IRFU fails to kick allegations to touch

So that was the week that was. It began with Neil Francis dropping a hot potato on the lap of Irish rugby and in particular the IRFU. By yesterday they were shuffling it around like a timebomb, shifting uneasily on their buttocks in a high-noon showdown with an expanded media corps as they revealed that not one, not two, but three Irish players had tested positive last season in drugs tests conducted by the British Sports Council.

What is the man in the street to make of this? Surely the disclosure is too coincidental to be true that three Irish players tested positive last season, and only one has so far been cleared, in the week after Francis's allegations?

Furthermore, if it wasn't for the absence of a drug testing facility within the make-up of the Irish Sports Council, might there have been even more up to now? And with the union unwilling or unable to furnish the public with its own statistical record of Irish players to have been tested and found negative of any substance abuse, where's the counter-evidence to substantiate the union's put-up-or-shut-up retort to Francis?

Never mind the man in the street, even the dog in the street must now be thinking that Irish rugby is riddled with performance-enhancing drugs.

It is not, of course, and certainly not since 1988, the year Neil Francis alleges as the starting point for his controversial claim. Most probably even Francis doesn't believe the taking of performance-enhancing drugs in Irish rugby has been rife since 1988, and by keeping the spread of years as loose as possible he does not specifically point the finger at anyone.

Of course, the consequence of that is that every Irish player to have played since 1988 feels targeted by his erstwhile teammate's claims. Donal Lenihan, Mick Galwey and Denis McBride reacted indignantly, McBride said "it was hard enough getting players to train, never mind take performance-enhancing drugs. They wouldn't have known what a performance-enhancing drug was if it came up and hit them in the face."

Indeed, Francis's claims have probably led to a stream of jokes at players' expense. "Those players who took performance-enhancing drugs," called in one listener to Pat Kenny's radio programme during the week, "should get a refund. They didn't work."

It was far from performance-enhancers that Irish teams were reared, would be the feeling of most regular Lansdowne Road punters. As one former player, who has already taken a ferocious ribbing from friends in his local, said to me: "The one thing the paddies were always known for by opposition teams was that they were good craic. But if anything they were always the slightest in build, the ones lacking muscle development compared to other teams, and we were always the team least likely to last the 80 minutes."

However, Irish rugby was always likely to be caught with its collective jock-straps exposed if ever any claims of drug abuse or any positive tests came to light. As has been the case ever since Christ was a carpenter, the IRFU has been reactive rather than proactive, and so it came to pass again this week.

I, while believing that Irish rugby players were totally clean until the advent of professionalism at any rate, and remain generally so today, cannot understand for the life of me why the union has not quickly gone through its files and provided statistical evidence highlighting all the many cases against the positive ones.

It can cite procedures and regulations and confidentiality clause all it likes, but it has the information to counteract the cloud of suspicion which has suddenly settled upon the game over which it presides.

After all, the South African Rugby Union, along with the French and perhaps the New Zealand, Australian and of late even English unions, preside over a game which has always generated suspicion of drug abuse. Nevertheless, they can at least claim that more than 500 South African players have been tested in the last two years. The IRFU cannot, or will not, say even a dozen have.

But it is not entirely unique in an Irish sporting context. There simply is not a drug-testing facility in the State and will not be until next year. Hence there's been no testing of interpros or All-Ireland league games in the Republic.

It can quote its "comprehensive" anti-drugs policy, but unfortunately the game's image has been tarnished, and heaven knows what parents of prospective young players must be thinking, or starting to think.

Take creatine, the current in-vogue, naturally produced food supplement which enhances muscle development and enables players to train more. It has been taken by athletes, rowers, soccer players, rugby players and hosts of others.

Ian Wright, the England and West Ham striker, says it's his "wonder drug". Percy Montgomerie, the South African full-back, put on 2 1/2 stone in one summer. Read the letters pages at the back of any rugby magazine, and teenage players are asking for advice on how to improve their muscle/fat ratio. "I'm 16 and slight for my age. I pump this and that, but what more can I do?"

Rugby has become a quasi weight-lifting sport, and worryingly I have it on good authority that school players in the State are taking creatine. There is nothing to stop them. It is still legal. But there are now concerns that creatine can be harmful, especially when taken in large doses, and it is banned in American football. School rugby is not that important.

But the fact is that sport generally is riddled with drugs, and everyone who has even a passing interest in sport knows this. It does not help when the most powerful man in sport, Juan Samaranch, the head of the International Olympic Committee, says some performance-enhancing drugs should be regarded as more acceptable than others.

The sanctions are not nearly sufficient - think of Ben Johnson's two-year ban. Even a two-year ban for an Irish rugby player, if found guilty, would not be a sufficient deterrent for a youngster when weighed against the possible financial rewards. And for the administrators and sports bodies, who need records to be broken and sports to break new boundaries, the equation comes down to money as well.

Money in sport equals drugs in sport and vice versa. Sad but true. Admittedly, finance would not be a factor at Lansdowne Road, where some of the last bastions of amateurism can still be found. But perhaps this is part of the problem.

Far from putting an end to this saga, yesterday's showdown merely accentuated it. The outstanding two cases involving Irish players remain. And now it's Neil Francis's turn tomorrow. He has the conch, and he'll surely use it.