Sargent sacked by Cowboys

[injuryupdate]

See front page article:

http://www.injuryupdate.com.au/article.php?HomepageID=229

Please vote in attached poll and/or have your say below.

[jellybean]

Just a comment:

WADA, and subsequently ASADA, are extremely strong advocates of Out of Competition Testing (particularly No Notice or Unannounced Out of Competition Testing - the most effective form of testing). The rather sensationalised reporting of this form of testing amongst rugby league players yesterday and today highlights this.

[bombermad09]

Did a speech for English regarding the issue.

I was posing as an AFL footballer whom has been suspended

This is basically what my opinions are on the whole issue


I am here to call this press conference because of my one-year suspension from playing competitive Aussie Rules footy. This is due to a drug test, in which I tested positive to cannabis in and I would like to tell you what a disgraceful ruling this is by WADA the World Anti-Doping Agency and what a disgrace it is by the Government for threatening to reduce funding to the AFL, majority of which is for the purpose of the developing the game at grassroots level if the AFL didn’t comply to the WADA code.

It was a Friday night, after I had finished all my university exams, and I had a puff of a joint with my mates to celebrate. This has cost me 1 year of my footballing career, more devastating that fact that I am 18 years old, and this is my debut season in football.

This whole ordeal has put shame upon myself, shame upon my family and shame upon my club. This public scrutiny is unreasonable and an invasion of my privacy. We are being stereotyped as villain, scoundrels, nasty pieces of work, and worst of all, junkies, addicts and druggies. Is it even moral for the AFL to enforce illicit drug testing? Because as far as know, the only employers who are permitted to drug test their employees are in jobs where the use of illicit drugs may endanger lives. Therefore, I would think that all of you would consider your respective bosses enforcing a drug test unreasonable.

Name and shame is also completely unreasonable. It is also baffling how the WADA want us to be role models, yet they sensationalise one minuscule offense, which exposes children to drugs, as opposed to keeping it all confidential.

If in fact, “WADA seeks to foster a doping-free culture in sport.” as it says in its mission statement on their website, why is there no out of competition testing? Especially for the issue of marijuana. Marijuana has been proven to have no performance-enhancing effects on the person, in fact, Marijuana is more likely to deteriorate your performances on field as opposed to having no, or performance-enhancing effect on you, therefore the only purpose of the testing would be in order to “foster a doping-free culture in sport”. This leaves us able to use cannabis during the week as much as we like, in theory, and that’s a real “doping-free culture”. The fact that the AFL tests for 44 weeks of the year and provides counseling for those who are caught, it would help to deal with those who have a problem, therefore creating a REAL “doping-free culture”.

WADA also has its priorities wrong when it comes to some of the minor drugs. Caffeine is not illegal, yet possesses performance enhancing qualities in short bursts.
Also pseudoephedrine which is used in nasal treatments, can also give u short term performance enhancing effects is not on the banned list, where as cortisone is used only for the treatment of injuries IS on the banned list. They must be the ones doping if they actually think that is a consistent and reasonable code. This is unjust

And then we have the government who has a knife to the throat of the AFL. The same Government which has refused to step in to try to stop blatant injustices, yet they feel as thought they MUST bash its way into their observance of the WADA code. It would seem as though football has been touched by the Governments ignorant, self-righteous and conservative views about drugs. The WADA have their whole corporation going the wrong way. The inhuman way. The way that destroys and ruins careers. The WADA is, after all, a device of the Olympic movement, a notoriously politicised and flawed body. WADA chairman **** Pound is a former IOC vice-chairman. The WADA's universal code sits poorly even with its Australian parties. Cricket Australia is unhappy that it outlaws therapeutic drugs that it says have no performance-enhancing application and were previously acceptable. So is rugby league. Even the Australian Olympic Commission, so publicly on the WADA's side, is arguing with the WADA for a review of the code. If so many people are against it, and it is going to devastate careers, can’t they see that there is something wrong with it? Why do they have to be so egotistical and sub-consciously refuse to recognize their error?

The Government needs to realize that they are wrong, and that they need to back down from this injustice straight away. We cannot keep having **** Pound and his WADA chums bullying and dictating the world of sport. It is not carved in stone, there is still a chance to make things right.

My club has supported me and my views throughout this whole nightmare, and hope that with YOUR support, we can help stop this vindictive injustice.


