Essendon besieged

"An arms race for the most sophisticated molecules must be prohibited.

"I am deeply sorry this has happened on my watch . . . I will fight to ensure there is zero tolerance to risky procedures at our club."

The most damning part of the Ziggy report, of course, was the 61-word sentence we must all know by heart by now: "In particular, the rapid diversification into exotic supplements, sharp increase in frequency of injections, the shift to treatment offsite in alternative medical clinics, emergence of unfamiliar suppliers, marginalisation of traditional medical staff, etc. combine to create a disturbing picture of a pharmacologically experimental environment never adequately controlled or challenged or documented within the club or in the period under review."

No matter what the ASADA-AFL inquiry would find, the case against the club and members of its football department had been well and truly established by Switkowski in March.

The ASADA report would prove grave confirmation.

As for Hird, he remained determined not to give any ground to the AFL -- or reality.

"I think we all find it hard to believe that charges can be laid on individuals or the club when none of our players have shown to take performance-enhancing drugs, none of our players have been shown that they've been harmed by anything that's been given and that we're dealing with an interim report," Hird said yesterday morning. Hird was deliberately missing the point.

The Switkowski report was delivered in March, players have admitted they believe they were injected with the banned AOD-9604 and he has no idea of any long-term health risks the players face because of the supplement program which included drugs not cleared for human therapeutic use.

He was not the only person blind to the bleeding obvious. AFL legend and four-time premiership coach Leigh Matthews said he thought Hird and Essendon were being punished unnecessarily.

"Yes, they may have been sloppy in their governance, sloppy in their management, they might have delegated to some people that they wish they hadn't delegated to potentially. But that isn't bringing the game into disrepute in my view," he said earlier in the week.

A seven-month ASADA inquiry into allegations of drug abuse is by any definition bringing the game into disrepute