IN 2013, media identities reputed to have more inside information than a mole in a hole, revealed that performance-enhancing drugs are a shocking new development perpetrated by the Essendon Football Club. An unstated – but insistent – message seemed to be that “pushing the envelope”, Essendon-style, is as bad as it gets. So in a funny sort of way the AFL brand was protected.

As time went on, half the papers “exposed” an astonishing fact that literally tens of us had no clue about: the AFL is actually interested in protecting that brand. The other half floored us with the disclosure that James Hird is mainly in it for himself. And in other news, no country ever spied on another until Tony Abbott came along.

Readers might’ve believed these camps were opposed – that is, one was pro-Hird, the other pro-AFL. You know – a Fairfax-Murdoch thing. Yep, they were as divided as “A” is from “Z” – in an alphabet soup.

The big winner? Footy journalism - obviously the whole reason people play footy. The saga generated 100,000 words a minute, and it’s not over yet. There will be more scoops, new reasons to hang Hirdy out, lots of awards for hard-hitting reportage, more fodder for the goat. It’s a cottage industry. Heroic scribes have bled onto their keyboards – just ask them!

But it is not, as advertised, the unearthing of performance-enhancing drugs in the AFL; it is the unearthing of dubious but tacitly accepted practices, the nature of which we’re still not certain about, at one AFL club. Essendon has admitted only to envelope-pushing. Others haven’t.

The issue of performance-enhancing drugs in the AFL – which has no doubt been around as long as performance-enhancing drugs – is no closer to resolution.

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