The word from (Mrs) Hird

No-one should be surprised by Tania Hird’s ‘revelation’ that her husband remains on the Bombers’ payroll during his suspension.

 

The AFL have played their hand poorly right from the get-go. Despite the Bombers’ confidence when self-reporting their supplements program that they would be vindicated, AFL House proceeded to leak ‘evidence’ to paint the Bombers, and coach James Hird particularly, as amoral desperates who would stop at nothing in their quest for success.

 

AussieRulesBlog finds it impossible to understand how anyone could swallow the line that any AFL club, any AFL coach would wilfully and consciously disregard the health and safety of the players on their list. But that’s the bait that was dangled — and duly swallowed by most.

 

Notwithstanding players playing ‘jabbed’ with pain killers, uncaring of the future effects, it defies any sort of logic to believe the AFL’s line.

 

And the more recent revelation — an appropriate word in these circumstances — that eleven or twelve AFL clubs were conducting ill-monitored, ill-recorded and ill-supervised supplements programs run by ill-screened employees at the same time as the Bombers is a ticking time bomb that the AFL have, so far successfully, swept out of public consciousness.

 

The speed with which the AFL’s house of cards folded when challenged by Bombers’ doctor Bruce Reid shines a spotlight on the paucity of the AFL case.

 

It’s hard to imagine that Hird would have lost had he challenged. It’s similarly easy to imagine that such a result would have brought the AFL to its knees.

 

The fact is that the Bombers need the AFL and they need it in good shape. The club can’t generate a profit and grow if it is playing in the VFL because the AFL has disappeared.

 

Similarly, the AFL needs its powerhouse clubs to generate attendances and other revenues to keep struggling clubs afloat.

 

AussieRulesBlog imagines a scene where a Keatingesque Hird faces Vlad across a table and says, “I’m going to do you slowly, mate.” Vlad knows he’s toast and responds, “How much to not destroy the game you love?”

 

Ultimately, it’s clear that Hird took one — his suspension — for the club and for the game. His reputation will forever be tarnished in the eyes of many, but his club lives on and the game has a chance to take a breath and build again. Who among us, knowing we would win the legal stoush, wouldn’t extract some blood from the stone?

 

It wouldn’t surprise AussieRulesBlog one skerrick if it emerged that the AFL were partly funding Hird’s salary for the year. Not that they’d want it known, of course.