It's a statement of the obvious that the extension of the Essendon supplements saga is less than an ideal situation. It means the stress carried by the athletes, who may be innocent and must be wearied, goes on for many more months. It continues to blight the competition generally. And it extends the frustration felt by supporters.

But let me add another bad outcome of the World Anti-Doping Agency's decision to reopen the case: it has caused the exposure of some followers of Australian football as insular, inward-looking cheerleaders, unable to see beyond the end of their collective nose.

The recent attacks on WADA suggest that when faced with inconvenient doping outcomes, Australians can be just as quick to shift the blame as anyone else. We've been the first to ridicule other nations about spiked drink, steroid-contaminated T-bone, and various other caught-it-off-the-toilet-seat excuses, and we've expected the authorities to pursue them to the limit. But when it comes to a home ground scandal, there's more than a touch of "not in our backyard" to some of the response.

We talk a good game. We've criticised countries — be they superpowers, Third World, or somewhere in between — when they've fallen short of the mark. But now, in a moment of domestic inconvenience, supposedly responsible administrators, lawyers, athletes, and fans have turned their fury on WADA.

Let's get one thing straight in this case, and all the other ones around the world that have frustrated athletes and brought odium on investigators: it's not the anti-doping agencies that caused the problem. They are not the ones to blame for the 6am knock on the athlete's door, or the six-year scrutiny of an athlete who tests clean in the lab but defies gravity on the track. It is not they who over decades have cheated their rivals and defrauded the public.

Without the cheats there would be no need for anti-doping agencies. And pretty quickly, if we have no anti-doping agencies there will be no sports industry, because the product it churns out will have no credibility.

So WADA has to be prepared to fight hard. It has to monitor its various national anti-doping agencies to ensure they are conscientious and efficient, which not all of them have always been. It has to push back against the devious and intransigent national and international sports administrations that have put income and convenience first and integrity somewhere else. And if that means athletes sometimes feel the investigative and judicial processes are overly onerous, they should talk to those of their brotherhood who have, through the years, knowingly cheated.

If it seems unfair, you can bet your boots it's much fairer to everyone — athletes in particular — than what would develop without it. To hear in recent days, from a generally respected quarter such as Western Bulldogs president Peter Gordon, the global system of scrutiny being decried is to hear surprising lack of perspective. Self-interest, that old chestnut Paul Keating long ago tipped us onto, continues to be the horse you know is always trying.

The urging of former AFL Players Association legal adviser Graham Smith that the AFL remove itself from WADA is in the same category. Does Smith seriously suggest the global anti-doping organisation, covering all the sports from all the nations of the earth, is conducting a witch-hunt against those who play the eccentric game of Aussie rules in the Melbourne suburb of Essendon?

Do we really believe our football competition in this small corner of the world should somehow be quarantined from WADA in a way that other, larger sports aren't? And do we believe we're entitled to be treated as morally superior to other nations and therefore requiring less scrutiny? So much for an investigative process that treats all its citizens as equal.

Speaking of the AFLPA, it has frequently expressed its concern for Essendon's players through this affair but has shown little appreciation of its broader responsibility. I may be wrong, but over the 27 months this has gone on, I've not read or heard one comment from the players' association referring to the players Essendon competes against.

On 3AW's Sports Today during the week, there was a discussion about the concept of justice delayed being justice denied. It's something the AFLPA, and quite a few others, would do well to consider. For in the event of any of the 34 players under investigation being found in breach of the WADA code, those for whom justice will have been denied are those they played against. There are two sides to this story.

This all might sound hardline, but doping has long been hardline and the fight against it must be uncompromising. If all involved in the AFL can lift their eyes beyond Tullamarine, they will see a big, and sometimes bad, world out there. The rules and the process are tough, but that seems to be the only way sport's integrity can be preserved.