@thedeadballarea @JT_Sports123 @RugbyInsideLine @timoconnorbl Few points in response - to the initial question, “Do PED investigations go deeper than just test & catch?”. Not really because nobody is looking. Paul Kimmage has done some - he got testimonies from players including Pienaar & Benezech about pain killer use, but few others have
@thedeadballarea @JT_Sports123 @RugbyInsideLine @timoconnorbl …thrown themselves into the kind of investigative work that would reveal more. Lack of incentive/will, I think. Second, I don’t think it’s individuals in isolation, but it also doesn’t need to be this “centrally controlled, top-down, masterminded system” like we’ve been shown by
@thedeadballarea @JT_Sports123 @RugbyInsideLine @timoconnorbl …cases like Russia, USPS etc. Even in cycling, Syed for instance often argues that it can’t be systematic, thus it can’t be happening, which is stupid. It can still be “centrally provided”, or facilitated, and diffuse and up to the individual. So for instance, in a school team,
@thedeadballarea @JT_Sports123 @RugbyInsideLine @timoconnorbl in SA (since we know of the issues here - they are likely the same everywhere, but we test ours and reveal it), there would be an expectation of size, no specific mandate or instruction of HOW to achieve it, but players will find a way. There would be a central point of contact,
@thedeadballarea @JT_Sports123 @RugbyInsideLine @timoconnorbl …maybe one, maybe more, guys who have access to drugs, who provide them and guide the use. It needn’t even be a doctor, just an “expert”, and the gym culture has created plenty of those (I dare say many know more than most doctors would about how and what and when)
@thedeadballarea @JT_Sports123 @RugbyInsideLine @timoconnorbl I don’t think that most clubs have yet got to the point of saying ‘Right, this is how you must do it”, but there might be some like it. Instead, I suspect there are pockets of players, maybe S&C coaches, who go about it in a ‘formalised way’. So maybe a hybrid of two models.
@thedeadballarea @JT_Sports123 @RugbyInsideLine @timoconnorbl And that’s why I reckon many coaches, S&C & docs are genuinely blindsided by positives. They’re not naive, they just don’t have control. But then there will be others who are active role-players in the process, especially when we get to the medicalisation stuff (painkillers etc
