Essendon coach James Hird admits the AFL club’s damning internal review of its leadership during the supplements saga has made difficult reading.
With the Bombers preparing for a huge top-of-the-table clash with fellow unbeaten side Geelong at Etihad Stadium on Friday night, they have again endured a tough week.
Hird would not say which players had or hadn’t been interviewed by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) as part of their probe into the Bombers – a process which was scheduled to start this week.
Former Telstra chief Ziggy Switkowski’s report released on Monday was highly critical of club leaders, especially for their lack of control over the controversial supplements program under investigation.
Hird says he is looking forward to the whole process being finalised, which will then allow him and all at the club to speak freely about the issue.
“If you can give us three or four weeks until the ASADA interviews are done, until the AFL and ASADA put out their reports, you’ll get a pretty open football club,” Hird said on Friday.
“We’ll be able to talk about everything that’s happened, rather than at the moment speak about bits and pieces which won’t make a lot of sense.
“The sooner it’s finished, the better.”
AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou is confident the sport has not been brought into disrepute by the Essendon investigation.
“I don’t think it has actually because the game’s quite resilient,” Demetriou said at an American Chamber of Commerce function on Thursday.
“It’s survived world wars, it’s survived recessions.
“Our first six rounds this year are the highest cumulative total crowds we’ve ever had in the competition.
“We will deal with this issue and once this issue’s finished I guarantee there will be another issue that crops up because that’s what happens, but the game is incredibly resilient.
“People actually love the game. They don’t really care for this sort of stuff, they’re a bit fatigued by this sort of commentary at the moment.”
Hird has again marvelled at how his players have set aside any concerns they may have about questionable supplements some may have used last year.
They have won their opening six matches and shown no on-field ill-effects of the probe.
“They’re playing really good football, they’re training really hard.
“The one thing we’ve spoken about as a group is to keep our training standard up. If we keep our training standard up, that will go into our games. We’ve been able to do that.”
Meanwhile, the man central to the ASADA investigation, former Essendon sports scientist Stephen Dank, was spotted in Melbourne on Thursday.
But he refused to comment on the investigation when confronted by a Ten Network television crew.
