IF IT was hard for observers to watch Dean Wallis admit to his stupidity under the bright lights of the Mike Sheahan Media Centre at AFL House, you can only imagine how hard it was for Wallis.

'Naivety' - as Wallis himself described it - saw him place three bets totaling $400 on various football outcomes. The fallout left Wallis shattered. And it was obvious.

Walking into Essendon's press conference - scheduled to start 45 minutes after the AFL's Adrian Anderson announced his 14-match ban, $7500 fine and suspension from "coaching" - there was a sense of astonishment.

Just how could an AFL assistant coach be caught gambling on football, including one bet on his own club, after Heath Shaw was caught, fined $20,000 and suspended for eight games for doing the same thing in July?

AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou last week even went as far to say it "defied belief".

But walking out of Wallis' self-imposed trial by journalists, you got the sense that feeling had changed. This was not a malicious act, nor was the one to withhold the truth from AFL investigators when they first came questioning.

They were errors made under clouded judgment - personal circumstances Wallis didn't want to elaborate on.

"I just thought it would go away," Wallis said. "And it didn't."

Football has been Wallis' livelihood since Kevin Sheedy drafted the raw-boned key position player in 1987 from Nhill in Victoria's Wimmera region.

Throughout his playing career he was never as talented as many of his teammates, but he persisted. He played a vital role in the club's 1993 and 2000 premierships, and ended his career in 2001.

At the end of 1999, he implored Sheedy to bring back to the club his great mate John Barnes, who started his career at Essendon before being traded to Geelong. He told his coach he'd make sure Barnes behaved.

The photo of the pair hugging and crying after the Bombers' 60-point Grand Final win less than 12 months later remains one of that match's lasting images.

Following his retirement he spent time as assistant to Kevin Sheedy before spreading his coaching wings with stints at St Kilda and Fremantle. He returned to Windy Hill at the start of this year to take up a role as development coach.

And here he was, at 42, having known little other than a life in football, facing the very real possibility that it might end. That reality seemed to dawn on the father of two during the media briefing.

Wallis was close to tears by the time he took to the microphone following chairman David Evans' opening remarks. He had come to understand these lapses in judgment would place an asterisk next to his name whenever his coaching credentials were discussed.

Essendon coach James Hird, in club suit and tie, sat among the journalists with head in palm for most of the conference. He had been one of the main reasons Wallis had returned to Essendon after a three-year stint under Mark Harvey, another former premiership teammate, at Fremantle.

Wallis, too, had been crucial in the development of several of Essendon's younger players, and has specifically spent time working on goalkicking accuracy.

But Hird, as with Wallis, Robson, Evans, and more than 30 reporters in the room, knew this was a bigger issue. As they departed the conference into the AFL's hallway, Hird put his arm over Wallis' shoulders. Earlier, Robson had spoken of Wallis being a member of Essendon's family.

Both were shows of support for a man - an Essendon man - who had made mistakes and was now coming to terms with them in public, and in front of a public that had largely made its assessment of Wallis before he had even apologised. 

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the AFL or its clubs