I’d be amazed if a considerable number weren’t keV.sure how can u say it’s not an issue when sa players tested positive only matter of months ago!too many guys particularly in media have their heads on the sand on this issue.of course there was no doping problem in cycling either til the festina affair!if you don’t try and catch the cheats all will be grand mentality.
They got caught Larry, and got suspended, thats the point.Comparing rugby and cycling is just madness and i think a little over paranoid/mistrusting. Of course there will be guys try it, but i erally don’t see it as a major problem at pro level from evidence.
But that’s the evidence that there is a doping problem surely?
There’s limited testing in rugby compared to cycling - in fact they’re not really comparable in terms of levels of testing - so when positives are found they should be more alarming.
There’s a load of Sri Lankan rugby players suspended for doping at the moment. There’s the South African “contamination” thing from last year. There’s a few suspended in South African schools for it. If it’s going on in schools it’s ridiculous to think it isn’t happening at higher levels.
Then you have the more high profile cases like Matt Stevens and that French winger who is dropped from their World Cup squad for doping. That’s a squad member on one of the top four or five nations of the world who hid from drug testing in the last month or so. That indicates a problem at an elite level.
We have our own issues with Frankie Sheehan and with the “unnamed player” who was banned before then.
Wasn’t Steven’s ban for a recreational drug as opposed to doping
So what is the evidence then?testing in cycling is absolute light years ahead of rugby.even athletics is ahead of it!with the pathetic testing done there has been a high percentage of positives.the irb dealt with those sa cases pathetically so I don’t see why you use that as justification that they are dealing with it.quite the opposite in fact
Thats just ridiculous, the French guy and Stevens were ercreational drugs, and Frankie Sheehan was cleared.
It may not be as advanced as cycling, but thats cos cycling was an absolute disgrace and was clearly riddled with it and people had died.
The fact it has been caught could just as easily point to the fact that there is very little of it and any of it there is gets caught. And on top of that, the fact that there is drugs in school rugby doesn’t have to have any relevance to Senior Pro rugby, as there is no testing in schools that i’m aware of, while there is in Pro.
Lads - I think ye are losing the run of yourselves. There is no evidence of PEDs in schools rugby. The notion of it is so far wrong that I don’t know where to start. I can well believe there is doping at the pro level. The lads are gettting paid and are looking for any edge. When money is involved its fair to say that drugs aren’t far behind. I could be wrong on this but thought that the ISC look after drug testing as opposed to the IRFU. My sense is that they run a decent show and have zero interest in hiding any drug taking.
I personally know of a couple of cases that cropped up in Cork WBY. While this might be unfair to assume, one would that if it happened there it happens everywhere at that level.
They have a serious issue with it in SA.
Spence played for Ulster at weekend again. I can’t help but think the difference he could make if we were in the squad. Exactly what we are missing imo.
IRELAND’S WORLD CUP squad has been hit by further injury problems with confirmation that centre Gordon D’Arcy will not leave Ireland with the rest of the travelling party after picking up a calf strain during a recovery session on Tuesday morning.
The Leinster star will delay his journey to New Zealand by 48 hours in order to “minimise the possibility of any swelling on the flight”, according to an IRFU statement. The strain has been scanned and it was decided to allow D’Arcy recover in Ireland before joining up with the rest of his team-mates in Queenstown at a later date.
Declan Kidney, his staff and 28 players will leave for their World Cup camp on Tuesday evening as planned with both D’Arcy and Cian Healy staying behind for treatment.
Injury has already forced the withdrawal of Munster’s David Wallace, who is looking to a spell of at least six months on the sidelines, from the 30-man panel and D’Arcy was, at one stage, a doubt for the tournament itself after requiring surgery on an ankle injury sustained in the Heineken Cup final in May.
Wallace will hardly come back from that injury.
d’Arcy has basically become ROG without the excuse of being skinny and giving away bucket loads of weight in any match up - he’s just nowhere near the player he once was and has never been the player he could have been. The way the English cream themselves over Jason Robinson you’d swear he was one of a kind but d’Arcy at his best, in an open role not this bosh merchant bollocks, was every bit as good as Robinson and could have been one of, if not the best broken play runner of his generation in world rugby - but hey we knew better and turned him into another donkey, aren’t we just grand the way we do that!!!
very good.
now where have i heard that before?
oh yeah…
http://www.munsterfa…ll=1#post950607
all your own work CM?
Agreed, D’Arcy has become one the greatest wasted talents in Irish Rugby history. Shoe horning him into 12 from an early age didn’t help, but he’s lived a charmed existence to be considered first choice for the national team for so long.
Oh no, i’m busted…
as long as you don’t cog Dowlinz you’ll be grand.
Jerry Kiernan on Off The Ball there and he was very interesting. He was particularly critical of lack of media exposure given to drugs problems in rugby and he reckons there may be a bigger issue of drugs in rugby compared to athletics. While I think he may have gone a bit overboard I certainly agree with the sentiment.
I completely agree with him.
The fact Frankie was cleared is sufficient evidence to suggest they have a less than wholehearted attitude to tackling doping.
The French guy was nothing to do with recreational drugs. He missed a test, Rio-style.