Well ultimately I guess we are back to the 'old days' and every player's manager is going to say "I don't care what they say, you take nothing", which ultimately is probably a good thing for the game anyway.
I played a pretty senior level of RU when I was younger, for a lot of years, but at Fingal Bay, I was astonished how big the guys are, being up so close to them. That's not to say they have done anything wrong, but 15 years ago when I was playing, had I lined up against most of these guys, I would have thought 'Holy F...'.
They're big guys, even Sam Short (NYC half back) and Chisholm, they're legs are about 50% of my waist, and my partner calls me overweight!
Every team is looking for some sort of advantage because the salary cap basically (or should) even out teams across the competition in terms of playing personnel.
Then it comes down to the coach and fitness/health regimes.
So, we all know the benefit of a good coach and how they can transform a good team (Gibson, Bennet, Bellamy and Hasler) into a great team.
But every coach is looking for an edge, that little thing that will provide the miniscule advantage to extend the level of fitness/energy to win a game, particularly in the last 15 minutes.
Interestingly, when Dank was with us in his last year, the guys would go out on absolute fire and then fade in the latter second half. No wonder they got rid of him but, to his credit, he did introduce GPS training monitoring which is used by most clubs now.
In 2011, when Dank worked with Cronulla and they supposedly used Peptides. The Sharks came 13th. 13 of 16 for F..ks sake. Yep, peptides really worked for them!
In 2012 they came 7th, but no one is questionning 2012 (and the fact they had Carney) what the players took in 2012! Give me a f...g break! We go from 13th to 7th but we're worried about what they took when they came 13th?
It's all BS to me and apparent innocent people are having their lives ruined by this. It's not like Lance Armstrong who came first due to EPO usage, we're talking about a team that cam 4th last!
I don't have an answer to the apparent problem but I just think it's all BS and if Dank is the problem, ban him, but everyone else seems to be the fall guy at the moment.
Given the circumstances, I just cannot see the Sharks surviving from this. Although the board had sacked people, why would any major business want to be associated with them?
I do not think we have heard the last of this from the players association and there could be serious ramifications if more players from other clubs are implicated.
It's a really sad day for the NRL and all NRL fans. I cannot imagine any fan feeling glee, like they may have done when Melbourne were stripped of their points.
The whole thing is just bizzare.