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Why some players are banned for 2 months and others for 2 years for cocaine explained

Logan to depart Ravenhill over the coming weeks

In the last 24 hours two rugby players, on two separate continents, playing at two very different levels, were given two wildly differing bans for the presence in their bodies’ of the same substance – cocaine.

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One was Wallaby and Reds captain James Slipper, who the ARU have sidelined for two months, despite testing positive for a second time for a cocaine metabolite.

Continue reading below…

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Slipper has claimed that his cocaine use was part of a wider struggle with depression.

Meanwhile in the UK – a player for Cheltenham Tigers was banned for two years after he was failed a doping control test in late 2017. Pattrick Hillier told the doping panel that he believed his drink was ‘spiked’ with cocaine at a friends wedding two days before his game in the Level 7 match in the lower rungs of English rugby. It was accepted that the cocaine was use was in ‘out of competition’ context.

Similarly, in 2009, Matt Stevens was banned for two years for cocaine use.

On the face of it, the 10 fold difference in the ban doesn’t appear particularly fair.

The reason for the disparity in bans is the testing regimes and the sanctioning mechanism involved.

The ARU used their own in house Illicit Drugs Policy programme, which they run their own testing under and which pertains to recreational drug use and crucially non-performance enhancing substances. According to the programme, a first violation will see the player forced to attend drug treatment programme, get placed on a targeted test list and be find 5 percent of their annual income (among other measures).

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Crucially, no ban is incurred.

A second violation incurs more measures, another 5 percent fine and a ban of 2 months. In the case of Slipper he was fined $27,500, which suggests that his salary is $550,000 per annum.

However in the case in England, the player was subject to the full rigours of the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) code in an in-competition doping control test as carried out by the RFU.

Despite the panel concluding there was no evidence that the substance had been taken to enhance performance and that the player established to their satisfaction that the prohibited substance was used out of competition in a context unrelated to sports performance, he was still banned for two years.

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J
JW 32 minutes ago
Why England's defence of the realm has crumbled without Felix Jones

This piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.


I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.


Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.


The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.

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LONG READ
LONG READ 'Steve Borthwick hung his troops out to dry - he should take some blame' 'Steve Borthwick hung his troops out to dry - he should take some blame'
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