The Australian Football League Players Association "pleaded" with the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority and the AFL last year "not to name players in an interim report that came to light on the weekend," according to Greg Denham of THE AUSTRALIAN.
A "furious" Essendon "has protested over the leaked release of a confidential interim ASADA report from seven months ago that alleged that 14 of its 2012 playing list admitted they believed they had been injected with banned peptides."
The Herald Sun on Sunday "published the names of players, including 10 still on the Bombers’ list and two at other clubs this year, who were named in an interim report to the AFL last August." AFL Players Association Player Relations GM Ian Prendergast said that his group "made 'strong recommendations' not to put players’ names in the report." Essendon captain Jobe Watson, Dyson Heppell, Michael Hurley, Tom Bellchambers, Jake Melksham, Heath Hocking, Michael Hibberd, Kyle Hardingham, Tayte Pears and Alex Browne "were named in the interim report," as was Stewart Crameri, now at the Western Bulldogs, Scott Gumbleton, now at Fremantle, and delisted Bombers Ricky Dyson and Sam Lonergan (THE AUSTRALIAN, 3/3). In Sydney, Michael Gleeson reported AFL PA CEO Matt Finnis said that "it was an abuse of the players' trust in the system and the confidentiality they were guaranteed in the investigation for them to be identified." He said, "The AFL Players Association condemns in the strongest possible terms the publishing of names and photos of current and former Essendon football players in today's Herald Sun" (SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 3/3).
A NEW JOB: In Sydney, Michael Chammas reported revelations of sports scientist Stephen Dank "landing a job in cricket has dumbfounded" former National Rugby League player Sandor Earl, "who is living in Thailand as he awaits his official suspension for drug use and trafficking."
Fairfax Media revealed on Sunday that Dank "had been appointed to work in the women's Indian Premier League Twenty20 competition that will be staged over two weeks in Singapore in September" (SMH, 3/2).
