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'It's never nice having doubts': The safe place to call out doping

By Kim Ekin
(Photo via Premiership Rugby)

Christian Day wants rugby dressing rooms to be safe places for those who need to call out doping. The former Northampton Saints and Sale Sharks star, who won two Premiership titles in a decorated career, did not have concerns about rivals or teammates doping during his time at the top of the sport.

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But the 38-year-old believes cultures and structures need to be in place for teammates to blow the whistle should they need to. “From a team sport point of view, you would hope you would never have to report a teammate. You would hope that that doesn’t happen, but I guess that is the reality of it,” said Day.

“There is a real band of brothers type of mentality in rugby. You go through thick and thin together and I guess outing a teammate would be very difficult to do, but that’s comparable with any sport.

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“It’s never nice having doubts about another athlete. It’s never nice doubting a performance, doubting a time, doubting a lift, but ultimately when you speak about empowering the athletes, you’re protecting your own sport at the end of the day.

“Scandals affect sport in many ways but it affects the very ethos of the sport. Less people will be interested, less people will have their kids taking part in that sport, less eyeballs are on it, less money comes on it and the sport starts to die. It’s so crucial that we believe what we’re watching. You have got to get people wanting to have their sport clean. That’s the ultimate goal.”

Day is a senior member of the Rugby Players Association and UK Anti-Doping’s (UKAD’s) Athlete Commission, set up to ensure that the voices of athletes are heard in regards to doping in sport. One project run by UKAD is Protect Your Sport, a service that allows anyone to anonymously report concerns of athletes doping or people potentially supplying athletes with drugs. UKAD’s whistleblowing policy confirms that all informants will be kept anonymous throughout the process. 

Just as British athletes in countless sports prepare to meet challenges on the field of play, Day believes they need to be equipped to do their bit to ensure a level playing field too. With the Covid-19 pandemic posing challenges to the testing structure and competition returning to normal, the fight against doping is an ongoing one.

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Day said: “We are very lucky in this country that we have an anti-doping organisation like UKAD battling doping in sport. They are going to have their work cut out. They do thousands of tests a year, a huge amount of work goes on behind the scenes not just in terms of testing but in terms of intel, in terms of education and we are fortunate to be in the position we are with a well-funded, well-resourced organisation compared to many other National Anti-Doping Organisations.

“Professional sport will always push the boundaries, it will always seek to innovate and seek to advance. That goes for the people that think doping is a part of that story. There will be ever-increasing levels of complexity and new substances found, new ways of gaining an unfair advantage.

“That is the challenge that will always be there for anti-doping organisations. They are competing against elite-level athletes, elite-level scientists, elite-level chemists who will push the boundaries every step of the way to try and get people an unfair advantage.

“That challenge will never, ever go away. It’s something that we need to accept and it’s something we need to keep developing the defence against and keep coming back to it to make sure the playing field stays level.”

  • Protecting clean sport depends on everyone in sport playing their part to maintain a level playing field. If you have any suspicions that something’s not right, no matter how small, search Protect Your Sport or email pys@reportingdoping.com. Your identity will be kept 100 per cent confidential throughout.
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Jon 5 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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j
john 8 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

But here in Australia we were told Penney was another gun kiwi coach, for the Tahs…….and yet again it turned out the kiwi coach was completely useless. Another con job on Australian rugby. As was Robbie Deans, as was Dave Rennie. Both coaches dumped from NZ and promoted to Australia as our saviour. And the Tahs lap them up knowing they are second rate and knowing that under pressure when their short comings are exposed in Australia as well, that they will fall in below the largest most powerful province and choose second rate Tah players to save their jobs. As they do and exactly as Joe Schmidt will do. Gauranteed. Schmidt was dumped by NZ too. That’s why he went overseas. That why kiwi coaches take jobs in Australia, to try and prove they are not as bad as NZ thought they were. Then when they get found out they try and ingratiate themselves to NZ again by dragging Australian teams down with ridiculous selections and game plans. NZ rugby’s biggest problem is that it can’t yet transition from MCaw Cheatism. They just don’t know how to try and win on your merits. It is still always a contest to see how much cheating you can get away with. Without a cheating genius like McCaw, they are struggling. This I think is why my wise old mate in NZ thinks Robertson will struggle. The Crusaders are the nursery of McCaw Cheatism. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably the father of it. Robertson doesn’t know anything else but other countries have worked it out.

33 Go to comments
A
Adrian 10 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

Thanks Nick The loss of players to OS, injury and retirement is certainly not helping the Crusaders. Ditto the coach. IMO Penny is there to hold the fort and cop the flak until new players and a new coach come through,…and that's understood and accepted by Penny and the Crusaders hierarchy. I think though that what is happening with the Crusaders is an indicator of what is happening with the other NZ SRP teams…..and the other SRP teams for that matter. Not enough money. The money has come via the SR competition and it’s not there anymore. It's in France, Japan and England. Unless or until something is done to make SR more SELLABLE to the NZ/Australia Rugby market AND the world rugby market the $s to keep both the very best players and the next rung down won't be there. They will play away from NZ more and more. I think though that NZ will continue to produce the players and the coaches of sufficient strength for NZ to have the capacity to stay at the top. Whether they do stay at the top as an international team will depend upon whether the money flowing to SRP is somehow restored, or NZ teams play in the Japan comp, or NZ opts to pick from anywhere. As a follower of many sports I’d have to say that the organisation and promotion of Super Rugby has been for the last 20 years closest to the worst I’ve ever seen. This hasn't necessarily been caused by NZ, but it’s happened. Perhaps it can be fixed, perhaps not. The Crusaders are I think a symptom of this, not the cause

33 Go to comments
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