DAVID Zaharakis says it could be as simple as the act of buying bread at the milk bar, or a flat white at the local cafe, or even having a beer with some mates.

The opportunity for people to mention “the saga’’ to an Essendon player, and in doing so to inadvertently ramp up the level of angst that has had some Bombers not enjoying their football this season.

The 25-year-old, whose aversion to needles ensured he was not part of the club’s injection program in 2012, said every player at club lived with the controversy as a ubiquitous backdrop.

“I mean I’m not involved (in the ongoing WADA appeal) and I get people saying things all the time, even just when I’m walking down the street,’’ Zaharakis said.

“For the past two or three years we’ve had people constantly saying stuff to us about it. It’s this relentless theme in the back of your head.

“Even having your mates joke about it. To them it’s just a joke between mates, but to you it just adds to that three years of crap and stress. To them it might be the first time they’ve cracked a gag about it, but to you it’s the 10th time you’ve heard it that week.

“And it grinds away at you because it’s your career, it’s what you’re doing for a living. You want to be successful at football, but for the past three years you’ve had to play it knowing that something’s holding you back.

“We would probably never have gone a week without someone saying something to us, and when there’s a new development on the story you know you’re going to cop 10 or 20 reminders from people you don’t even know. It’s just constant.’’

He said that even at home the players’ families lived with the supplements shadow, because relatives invariably found themselves being asked what was going on at Essendon.

Even though the club had regularly briefed parents about the situation “the families still struggle because they’re upset that it’s their son or their brother or their dad that’s going through this whole thing. That stress doesn’t just sit with the player, it sits with his whole family.’’

This year the burden has weighed particularly heavily on the Bombers, he said, because it began with the AFL’s anti-doping tribunal seeming to clear 34 past and present players of using banned substances in March. Six weeks later WADA announced it would appeal that judgment.

“After the guys got the first decision in their favour, you could see the energy, the excitement and the enthusiasm about being a normal football club again,’’ Zaharakis said.

“By that I mean that there wasn’t external issues to deal with, it was just about wins and losses and playing footy. And we were upbeat about how well we could play football together.

media_camera Jobe Watson reacts to loss to St Kilda. Picture: Colleen Petch

“But once you got pulled back off the mountain, it felt like one of those tipping points, where guys were thinking ‘you can only keep climbing that mountain so many times’.

“The moment the boys got told there was going to be an appeal, everyone was deflated. The air just went out of the group and for about 10 weeks in the middle of the season our performance just sat on a plateau.

“We didn’t really want to talk about, because we didn’t want to feel like we were using it as an excuse, but every time anyone mentioned the subject and you ignored it and pushed it down inside yourself, the pressure just kept building up.

“Whether it was subconsciously or not, it just kept building up inside and finally it bubbled to the surface on the day we played St Kilda.’’

That day was a 110-point loss a month ago in Round 14 in which, Zaharakis said, the Dons “hit rock bottom’’. The players and coaches gathered a couple of days later for a three-hour honesty session

“The players really opened up a lot,’’ he said. “The guys were a bit flat and it felt like everything was weighing the group down. A few just put their hand up and said it’s really been affecting me.

“After that everyone opened up, and there was this sense of relief that we could acknowledge that it was there and embrace it rather than hiding from it. The environment here at the club has been really good since that day.

“It released a lot of the tension and since then we’ve turned the corner a bit with our effort and performances, even though there have been a couple of games where we haven’t got over the line.’’

Zaharakis said it took that frank review for him and others to realise how much they had let the controversy seep in.

“I personally didn’t think it was affecting the playing group as much as it was, but in talking to some of the guys I now realise that it was,’’ he said. “Stress levels, anxiety, the uncertainty that came with it dragging out, of wanting to get to an end point but not knowing when that would be.

“I mean we’re talking about three years, and eventually it just takes its toll on you mentally and emotionally, because you in the back of your mind you don’t know what’s going to happen and it just affects your ability to concentrate on what you want to do, which is play football.’’

media_camera Essendon coach James Hird addressing his players. Picture: Colleen Petch

One player who was noticeable down on form was Essendon skipper Jobe Watson, who aggravated a shoulder injury in that St Kilda match, requiring season-ending surgery.

