Still standing ... James Hird is the face of Essendon's drugs saga. Source: Michael Dodge / Getty Images
THE AFL powerbrokers returning from the US could not have escaped the blanket coverage of baseball superstar Alex Rodriguez's 211-game drug ban.
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The New York Yankee is the best-known of 13 major league players suspended this week for infractions linked to a Miami drug lab.
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Unfortunately it was deja vu for Rodriguez, who in 2009 admitted to drug use early in his career, went clean for a while, then jumped right back on the gear.
As recently as last year Australian sports fans would have tut-tutted about yet another American drug cheat from a lofty place we believed we occupied on the moral high ground.
No one is suggesting any real correlation between Australian footballers and Rodriguez' use of anabolic steroids.
But as football grapples with the Ahmed Saad case and the Essendon peptides scandal, it is clear that the sanctimonious, righteous position we once held has been ripped away.
As Mark Thompson admitted and the Switkowski report confirmed, Essendon did undertake a "risky" sports science experiment that went right to the edge of legality.
And players like Saad are prepared to dabble in energy drinks with potentially illegal substances that, in his case, could end his career.
We used to scoff at talk of performance-enhancing drugs in sport, writing off Justin Charles' positive test as isolated.
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Yet with young, body-conscious, musclebound risk-takers pushing the envelope, the anecdotal evidence is that suburban, country and VFL players are still seeking the added edge.
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Banned VFL player Matt Clark told News Limited last week that 15 of his teammates were using the Hemo Rage drink that resulted in him being ousted for two years.
They had been told it was legal for VFL, but that is still a staggering number of players deciding to turn to even an energy drink to try to get that little legal edge.
As many as five VFL players have breached the ASADA code in recent years, and a similar number in the WAFL. Some in the WAFL, like Travis Casserly, took two sudafel tablets and some blatantly took steroids and were caught.
The AFL scene is rigorously policed, as proved by Dane Swan's tweets about yet another test this week and the Herald Sun's February report that as many as 12 players from a Victorian teams had been extensively target-tested.
But in a risk-taking society with the prize of AFL football so cherished, do we still believe some state league players would not turn to that something extra to push themselves above the pack?
The surprise is not that it is happening, but that we are are so naive to think it is not.
After all, Australian cycling has had to get its head around lauded ambassadors Matt White and Stuart O'Grady being exposed as drug cheats.
Australian cycling has had to get its head around lauded ambassadors like Matt White and Stuart O'Grady being exposed as blatant drug cheats.
AFL football is nowhere near that stage yet but those who believe the Essendon experience is a line-in-the-sand moment from which we will quickly recover are surely in fantasy land.
The question now is how the AFL uses this episode to better an AFL game rocked by controversy after controversy in the past 12 months.
So what now?
Are players sufficiently scared by the 1000-plus tests for PEDs in the AFL to decide taking border-line substances is a risk not worth taking?
They haven't really listened on the illicit drugs issue given the mocking way they began self-reporting in droves last year.
But then again bans are much harder to come by with the illicit drugs policy given how challenging it is to lodge three strikes.
Is more awareness the key, or will yet another video session about the dangers of drugs just see the eyes of players glaze over?
Or will the Essendon and Saad issues finally scare the living Christ out of players who to be honest only have one fear, and that is to be stopped from playing the game they love?
No one believes AFL player players regularly abuse steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs.
But the urge to hark back to simpler times where players wore lace-up jumpers and didn't even consider the temptation of quick-fix substances is just as fanciful.
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