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AFL: James Hird has questioned a number of significant parties in the AFL doping saga including Stephen Dank and Andrew Demetriou.
James Hird has conceded he failed to act strongly enough to stop players under his care being injected with unknown substances and that a more experienced coach should have been in charge of Essendon during their ill-fated 2012 season.
In his first expansive interview since 34 current and former Essendon players were last week suspended for two years for taking the banned substance Thymosin Beta-4, Hird admitted that he should have taken club doctor Bruce Reid’s concerns about the injections program dirÂectly to senior management and the players themselves at the start of the year.
Reid’s concerns about exotic substances being used by club sports scientist Stephen Dank, expressed in a letter before any player had been injected with a Thymosin peptide, were never passed on to the Essendon board or the playing group.
Players subsequently consented to be injected with Thymosin and other substances by Dank unaware that Reid had any misgivings about the sports scientist’s unorthodox methods.
“I should have known more, I should have done more when the opportunity came and I feel extremely guilty for that and bad for that and I can only apologise for that,’’ Hird told the ABC’s Tracey Holmes last night. “I made decisions in real time that in hindsight I think were wrong.’’
Hird remains adamant that no one at Essendon, including Dank, intended to cheat and no player at Essendon took a banned drug. He said 34 players had been made “sacrificial lambs’’ by the Court of Arbitration for Sport to send a tough message about drugs. He denied that anyone at Essendon, including Dank, intended to cheat.
“Drugs aren’t good and they shouldn’t be in sport but unfortunately in this case … 34 men were the sacrificial lambs to send that message,’’ Hird said. “That is not good enough in my opinion. You cannot sacrifice 34 innocent men to send a message like that.
“I don’t believe after reading the CAS report that it should be the biggest drugs scandal. I don’t believe the players are guilty.’’
Asked how he could be certain that no banned drugs were taken when he cannot say for sure what Dank injected his players with, Hird turned the question back on CAS.
“If no one can say for certain what they were injected with then how can 34 men be found guilty by CAS?â€
The CAS decision overturned a previous finding by an AFL tribunal that no player had taken the banned peptide. Lawyers for the players are examining the CAS ruling for appeal grounds.
During a 50-minute interview, Hird recounted some of the most contentious moments of the three-year doping scandal, all of which are already a matter of public record.
His most telling comments were about his degree of personal responsibility. He detailed for the first time instances where he made decisions or failed to take actions that could have changed the course of events.
Asked whether he was the right person to do the job at the time he replied: “History will tell you no, that perhaps I wasn’t.’’
Hird said he was devastated for the players, who were given false assurances by the club about Dank’s injections regimen. He said all 34 players, including captain Jobe Watson who is now likely to be stripped of his 2012 season Brownlow Medal, were justified in feeling he had let them down.
“I made a promise to Jobe Watson and the other players in 2010 when I decided to go and coach and became coach that I would create an environment for them that they could be the best possible athletes they could be.
“Quite obviously, that environment hasn’t occurred and for that, they should feel let down by me and I feel that I have let them down.
“I feel very guilty. I feel very sad. I feel upset for the players. I don’t feel like a victim myself but that those 34 players are victims of that situation.’’
Former Essendon coach James Hird speaks at The Ethics Centre in Sydney last night