If they start folding Australian clubs up, then the game is dead. The Aussie game supplies our only real competition (Without them, the NZ game will die, and probably take the Island nations with them) and without any international competition at all, we'll lose sponsors and interest.

you'd have thought the Aussies would have done better at the Olympics wouldn't you?

For sure at this years world cup the drug testing will be intense. I don't quite know how certain countries and players will react to it. It might be interesting to see which players drop out of this years world cup because of injury, or certain surgery

I don't think we're likely to see clubs 'closed down' or any of the knee-jerk measures currently being bandied around ('ban all sports betting now!' - as if a shedload isn't done offshore even by Aussies anyway). Some clubs may get hammered and have a number of players banned though.

ASADA has asked players to come forward now and face 6 months as opposed to a potential 4 years if they are done involuntarily. I think it will take a bit more pressure for many players to come forward though, as the price for leniency will be to spill the beans on everything they know - which is likely to involve giving evidence against teammates.

However, if drug use is shown to be absolutely widespread in terms of numbers of players and across both AFL and NRL, I wouldn't be surprised to see a further amnesty being granted for players at least, as if AFL and NRL were genuinely smashed to pieces (i.e. 100s of first-graders facing bans) then something would be done to protect the sports. Knocking over the AFL and NRL combined would be the equivalent of wiping out the Premier League.

It should be noted that the 'non-international' element primarily relates to potential match-fixing. As we've already seen, cricket has its issues, and soccer may have been caught up in it, not because its a major sport here, but gamblers across the world can understand it and place bets (I also wouldn't underestimate the fact that footballers here in the main also aren't paid as well as AFL/NRL players which potentially could make them easier to target).

As for naming names, its not just criminal issues, there's also the fact that any player who faces a doping investigation could also argue for prejudicial hearings if their name is plastered all over the papers and the evidence against them is based on evidence from other people.

rlTheserl rlarerl from a NZ Warriors forum that I read

How do you fix an AFL game? They get points for missing as it is.

doesn't say anything really does it lol.

It's actually a different article to the one I originally linked too which said they had found a stash of urine in the changing room.

Seems that one links to some story about jam.

EDIT - The urine story is at the bottom.

This story was on the news at 10 and the 7pm c4 news but rugby league still didn't get a mention. What does the sport have to do to get some national coverage?!?!

For all that I'm babbling on about this though, personally I do love it. Sport is narrative to me, and it's as much about the stories as it is about what goes on on the pitch.

Just for once, I'd expect people to be happy at this situation.

Drugs in sport in my opinion is bad and needs to be eradicated.
Saying that, I'd rather have a scandal about catching people than have a clean record because we don't test.

The sport won't die on this. For a start it sounds like all codes are affected so its not like Union is going to benefit because no one likes League any more.

The cycling issues are a special case because of Armstrong's celebrity status. But even then, Sky as mentioned above are putting a lot of money in, but equally they demand a clean team. They caused part of the stink by making their team test constantly and find some out.
And HTC are making losses at the moment so may not like the idea of investing no matter what happens.

Of course it depends how many are caught. If the whole Aussie team, turn out to be doped up they can still field a team that are not and compete. If one team is seen to be a major offender and all their team are banned, we'd soon have another team take their place.

For me, the way to handle this as a governing body, is to praise the clean ones. Make it clear the world cup will have a major testing campaign and ride the publicity that we can say w are clean when other codes cannot say that.

Time will tell who is found out, and I sincerely hope it turns out to be a few low level players but the fact that Rugby League is the biggest sport down under would mean that the media will hound anyone even suspected so won't be pretty for a while.

The statement that has been released to the media is causing all sorts of issues in the fact it is tarnishing many sports and Clubs and players unfairly.
They should shut up and present their case with facts before having a press conference.
They have just dragged at least a couple of sports through the mud at the start of their respective seasons without putting out any evidence at all at this stage.

I am sure there will be problems as there are in all sports all over the World but this has been a media Circus so far.

Lets stick with out shi**y but clean version of the game that is SL!!

The story of hidden vials of urine is boll*x-Ive been drug tested and the pot you pee into has a basic heat sensor on it. Plus they stand behind you watching you pee.