I have always had a fair bit of sympathy for the Essendon players. Young guys who still don’t know what they’ve been injected with.

Really though, how many of us would want to go through two years of hell just because your bosses were incompetent and you trusted them?

Sure, the players are ultimately responsible for their decisions but when I was 20, I was an absolute idiot and time has only made me slightly less so.

Today’s decision by Jobe Watson’s to wear a denim shirt at the media conference only further highlights the poor decision making of young men.

The tribunal outcome is good news in terms of a potential end for these players who have lived under this stress for two years.

In every other way it is high farce.

And what could be more fitting? This whole saga has been a big black hole of bad decision making that has sucked anyone in who has gone near it.

There’s not too many people who have been near this thing that can hold their head up high.

Now today, we have the tribunal find there’s insufficient evidence, which is just perfect.

With hindsight, this is the only way this could ever have ended (assuming it actually has). Basically, it was years of our lives following this thing and for nothing.

Like the ending to Lost.

So much passion, so many words spoken and written and so many social media posts, all for nothing.

This decision doesn’t exonerate Essendon or Hird and also casts a lot of doubt over ASADA’s competency and the AFL’s drug testing regime.

Like a government proposal for high speed rail, it fixes nothing but fills a news bulletin.

The positive tests from Fremantle and Collingwood just add to the storylines that are usually kept to the WWE.

So what now? Sure, there may be appeals and you can only dream how well they’ll go.

What’s more likely is not a lot happens. This just sits there like the big radioactive mess that no one knows how to clean up.

Only the passing of time has the ability to fix this one.

Either way, this nonsense got the farcical outcome it deserved.