World Footy News

Whilst it is clear that events today will have a devastating impact on the Essendon Football Club in the wake of the CAS/WADA decision to ban players for the 2016 season after a guilty verdict was reached on the use of illegal supplements at the club in 2012, the Bombers will not be the only club hit hard. Port Adelaide, St Kilda, Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs each have former Essendon players that they have recruited post-2012 who will also be banned. Additionally, clubs around metropolitan, country and interstate leagues will be impacted.

One of these is the Palmerston Magpies club in Darwin playing in the NTFL. Former Bombers, Alwyn Davey and Leroy Jetta have been instrumental in helping the Magpies rise to become a potential finalist in 2016. Both are part of the original "Essendon 34" and face lengthy sanctions that will see them miss the remainder of the 2015 /16 season as well as most of the 2016/17 season.

To make matters worse for Palmerston, Alwyn Davey is their playing coach, meaning that the club loses more than just his playing skills, but his direction on and off field as well.
The NTFL has long been a league where former AFL players have taken up playing or coaching roles when their AFL days are over. Currently former players are scattered across most teams with former Lion, Jared Brennan, newly retired Cats, James Kelly and Matthew Stokes, former Demons Aaron Davey, Brent Moloney and Mark Jamar amongst a host of ex-AFL players on NTFL club lists. Not only do theses players add to the club's talent and experience, but they are also instrumental in marketing the game, especially outside of Darwin.

Davey was appointed as co-coach of the Magpies and so far the club has remained in the mix for finals action this season. The Davey family has been an integral part of the club's history. Davey has been consistent on the field, as has Jetta who has been a consistently good player and goal kicker since his arrival. Their loss through the Essendon suspensions today will have a damaging impact on the Magpies and could seriously harm their finals aspirations for this season as well as their momentum for next season.

Because both players had left Essendon prior to the provisional suspensions handed to Essendon players at the end of the 2014 season, which saw the club seek top-up players to compete in the NAB Challenge last year, Davey and Jetta do not receive the same reduction in suspension that others still in the AFL received as they left the club prior to the completion of that ban. Where most current Essendon and AFL players can resume after November 2016, the suspension for Davey and Jetta runs until February 2017 unless any subsequent appeals on behalf of players can succeed in reducing the existing bans.

The AFLNT will monitor the progress of the bans and Palmerston will be listening closely to any whispers of appeals against today's bans which could potentially see Davey and Jetta return earlier. But that seems a long shot at the moment.

The same situation will be played out across Australian leagues in a decision which will have a huge impact beyond Essendon and the AFL.