Zaharakis acknowledged that Waston shouldered a heavier load than most, and took great pleasure in seeing his skipper sipping on a beer last week during the third Ashes Test at Edgbaston.

“I guess Jobe has copped the whole lot, because he’s been the middle man between the players and the coaches and the admin in this whole thing,’’ he said.

“Just constantly going to meetings about it. He’s been the front man for the players and the face of it, so the pressure on him has been tenfold.

I can’t imagine how much time he’s spent over the past three years sitting in a room talking about the issue to the club or lawyers or the players’ association. He’s put that much time and effort into it and the toll that would take on you, I’m not surprised that he came out and said he wasn’t enjoying his footy.

“I don’t think you got any sense of that over the previous two years, but this year, yes, I’ve noticed it taking a big toll on him, and he hweasn’t had his best year footy-wise, which is probably down to everything coming to the forefront.

“Hopefully the fact that he’s off overseas at the moment will make him miss footy a bit and come back next year in a different mind frame.’’

Zaharakis hopes that return will include the resumption of his captaincy role.

The one sanctuary for the Bombers players over the past three seasons has been to get on to the field and chase the Sherrin.

Only rarely during matches has there been anything to remind the players of the saga that swirls around them.

Opposition players have only said “the odd thing here and there on the field but it hasn’t been on a consistent basis. I can’t really recall any big sledges, well maybe one or two, but nothing too strong.

“You also get the odd player who’ll come up and tell you they feel sorry for you. And after games guys have been pretty good.’’

As dearly as the Essendon players would love to put the entire controversy behind them, though, there is unlikely to be any closure for them until WADA’s appeal is heard in the Court of Arbitration for Sport later this year.

Which just leaves the question: How does the Essendon playing group feel about the man who led them into this whole mess, sports scientist Stephen Dank?

“We haven’t even really spoken about him,’’ Zaharakis said. “Whenever we’ve spoken as a group about this topic it’s always been about ASADA or the players’ association or how the case is going. It’s never been about the individuals involved.

“Everyone got along with him OK when he was here and even now from what I’ve seen he stands pretty firm in his beliefs that everything was above board. So I mean you can only take a man at his word until he’s proven wrong.’’

All at Essendon will remain hopeful that Dank is not proven wrong.

DAVID’S A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS

THAT David Zaharakis went into 2015 with lofty team and personal expectations has just made this season all the more frustrating.

“Even after the first two weeks when we’d played Sydney and Hawthorn, expectations were quite high within the group,’’ he said.

But after a mid-season flat spell “we’re a fair way off where we thought we’d be’’.

“So, over the course of the season it’s sort of flipped around. At the start of the season we had one of the oldest teams in the competition, but in the past few weeks we’ve been one of the youngest, with about 12 blokes under 50 games.

“It’s good from a talent identification point of view; we’ve shown that we’ve got some really good young players.’’

Zaharakis himself has not been able to get any personal consistency, having battled three separate injuries: he missed a couple of weeks late in the pre-season after tweaking a medial ligament, carried a torn posterior cruciate ligament in the early rounds and then missed six matches with an ankle injury.

“It’s only over the past two weeks that I’ve managed to start playing some good footy,’’ he said.

While he has had less impact on field this year, he has “really focused on developing relationships with the younger guys, spending more time with them at the footy club and also outside of that, so that leadership side of things has improved a lot.

“That closer bond with them means that you feel better placed to give some honest feedback, know their strengths and weaknesses and how they’re feeling.’’

Zaharakis has plans to head off overseas at season’s end, with plans to take in some European soccer matches, including his beloved Manchester United.

media_camera David Zaharakis in Manchester United’s mew home strip. Picture: Colleen Petch

A former junior basketballer, he has previously been to the US in the off-season to follow his other sporting passion, the NBA.

During the week Zaharakis took time to check out the new United home strip, which will be unveiled to the sporting world on Sunday.

With adidas taking over sponsorship of the English giant, which has more than 650 million fans across the globe, the United shirt has returned to its classic three-stripe kit of the 1980s.