Jobe. How Will We Remember You?
- Sep 11, 2017
- 3 min read
Today, Jobe Watson woke up not as an AFL player but as … well, anything he wants to be.
This much can be said for sure about the Essendon midfielder’s career. He played 220 games and kicked 113 goals for the Bombers across 15 seasons. He captained 116 games, won three Best & Fairest Awards and was a two-time All-Australian.
The rest is conjecture and public debate. It is hard to know just what his legacy will be.
At his best, Watson was a superb footballer. The son of Essendon champion Tim Watson, he was taken by the Bombers at pick 40 in the 2002 National Draft under the father-son rule. He debuted the following season in Round 13 against Geelong and over the next seven seasons steadily turned into an elite midfielder: a prolific ball winner with sure hands, judgment and vision who possessed, like his father before him, a phenomenal tank that allowed him to run out games and compensate for a lack of pace.
He won his first W.S. Crichton Medal as Essendon’s best & fairest in 2009 and followed it up with a second in 2010, the year in which he was first appointed Bomber captain. Two seasons later, he added a Brownlow Medal and his first All-Australian selection to his tally.
But then… well, you know what.
It is unfair to blame Watson for the protracted circus of court cases, appeals, investigations, findings, lies and delusion that arose from the supplement saga between 2013 and 2016. However, he did have a chance to stop the darkest episode in footy history in his tracks.
In November 2010, biochemist Stephen Dank made a presentation of his sports science program to the playing group at Gold Coast. Led by captain Gary Ablett jnr., the Suns had enough doubts to reject Dank’s offer to implement a supplement regime at their club – a red flag given that the club has never represented a high benchmark for professionalism in their short existence.
Dank moved on to Windy Hill and tried his snake-oil pitch to the Essendon playing group.
When his turn came, Watson did not demonstrate Ablett’s intuition and responsibility to his players. If he thought of the potential risks, he did not speak up. And when the captain was seen giving the all-clear, his team followed.
A highly illegal, highly risky program intended to increase the Bombers’ recovery time was conducted and “never adequately controlled or challenged or documented’’, according to the 2013 report from Ziggy Switkowski, commissioned by Essendon. He may have been just a minor character in the decision but Watson faltered when he had the opportunity to stop a regime that would destroy careers and reputations.
It’s hard to imagine the emotional turmoil of the last four years of Watson’s life.
The hounding from the media. The internal conflict between faith and doubt, hope and anger at his club. The roller coaster of the horrible saga finding another way to roll on every time it seemed it way over: the AFL’s initial suspensions and fines in late August of 2013. Then ASADA’s announcement of an investigation the following February. Then WADA, international sport’s anti-drug body with an imposing record for guilty verdicts, declared that they would also investigating the Bombers in May. WADA initially cleared all 34 Bombers still listed from the supplement saga in April 2016… and then announced that they would not only appeal but change the definition for which they could reach a guilty verdict.
There were incidents when Watson bore the brunt of the mounting backlash more than anyone. In June 2013, he confessed to Fox Footy’s 'On The Couch' that he had been injected with AOD-9604 and told it was legal. When the Bombers played at Subiaco the following Friday, he was mercilessly booed by the West Coast faithful (who clearly had short memories about players illegally taking drugs).
And all the while he still had to play.
Watson was one of 12 players banned by WADA for the 2016 season. Furthermore, he became the first player in history to be stripped of a Brownlow Medal. I can’t speak on his behalf, but it was always going to be nigh-on impossible to rekindle his love of the game once he handed in the Brownlow and the empty thud of reality hit home. Former. Brownlow. Medallist. The greatest individual honour a player can achieve, falling through his fingers.
All throughout, Watson refused to blow in the wind. He held an impassive face to the media and never took the easy out by blaming anyone else.
At a critical juncture, Jobe Watson failed as a leader. In the four years since, he has not only paid the price but redeemed himself through the strength he has displayed under an unprecedented burden. He’s square with the house.
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