Goddard tells of giving up as drug saga stole Jobe’s 200th

BRENDON Goddard has admitted he “gave up” in Jobe Watson’s 200th game in late 2015 as Essendon imploded after three years of the drugsrelated scandal.

Goddard told the Sacked podcast the club hit rock bottom that day in July 2015.

He said he had huge admiration for Watson, pictured, but the captain’s body language was so deflated in his prematch address it filtered through a group battered by years of controversy.

Essendon’s players were cleared of doping bans in early 2015 and were 3-3 that season before WADA announced a shock appeal — the mentally drained Dons finishing the year 6-16, with coach James Hird eventually sacked.

Goddard is one of footy’s greatest competitors but in that Round 14 clash he had just seven possessions, Watson had nine and his side lost by 110 points to St Kilda.

“To see Jobe in his pre-game speech in his 200th game, it’s the only game I have ever given up in. I just gave up,” he said. “It was against the Saints ironically, we lost by 100 points. I knew we were doomed before the game when Jobe stood up there in his 200th and we were meant to be celebrating. He gave some great speeches pregame but this one, he was just a defeated man.

“He was [cooked] and I knew it before the game. He wanted to be anywhere else but Etihad that day.

“I just stopped trying. It was, ‘this is not worth it, it’s just a game of footy’. I saw guys who didn’t want to be there and I didn’t want to be there.”

Watson said after the game that he was not proud of his effort, as midfielder Dyson Heppell denied that Hird had “lost the dressing room”.

In hindsight Hird’s coaching was not the problem — the players had run out of motivation to compete with such a weight over their heads.

Goddard maintains the players were innocent and despite horrific governance at Essendon should have been exonerated.