Former Collingwood president Eddie McGuire has lashed out over suggestions Jobe Watson’s Brownlow Medal should be reinstated.
The former Essendon superstar was stripped of the 2012 award following the club’s supplement saga that saw 34 players banned for a year in 2016.
Watch every match of every round of the Premiership Season LIVE and ad-break free during play on FOX FOOTY, available on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.
Essendon players were found guilty of using banned peptide Thymosin Beta-4 during the 2011-12 season. Despite an AFL tribunal clearing the players, an appeal by WADA to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) resulted in bans being handed out years later.
In the wake of the ruling, Richmond’s Trent Cotchin and Hawthorn’s Sam Mitchell, who finished joint runners up that year, were awarded the Brownlow.
But former Bombers coach Kevin Sheedy has suggested the medal should be given back to Watson while stating neither Cotchin or Mitchell should have accepted it.
“No, I think the whole board wants to move on and put the past in the past, obviously. But I wouldn’t have taken Jobe’s Brownlow, if I was Sam Mitchell or Cotchin,” Sheedy said on Code Sports’ Essendon: The Lost Years series.
Former Essendon star Scott Gumbleton echoed a similar sentiment, saying him being stripped of the prestigious honour in the first place was wrong.
“They should just give it back. He would accept it. It’s probably a fairly stupid decision (by the AFL) for him to lose a Brownlow,” Gumbleton said.
But McGuire has hit back at those suggestions and said both Sheedy and Gumbleton are overlooking one key element in winning the Brownlow Medal.
“I was in a presidents’ meeting when this was all happening and it came out that the Essendon players had been suspended for a year and I actually said at the time ‘what does that mean for Jobe Watson?’, and no one had thought of it,” McGuire said on Nine’s Eddie and Jimmy podcast.
“And sadly for Jobe, there’s one rule on the Brownlow Medal … if you get suspended, for whatever, you’re out.
“I’m devastated for Jobe. The moment they were suspended, he lost his right to the Brownlow Medal. Full stop. There’s no way around it.”
Geelong champion and 2007 Brownlow Medal winner Jimmy Bartel couldn’t believe Sheedy’s brutal shot at Cotchin and Mitchell.
“Do I share the same opinion (as Sheedy)? No. Do I think Jobe Watson should have lost his Brownlow? Probably not, but I have never been completely across all the intimate details of the investigation at Essendon,” Bartel said.
“My initial sense when I heard Sheedy’s comments is that it minimises what Mitchell and Cotchin have done and I don’t like that.
“They were put in unique and difficult circumstances. Do I think they’re worthy Brownlow Medallists? Yes I do. I also think Jobe Watson is a worthy Brownlow Medallist, and yes it sounds like I’m sitting on the fence.
“When people come out and minimise Sam Mitchell and Trent Cotchin, I feel uncomfortable with that, but I also feel uncomfortable for Jobe Watson as well.
“I don’t know why it needs to be dragged up. We know Sheedy is as Essendon as Essendon can be.
“He’s always going to push the envelope with defending his patch. I don’t see what’s to gain from giving the broadside to Mitchell and Cotchin.”
McGuire agreed with Bartel’s take, stating Sheedy was “totally wrong” to drag Mitchell and Cotchin into the debate.
