General Rugby Discussion 3

Pretty gutted. Still, Rennie yet to name his assistants.

Rennie will probably make the ABs great again, historic misstep by the Oz union to get rid of him.

Looks like it will be an easy enough win for the wolfhounds setting up two home semis for the Irish teams.

Yeah, mostly a formality but didn't expect the half time score difference. Fair play to the clovers for fighting back into the game. Maybe a bad choice of words given the scuffle!

It's happened me plenty of times where I have been in pubs and mentioned I am a cycling fan to rugby fans and all you get is "sure their all on drugs" but turn a blind eye or make excuses for their own sport.

The more stories out there about rugby dopers the better or do we want another cycling style omerta.

Couldn't be arsed reading it but superficially it seems to be at the extreme end of tabloid sensationalism if all he can point to is this particular story of an immigrant amateur player with a 4 year old offence for which he served his ban.

genuine question though, are AIL/Pro players in Ireland regularly tested? What about school boys? Anyone know whether the rugby culture in Ireland is even mildly tolerant of this stuff? I know from nephews and friends kids who are athletes that the likes of creatine are less controversial these days.

The length of the season probably limits how much juicing could take place wouldn't it? In the NH it's September till June/July and in the SH it's February to November for the top players. Dosnt leave a big window outside of competition for PEDs.

Saying that, I've no idea how long any drug would need to be used to be effective and how long they stay in your system after you stop.

His use of the low level Aussie player was a bit unfair, but the overall thrust of the article was completely reasonable. The stats speak for themselves:

"Only two anti-doping tests were carried out in the AIL last season, according to the IRFU’s annual reports. The same documents show that just 34 tests have been conducted across the same competition in the last decade, which involves an estimated player base of 3,000 registered individuals each year.
Meanwhile, Sport Ireland hasn’t sanctioned a rugby player at any level since 2013, with only four cases in the last 20 years."

Theres far too little testing in the sport.

Anecdotally I've known first hand plenty of guys playing 1sts and AIL who have done steroid cycles, so the idea that nobody in the AIL is doing it seems extremely naive. Especially when there are so many reports of steroid use in rugby in other jurisdictions. Its far more likely that the Irish testing system is just poor, given the above stats, than Irish players are uniquely averse to doping.

The done thing is to do a steroid cycle in the early offseason to put on a lot of lean mass, and when you can fairly easily avoid testing. You can put on 5KG+ of lean body mass in the off season, come off cycle well before the season, and then just carry it into the season and its almost completely untestable. This is more common for younger players who need the mass obviously.

During the season, and for older players, HGH is what guys take, because it shortens recovery time significantly and has a massive impact on injury healing. And leads to small lean body mass gains, and a small amount of fat loss. And its got a very short half life to test for - 24hrs to 36hrs only.

Having players doping at AIL level has a number of problems - it raises injury risk for non doping players, it makes it an unfair playing field, and it risks doping becoming endemic in the sport overall.

When doping is prevalent at AIL level it will bleed into both lower levels and pro level - the AIL doesn't t exist in isolation, players move up and down.

6-12 weeks. The lower end of that is obviously a lot more convenient for fitting into an off season and leaving a good gap before the season kicks off.

34 tests in the AIL over a decade means there is actually no testing in the Irish game. For any talk about the sport being clean if the governing body refuses to test for doping it is an effective encouragement to dope. I don't know how anyone can come to any other conclusion from those stats. Medicine has become a massive part of the sport with concussion, doctors on call, HIA assessments being part of coaching training, etc. That indicates an appetite to remove/reduce head injuries from the game. If there was no testing for head injuries over a decade you would say that they aren't serious about getting it out of the game. There is NO reason for there to be so few tests.

From an IRFU pov medicine has become a key part of their operation, and the pre-ocuppation about injuries and safety has increased in importance at every level of the sport. In my experience where I am in the US coaches do HIA courses and 'trainers' with emt training are at every match. Irish coaches at every age level are trained in concussion assessment and protocols, etc. Irish amateur matches have trained medical personnel present. That has become like ensuring that a ref is available. They have the capacity to test and they're not doing it at the highest amateur level in the country, crazy.