Thank You for your time.

[Nicholas]

I think that the Cowboys were right to sack him but I still think that the Cowboys will be just the same team with the same performance without him.

[jellybean]

Patrick Smith made some pertinent points in a piece in The Australian last week ("Wee inconvenience to clean up tainted image" August 25, 2006). (Looks at some of the broader issues of doping in sport but a number of the points made are relevant to this poll).

With some of the raving removed .....

It appears that sport will never be free of people willing to cheat by using chemicals to achieve times, distances or heights that they could not do naturally.

As much as anti-doping organisations like WADA and ASADA have turned to investigations and surveillance as well as more sophisticated testing to find drug cheats, their earnest endeavours will never stop sport contests from becoming chemical warfare.

The rage against drugs must come from within sport itself. It must be generated by athletes and coaches. ASADA is trying to halt a culture that athletes grow in test tubes.

But here is his (ASADA chief Richard Ings) problem. His passion for clean sport is not supported by enough athletes and coaches. Or at the very least not with the same enthusiasm.

Clean sport, it appears, is an inconvenience. The chief executive of the Rugby League Professionals Association, Matt Rodwell, has shrieked his opposition to players being aggravated by early morning drug tests. It followed ASADA testers arriving at the home of Panthers player Frank Pritchard at 6am.

Rodwell should be well informed enough to know that athletes are now using drugs that stay in the system only a matter of hours. Human growth hormone is one of those drugs. The time it spends in the body is minimal, its effect long lasting. If he read The Australian on August 1, he would have also learnt that ASADA had new powers of investigation and athletes should be prepared to share breakfast with men carrying specimen beakers.

Rodwell should think about this. If he wants his players tested only on game day and at training, then even athletes with just a handful of brain cells would use HGH at times when the testers were not going to lob.

Rugby league players and any other sportsmen and women should be prepared and willing to undergo drug tests at any place and any hour if it is to help clean up sport. Or if the sport is pure then reinforce that fact.

The AFL did not want to be part of the WADA drug code because it had tough sanctions on players testing positive to illicit drugs in competition. So here was a sport prepared to stand aside from the most effective anti-drug body in the world so its players could do cocaine, ecstasy and marijuana without severe penalty.

In fact, the AFL has a roomful of players who have tested positive to illicit drugs out of competition. Three have failed tests twice. Their names have been suppressed by court action. Last week we reported that the AFL continues to have players breaking the illicit drug code.

The policy by NRL clubs is far more aggressive and refreshing. Mitchell Sargent returned a positive in-house test to cocaine last Sunday and was sacked yesterday. Sport must break the connection with drugs of any sort. The North Queensland club acted quickly and correctly.

It is the players, coaches and administrators who must embrace the fight against sport in drugs. It is not enough that they bang on about it like Gatlin. They must be prepared to be bothered. ASADA must be supported. If athletes whine and sook over awkward drug tests then it could suggest they are not prepared to fight drugs as aggressively as they should.

Full article at:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20242992-12270,00.html

[Nicholas]

The NRL today agreed to register a contract between the Newcastle Knights and Mitchell Sargent, the former Cowboys prop who was sacked for taking cocaine, but warned the club would be responsible for his behaviour.

The Knights today announced the signing of Sargent on a three-year NRL contract.

Sargent was sacked last month for testing positive to cocaine in a Cowboys in-house drug test.

The Knights initiated the move to sign the 27-year-old Country Origin prop and say there are strict criteria in his contract governing ongoing counselling and stringent drug testing.

Sargent said he was happy to be given a second chance in the NRL.

A statement from the NRL said it was assured by the Knights that Sargent would be the subject of a targeted club testing programme.

The NRL's statement said that clubs had to take responsibility for players they signed who have left another team as a result of disciplinary reasons.

"If a club signs a player who has been dismissed from another organisation over a behavioural issue then that club must accept that they are assuming some responsibility to the game for the future behaviour of that player," NRL chief executive David Gallop said.

"The NRL has always had the power to expect clubs to take appropriate action where it is warranted against players and to also take action against clubs where appropriate.

"In approving the registration of Mitchell’s contract we’ve been advised by Newcastle of what they intend to do to help Mitchell turn things around.

"We genuinely wish Mitchell well in that aim but it’s also important to remember that were he to bring the game into disrepute again that the Knights may well bear some of that responsibility."