Surprise. I have to admit that was my first reaction when I heard that the Essendon players had been found not guilty. But don't think for a moment that's because I thought they did something wrong.
I've always been pretty strong in my view that the players who have been put through this the last couple of years didn't take what they were alleged to have taken. But that didn't mean we were going to get the right verdict. That's because I don't think we've ever seen anything in our sport this political. You've had the ACC, ASADA, the ALP, the AFL all getting involved. It was the big players, the big organisations that were in control and looking for certain outcomes, and I just thought it was going to be the players were going to get sacrificed.
I didn't think they deserved to be treated this way, and I reckon this judgment is a really positive step for football.
I know some people won't understand that. There will be a lot of resentment. There's already enough people on social media just blind to the truth. They will continue to say what they have already and continue to believe it. I just hope they don't say it to the players' faces. Or their coach.
I'm not sure they will, either. I think most people are pretty good about the players who have been in this situation, and pretty considerate of their position. And if they're not, they should be, because these guys have been put through the wringer. You only had to watch Jobe Watson at the press conference to get an idea just how much.
Do I feel vindication? Yes, I do. I think all along, every person in football and the football public just wanted to know the truest version of what actually happened. I was right at the coalface, and I don't profess to know everything that happened.
But by the time this investigation finished, and you put all the pieces of the puzzle together, you had to feel like ASADA had just got it wrong. And I feel like that's now been proven.
For the last couple of years, I've always felt the players have been the innocent party in this. I've coached an incredibly resilient bunch of blokes over what might end up proving the most difficult couple of years of their lives.
They were the ones who had to deal with it the most, they were the ones that were living it day to day. And last year, I certainly had to coach them differently to how I would have coached a team that didn't have this horrible situation hanging over their heads.
Sometimes, mentally, they just weren't there. Their heads were somewhere else. Their training fluctuations were enormous, far more than during the previous three years, and there were some stunning turnarounds and reversals of form inside our games, too.
I don't think we ran out of legs last year like we had in previous years. I just think in the end we ran out of concentration. Just through sheer mental fatigue. And I could understand that entirely.
There's some natural-born worriers among all of us. They were the ones that probably suffered the most, and I think some of them suffered silently, too. It wasn't the sort of thing that any of them really liked to talk about much.
Hopefully, at least that part of it's over for them. Now, they've got to switch on for a game to be played in four days and without really having played together as a group. And that's not going to be easy.
It's been a very interrupted pre-season, and I think right now they would be so happy, that even though the Swans in Sydney is obviously a pretty big game, it's going to be hard for them to concentrate and keep their feet on the ground.
I'm sure they've prepared and done their tactics and game plan and everything else as best they can, but in terms of match conditioning they'll be really behind. I just think generally, given how this has been building to a final verdict, some of them might take a little while to switch on and play as a group. You just won't know until they run out there.
What saddens me is that I don't think you could say that the last couple of years has seen the group develop to its maximum because of all the outside pressures going on.
That's an opportunity that's been taken away from them and that they'll never get back. Guys like Brent Stanton and Brendon Goddard, are they going to win a premiership this year? Probably not. Next year? Well, hopefully. But time runs out eventually for all of us. Right now, though, I'm absolutely rapt. Just so thankful that the players are free to do what they do best. It's certainly no less than they deserve.
