Under mounting pressure for its choices in a doping investigation that has tainted two AFL seasons and could yet bleed into another, Essendon's board will determine whether the club's costly, and increasingly damaging, challenge of Australia's sports anti-doping agency will continue.

The nine directors who sit on the board, led by chairman Paul Little, met the night before an emphatic verdict against the club was announced by Justice John Middleton. But while Thursday's sitting was a scheduled meeting, the board will congregate again within days to settle on the response to a finding that has both shocked and rocked the club.

Headlining the myriad consequences of Justice Middleton's finding is the fact that the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority is free to proceed with action against 34 current and past Essendon players it believes took banned drug thymosin beta-4. Those proceedings, concerning the supplements program Essendon ran in 2012-13, were halted while the Federal Court case played out.

Essendon has already dropped an untold fortune on an array of matters – not to mention legal fees - related to the drug probe ASADA launched in February 2013.

On Friday afternoon, club officials, including Little and the Bombers' only recently reinstated senior coach James Hird, were stunned by the emphatic way in which Justice Middleton dismissed their case.

After a debrief with lawyers who have acted for Hird and the club, and others who continue representing the 34 current and former Essendon players that ASADA has accused of banned drug use, Little neither committed to, nor ruled out, an appeal.

Leaving court, the Essendon chairman told Fairfax Media: "We'll make a call on that next week. It will be a board and a club decision."

Earlier, Little read from a statement: "Essendon is understandably very disappointed at today's Federal Court decision.

"Obviously it's one that we now need to go away, deliberate, work through the findings and then determine whether or not we will want to go to an appeal.

"In taking our proceedings, our priority has always been to protect and vindicate the legal rights of our players, and the interest of our players. That has always been our motivation.

"The club maintains its confidence that on all the evidence we have at our disposal, neither harmful nor banned substances were given to our players during the 2012 season."

Hird, who has spent an estimated $500,000 on his Federal Court challenge of ASADA,  said: "I'm very disappointed for the players.

"We'll consider our options of appeal and we'll look at that very closely."

Both Essendon, Hird, and their legal teams, were confident they would win in court. An indication of the confidence of success in the Hird camp was demonstrated by the fact that the coach's advisers were exploring legal avenues to sue the AFL and ASADA for conspiracy by unlawful means.

In the case of an adverse finding in the initial Federal Court case – the outcome that materialised – the strong sense from Hird's advisors, before Justice Middleton announced his verdict, was that the coach and club icon would almost certainly appeal.

Before Friday's sitting, Fairfax Media was told that the coach and club were aligned on this front.

Fairfax Media reported in July how Essendon's board, virtually unchanged through a doping probe that has seen an overhaul of the club's football department, could yet be scrutinised for a program the AFL's own medical boss has said involved "probable" use of banned drugs.

In a stunningly candid address in Zurich last November, AFL medico Dr Peter Harcourt flagged the "need" to look at the top of the tree at Essendon.

Stephen Dank, the biochemist who designed and oversaw the supplements program for Essendon, attended court on Friday. While supremely confident that Hird and Essendon would be successful, Dank declined to comment after the verdict was announced.