“If you found out a fella in your position was cheating, he’d be strung up” – Ronan O’Gara
A lively debate about performance enhancing drugs in sport kicked off on SportsJOE Live and neither GAA, rugby or football was backing down.
Host Colm Parkinson discussed doping in modern sport with guests Ronan O’Gara, Andy Reid and SportsJOE chief writer Dion Fanning.
What truly hit home was the amount of times professional rugby players are tested in relation to footballers and, in the amateur world, GAA players.
“I can only say,”O’Gara began, “from my 13 years of experience, that it was very thorough. There was in-season testing and off-season testing; every year there were progressions in it.
“It came to a stage that, on holiday, you had to fill out where you’d be from this week to the following week and the following week. Every morning there would be an hour that you’d be available if the drug testers were to come to your house. All year round, they can arrive at your house any time they want – if you’ve given a specified hour – and the same on holidays.”
O’Gara says the most he was ever tested over the course of one season was 20 times.
“You can be lucky or unlucky, depending on how you look at it, with the amount you get tested. After a game, for example there are four names read out. It could be you, week after week.”
O’Gara noted that different testers could arrive at Ireland training camp on day and Munster the next.
Interestingly, former Ireland and Tottenham midfielder Andy Reid revealed the most he had been drug tested during his playing career, which ran parallel to O’Gara’s, was twice. That is compared to the possibility of never bring drug-tested in his early playing days [1999 to 2004].
Parkinson, who played over a decade of inter-county football for Laois, was never tested. He said:
“They were in for a good few years when I was [playing]. The testers landed at training several times but only two names came out of the hat. It’s still a lottery in terms of who does get called out.”
O’Gara has a strong view of any sportspeople using drugs to gain an advantage.
“If there is someone cheating and taking drugs,” he said, “they should be banned for life. But how do you catch them?
“Is it a big evil in rugby? I’d say 90 per cent of the players I’ve come across, 95 per cent, I wouldn’t have any doubts about. Is there a few [you would doubt]? Yes.
“Talking to a few South Africans over there, there’s an issue with young players over there taking a lot of testosterone products to become bigger. There was an issue in Wales with human growth hormones. That was a cultural thing. And in Rugby League, there has been a history of drug-taking.”
O’Gara insists ‘our generation’ – at Munster and Ireland – never thought about taking drugs. He declared, “People may disagree with that but if there was a cheat in our dressing room, we’d want them out.”
“Anyone playing professional rugby with Munster, Leinster, Connacht or Ulster,” he continued, “the shame he would bring to his family or, even at national level, the whole parish would be appalled.”
Fanning cautioned that it would be somewhat reckless to assume none of our Irish sports stars are totally clean. He used the example of British sports fans lionising cycling heroes who have since come under severe scrutiny. “There is a danger,” he noted, “in saying we’re a special case.”
O’Gara agreed but stated that the bigger danger lay in associating rugby players with doping when there has been scant proof of any such goings on in Ireland’s professional game since the turn of the century.
“There’s absolutely no smoke there yet people are trying to create that there’s an issue… At the minute you should respect the players and the system that is there and give them credit for being really well policed.
“And if there’s an issue, then talk about it, but don’t be creating something and, I think, generating careers to be talking about performance enhancing drugs when there is no story.”
O’Gara is now four years retired and is now coaching in France at Racing 92. He believes there will be huge advances in terms of testing starting from 2017/18.
“In our club system, starting next season, it will basically be part of your morning monitoring. I think every single player is going to be drug tested from September on, which is a great thing for the sport.
“Obviously it has gotten to the stage where they are looking at recreational drugs, as well as performance enhancing drugs. Both of them are a massive deterrent to performance.”
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