Jon Ralph has branded controversial figure Stephen Dank as a coward, after his final appeal for a lifetime ban from the AFL was thrown out by the League after he failed to appear at his own hearing.
The Herald Sun football journalist was in a celebratory mood following the latest news surrounding Dank, a central figure in the Essendon supplements saga, and called his entire story shambolic.
“Hallelujah. Stephen Dank is finally off the scene,” Ralph said on SEN’s The Run Home.
“It was probably just another illustration of everything to do with him – a total shambles.
“He’s been banned from sport for life in Australia and we don’t have to talk about this bastard for the next 30 years. It is a beautiful thing.
“He is the greatest fraud in Australian sport, he is the greatest villain in Australian sport and he is the greatest coward because he never once stood up for those players.
“Stephen Dank is dead from an AFL perspective… That’s got to be a great thing for the sport because there’s no more stupid statements about getting Jobe (Watson’s) Brownlow back, no more distractions.”
Ralph was particularly scathing of Dank’s inability to testify in favour of the Essendon 34, calling it a cowardly, narcissistic act.
“Even if he didn’t have complex and complete documents, he never once tried to get to the victim’s stand and say this is what I’ve got and I’ll try to help them, because he is a coward,” he said.
“I think he is the ultimate snake-oil salesman. That’s what he’s done all the way through. The fact that he has been able to con himself into so many leading sporting organisations showed that he had the gift of the gab because clear these players for a period believed him.”
Ralph considers that the news that Dank may be on the verge of bankruptcy as reported by the Herald Sun last week, might be the greatest news of all.
“I think that is a fantastic development because hopefully this bloke will be financially ruined over this along with his credibility being torn to shreds,” he said.
Former Bombers player Adam Cooney also shared that the opinion of Dank shared by the players involved with the former biochemist was scathing.
“They did speak about him not often but when they did, they spoke about him with disdain and rightly so with everything they have been through,” he said.