Mark Thompson (15)

Of interest, most likely, only to AFL football fans and those wanting to understand what-the-f*** happened at Essendon. As for the football, Mark's book is good on how the game is played and, as expected, as it is coached. Or ought to be. On the Essendon saga, Mark's view is mostly "What Happened?" bemusement. He, like the 34 players, are portrayed as victims of an incompetent and lax club administration, and an aggressive and punitive AFL. Bottom line: a lack of natural justice resulted in show more the wrong guys being punished. According to Bomber. show less

For a start, it's not the whole story.
I have enjoyed watching Bomber on AFL360 on Australian TV, and his thoughts are usually insightful. He gets a bit prickly around certain subjects, and those are exactly the ones I expected more of in this 'Whole Story'.
We needed more about the Gary Ablett saga at Geelong in 2010, why Essendon missed a pre-season game in 2012, and much more about the governance and drugs disaster that Essendon was, while he was there as Assistant Coach - a position of show more power!
With regard to that, Bomber does more finger-pointing than current Essendon captain Brendon Goddard, and that hasn't worked out too well, either.
Anyway, an interesting enough read (thanks Martin Blake), and while I have the greatest respect for him as a player and coach, I'm not convinced he has been completely open here.
Curious aside: so many of the people involved on the 'inside' at Essendon keep saying things like "Wait till it all comes out" and "Don't judge me until the whole story is told". Well, they've had plenty of time and opportunities and it still looks as messy and dodgy and illegal as it did at the start! show less