In the end ASADA was no more able to prove what was injected into 34 players than Essendon was.

There is an inherent shame in that definition of victory.

While it was claimed elsewhere, the only note of vindication in the ruling belonged to the players who held their collective nerve against substantial pressure to cut a deal they never believed in.

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• Not guilty: Essendon players cleared
• What does Essendon’s not guilty verdict mean?

Ultimately an eminent tribunal unanimously ruled it could not be comfortably satisfied that any player was administered Thymosin Beta 4.

It took Essendon captain Jobe Watson a few moments to convert those words “not comfortably satisfied” to the verdict he and his co-accused craved – not guilty.

When they appeared publicly, tellingly, all were in plain clothing rather than club colours as the verdict was theirs not Essendon’s.

The captain was dignified and unflinching.

There was unmistakable resentment toward ASADA over how it had used and manipulated player evidence to build a case for the tribunal hearing.

And sharp criticism of his club for placing them in an unacceptable situation none could ever have imagined.

“The players feel when you go to your employer and they can’t tell you exactly what went on that’s concerning,” Watson said. “I think the players are well within their rights to have had anger over a period of time, to be concerned about that.”

AFL Chief Executive Gillon McLachlan was careful with details of the still confidential judgment but did convey: “What was established through the tribunal was they were not comfortably satisfied it was Thymosin Beta 4. I don’t think they established what it was.”

The peptide that was imported from China, compounded in South Yarra and delivered to Dank remains unidentified. If it was injected into the players they will never know what it was.

That fact ensured Essendon chairman Paul Little and coach James Hird’s claims of vindication landed hollow.

While the past and present Essendon players had privately been braced for an interrupted start to the 2015 season, whispers out of ASADA hinted at honourable defeat.

On the last day ASADA could not satisfy a relatively low burden of proof.

In the interim report, produced in August 2013, it was stated 11 players had expressed the belief they were injected with Thymosin but the investigators specified that they made no finding whether that was Thymosin Alpha or Beta and a sample of Thymosin was not recovered.

It concluded: “At this stage ASADA does not consider that it has sufficient evidence to establish to the comfortable satisfaction of a hearing panel that specific players were in fact administered Thymosin Beta 4.”

Newly appointed ASADA Chief Executive Ben McDevitt chose to pursue the case. Citing the advice of leading experts in the anti-doping field he prepared a brief that ultimately failed.

McDevitt attempted to justify that decision in saying: “I am pleased that the tribunal was able to finally hear these matters.”

McDevitt lashed Essendon, pointedly labelling the supplements program an “injection regime” that was “absolutely and utterly disgraceful.”

But an appeal seems less likely than was previously anticipated.

While Stephen Dank maintained as late as Sunday on ABC News Radio that Thymosin Beta 4 wasn’t a WADA prohibited substance, the tribunal found the opposite.

Dank tonight tried to put himself in the winner’s circle in a television interview. But his day of judgment is rapidly approaching.

– ABC