation a day later.
Robinson tearfully spoke of considering suicide. His wife Tori has spent time in hospital because of the stress.
Essendon players were able to circle the wagons and turn the saga to their advantage, playing well for much of the season in the face of the drama.
But big losses to Hawthorn, Collingwood and West Coast in the past three rounds make it clear the strain has caught up with them, too.
The first signs of trouble came roughly a year ago, when the Bombers dismissed sports scientist Stephen Dank.
After a recommendation from Robinson, Dank came to the club to oversee the supplements program.
The Bombers axed Dank because of cost overruns, but over the next few months rumours started growing that something far bigger was afoot.
On February 5, Essendon called a snap media conference where Hird, Evans and then-chief executive Ian Robson announced the club were coming under Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) and AFL investigations.
The three most powerful men at Essendon wore plain ties. There was no club backdrop.
In announcing the crisis, Essendon claimed they had become aware of problems only over the previous 48 hours.
Two days later came the so-called “blackest day in Australian sport”, when the Australian Crime Commission released the bombshell report about organised crime and performance-enhancing substances.
Dank, previously a little-known figure in the NRL and AFL, quickly emerged as a key to the crisis.
Fans suddenly needed a cursory knowledge of biology and chemistry as AOD-9604 and peptides entered the Australian sporting vocabulary.
Essendon fans were outraged that Hird, arguably the biggest figure in club history, was having his reputation tarnished.
Surely this happened overseas, in other sports – not to us?
Jobe Watson – Essendon captain and the reigning Brownlow Medallist – stunned everyone when he calmly admitted in a TV interview that he had taken AOD-9604. And argued strenuously that he had done nothing wrong.
It has been an incredibly complex six months, with various leaks to competing media clearly intended to push different agendas.
The club commissioned an investigation by former Telstra boss Ziggy Switkowski and the findings were damning.
The Switkowski report looked at governance and described a “pharmacologically experimental environment” at the club.
Robson resigned soon after.
The latest twist came on Tuesday when the the AFL announced it was charging Essendon with bringing the game into disrepute, before the ASADA investigation ends.
It was supposed to be the other way around, but the anti-doping authority is continuing its inquiries after gaining beefed-up powers as of August 1.
The AFL acted after receiving an interim ASADA report – all 400 pages of it.
Besides any potential anti-doping charges, legal action seems inevitable.
Robinson has already made it clear he plans to sue Essendon.
This is far from over.