He added: "Some of these boys will go on to professional careers. They are pretty talented football players. They need to know now about making the correct decisions, about making sure that they are drug free, and also to maintain the integrity of the sport."
He told Hawke's Bay Today the publicity this week - with Mr Tibbutt hopeful the education will lead to a clean record when the tests are done - had brought the issue to a head, but it was an important step.
"I sat down with the manager and asked are the boys aware of all this," he said. "We've got to be sure we're doing the right thing. This has raised the focus."
Mr Tibbutt said many teenaged rugby players are using supplements, barely knowing anything about what they contain, and in an environment where there is little evidence of them being any better that the simple gifts of nature.
Mr Sturch said: "It's all about educating kids, you've just got to look after your health. Certainly, what is better for these boys than a good kiwi meal, meat vegetables, fish...?"
Mr Tibbutt said from Auckland sports are identified for testing with risk factors, which in rugby's case include the incentives for young players to use banned substances if they believe it is improving their performance, when the reality is it is probably doing more harm than good.
He said that if the education programme works and there are any failed tests at the Top 4 playoffs, then the failures will be because the players involved will have been "intentionally" using banned substances, and action will be taken against them according to agreements with the New Zealand Rugby Union.
The potential for some young rugby players has been highlighted by the rise of new All Black wing Rieko Ioane who last November became the eighth youngest person to debut for the All Blacks and who, now in the test match lineup, is likely to earn well over $400,000 this year.
Mr Tibbutt recalled watching while leaning against a Sky Tv outside broadcast van as Ioane played for Auckland Grammar just two years ago - a teenage star at sport before he'd put away the text books.
The income two years later is at least 10 times the average working 20-year-old's annual income of less than $40,000, and in some minds beats substantially the option of spending 4-5 years growing a student loan debt and a crippling start to working life in the mid 20s.
The Hastings Boys High domination, with an average of close to 60 points a match and headed for a Super Eight schools showdown with a similar-performing Hamilton Boys High School first fifteen, both next weekend and possible home final seven days later, has pushed some of its players into similar prominence, with talent scouts and player agents known to have been at games from an early stage of the season.
Mr Sturch said that opened another equation for the education of players. "After all, they're schoolboys," he said. "They're not used to dealing with agents."
Among Hawke's Bay players cutting a track to such potential riches is HBHS tryscoring star Kini Naholo, from Fiji and who was brought to New Zealand on the back of earnings by brother, Super Rugby player and All Black Waisake Naholo. The younger Naholo has already scored 33 tries for his team this season.
It was about the time Ioane was playing for the All Blacks for the first time late last year that DFSNZ began its education programme, which means all teams remaining in contention for the national schools playoffs must undergo the Clean Sport programme.
Sport HB's Mr Aspden said the financial incentives for players to perform at their best by whatever means, which could in some cases reverse the economies of players' entire families, made it a cut-throat environment.
"We've seen the pressure that is put on, in books like Agassi's or Tiger Woods'," he said. "In my day players did it just for the pride of the school."