COACH Paul Roos says he’s unsure how Essendon will react this Sunday, when the Demons take on the Dons at the MCG, following the revelation that ASADA has lodged formal allegations of possible anti-doping rule violations to 34 current and former players. 

News of the ‘show-cause’ notices came to light on Thursday night and Roos said it was hard to tell how it would affect Essendon this weekend. But he said on Dee TV’s Roos’ Views that it was a long, drawn out process no one wanted to see in the game.

“You feel for them and it’s been such a long saga and you feel for them – particularly the players,” Roos said.

“Certainly from my point of view, I hope they get off and the players are following instructions and we don’t really know what happened. It doesn’t appear anyone does at this stage.

“I feel for the players and it’s a shocking situation with the second year in and they still don’t know what’s going on. Last year, they missed the finals.

“We’ve just got to play the game as any other game and we’ll do that, but certainly all in the football fraternity are really supportive of the player group and hopes things get sorted out, so they can continue to play and hopefully this thing can go away.”

Roos, who has formed a good rapport with Essendon coach Mark Thompson, due to their weekly commitments on Fox Footy’s AFL 360, said he hadn’t spoken to him about the build up to the game – or the supplements issue.

“We get on really well, having seen each other every Monday night [AFL 360], but I must admit that I’ve picked his brain, as he’s been involved in Geelong, where he built the team there,” he said.

“He had some pretty difficult times, early on, when he started coaching there, so it’s been great to talk to him about that. We haven’t talked about Essendon or Melbourne this week, but even previously, he’s been really supportive of us, so it’s been really positive.

“In terms of the supplement [issue], we didn’t really know too much about it, so we haven’t really talked about it. Everyone’s getting sick of talking about it – not just Essendon people, but I think the whole football world is sick of talking about it.”