Clamping Down

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South African rugby team posing and sending the wrong message. Would love to know who hasn't used steroids amongst this lot.

South African Rugby is a hot bed for doping and steroid abuse and it is something that should be highlighted more than it is. The abuse starts at a young age with juniors trying to get contracts at various schools and a shot at higher levels as a professional. The money involved with lucrative contracts has turned a sport that was enjoyed by many into something entirely different. South Africa is not alone and it is rife around the world at junior levels.

School coaches have to have their teams perform as it is a competitive league and their jobs rely on a winning culture. Gone are the days of playing for enjoyment as it is now super serious with specialised gym sessions along with other "programs". Coaches have been known to tell their players that they need to find an extra 10kg's before the season starts.

The competition is so bad that certain schools have severed ties with each other due to poaching players. This is ridicolous and not what the sport at this level should be about. We used to have our rivals but never cut ties with schools.

As a youngster that is impossible no matter how much you eat as you just burn it up the more you work out. I know as I tried to bulk up when I was playing and would eat the house bare. When we went out I would eat 3 main courses and it had no impact. If you are doing serious training bulking up doesn't just happen and takes time at that age. Your body is still developing and even though I was 21 when I was doing this my body was still filling out and bulking up never happened. At the time I was 110 kg's and needed to be over 120kg's and just couldn't achieve it.

A survey amongst schoolboy players in one of the Provinces showed that 10% of all players had tried steroids and if they were honest with themselves I would place that 3 or 4 x higher. The pinnacle of schoolboy rugby is the Craven Week event each year and a hunting ground for dope testing. A majority of the yearly bans comes from this one event. In 2018 6 players were caught and the numbers are on the increase and double from the years before. It is scary that these are 16 year old kids failing drugs tests.

I bought this subject up today as a few days ago another top player received a 4 year ban for not having one banned substance in his sample but three. He is 26 now so that is a career ender as no one will touch him after this. These guys are idols to the school boy players and are not great role models as what message are they sending.

What the youngsters don't realise is that the muscles they are artificially developing are not as strong as they should be and why we see many players have muscle and bicep tears. It is easy to pull a muscle, but to tear one is virtually impossible under normal circumstances.