SOMEBODY close to me once famously said that this whole Essendon supplements saga would prove to be a “storm in a teacup”. Could there ever have been a more misleading statement? The game is confronted with a crisis unprecedented in its history, given that 34 players from the one team are facing suspension.

How on Earth has it come to this when the only evidence of any wrongdoing is tenuous and circumstantial — at best? A comical farce is how it should be described. If only the ramifications for 34 innocent players were not so serious.

One wonders where those two grandstanding Federal ministers who stage-managed that “blackest day in Australian sport” are now hiding. Which criminal element that required the presence of the Australian Crime Commission and its resources has been incarcerated? What felons have been removed from the streets?

And exactly what is the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Agency pretending to do? Does it even have a strategy other than to bully the Essendon players into taking a guilty plea with the lure of a diminished penalty?

What will it do now that its two “star” witnesses, biochemist Shane Charter and compound pharmacist, Nima Alavi, have decided they have nothing worthy to contribute to the case and are refusing to testify? Did they ever have anything other than circumstantial speculation anyway?

Nevertheless, the Bombers, despite an overwhelming campaign against them by segments of the press and some nutters who have access to a keyboard and an internet account, are keen for their day in court. As long as it’s not a kangaroo court.

That there have been some legal gymnastics and stalling tactics there is no doubt, but given the massive media campaign against Essendon and the penalties the club, its coach and some officials have already paid for what now appears to have been the club’s rash decision to “self-report”, one can understand their reasons to use the law to their advantage.

From the outside, ASADA’s investigation seems to have proceeded at the pace of a glacier and its case looks weak. However, despite the cynics, blind Essendon supporters and ASADA critics, there still does remain that one inescapable question. Did those Essendon players take anything that was banned?

If they knowingly did or were deliberately injected with a banned substance, they must pay a price. That’s why the case must be heard: to calm the storm and redeem the players’ reputations.

However, Essendon will survive. Will ASADA?