Rugby: Supplementing First XVs raises fears

Plenty of schools don't like what they have seen in regard to the elevation of expectations for young players. Photo / Getty Images

With drug testing in teenage rugby now a reality, there couldn't be a better time to acknowledge that a monster has been created and that multiple parties have been complicit in making it, writes Gregor Paul.

There couldn't possibly be a more apt reason for parents, teachers, schools, provincial unions, TV networks and player agents to save us all the faux outrage in hearing that Drug Free Sport New Zealand plans to drug test at next month's Top Four Championship and instead turn the spotlight on themselves and accept this horror situation is of their own doing.

Where once school sport was driven by a participation ethos - a desire to create a physical outlet for kids to have fun, work together, share common experiences and ultimately learn about life through the vagaries of game playing - now there is a pervasive win-at-all costs attitude.

Not all schools can be blamed equally for this. Attitudes and cultures are not the same nationwide but the problem for those schools that want to preserve their traditional value systems is that they have reluctantly been forced to keep up with the Joneses in many respects.

Those schools which have been hungriest for success, most determined to use sport and in particular rugby as a recruitment tool, have invested heavily in coaching resources and focused on finding and promoting the players they deem to be the best at the expense of all others.

They have lifted the expectations of parents and pupils and promoted the concept of rugby being a potential career to a far wider group of kids than is remotely realistic.

Plenty of schools don't like what they have seen in regard to the elevation of expectations but have had to respond or run the risk of being seen as out of touch and the net effect has been to further fuel parent demand for elite high performance programmes without much in the way of critical evaluation as to how this fits into a holistic education.

Pathways and academies are as much part of the parental lexicon as national standards and continual assessment.

Inevitably, perhaps, as schools have invested in player development and the professional game has become more advanced in its own talent identification and recruitment, the two worlds have collided.

St Peter's College principal James Bentley.

First XV rugby has been dragged to the bottom rung of the professional ladder because it is here that provincial unions and Super Rugby clubs are shopping for talent.

Super Rugby clubs are now talking to Year 12 students, willing, as was the case with Rieko Ioane, to offer full contracts when they are in Year 13. It is a vicious cycle.

This was the picture that emerged in 2013 when the New Zealand Herald ran a major investigative series into Auckland's 1A competition.

It found that many schools had advanced and detailed succession plans; that there were recognised recruitment policies to lure players as young as 14 to change schools; that there was several hundreds of thousands of dollars being invested in coaching personnel and high performance equipment and that private schools were reluctant to reveal the extent to which they were offering rugby scholarships.

There was no smoking gun evidence of out-and-out cheating or genuinely rotten cultures being endorsed, but there was enough reason to believe that ethical and moral judgement was being clouded at some schools, such was their desire to win.

Schools can often take some persuading they are not on the right track, but they may find it hard to dismiss a figure with the standing of All Blacks coach Steve Hansen.

"I think by and large the schools are producing good rugby players," he says. "Would I like them to work harder on teaching the kids to have a work ethic? Yep, and at the expense of playing all costs winning. I see X-factor players getting a lot of reward but I don't see a lot of reward for the hard working person.

All Blacks coach Steve Hansen.

"And to be really successful, you need to have an extraordinary amount of talent and an extraordinary work ethic.

"Richie McCaw is the best example I can give of that. He was probably less on the talent - I am not saying he wasn't talented because he was - but he had an incredible work ethic.

"If we can keep teaching kids to have that work ethic, then the talent is going to come pouring through."

What was equally obvious but harder to define or give voice to in the 1A
investigation, was the phenomenal pressure - real and perceived - in which First XV players had to operate.

If there was a missing strand in the investigation, it was the failure to explore more deeply how students felt about the professionalisation of their extra curricular activity.
Were they as driven to win as many of the adults in their respective environments? How did some players feel about continually seeing bigger, faster, stronger boys being rewarded with selection to representative teams?

And what about those kids who progressed through school, believing their time in the First XV would come, only to have that dream crushed at the last hurdle with the arrival of a scholarship student?

DFSNZ obviously wondered the same things, fearing that the pre-conditions for supplement use in First XV rugby were strong.

Research of the same age-group in Wales and South Africa found that rugby playing teenagers were being drawn to performance-enhacing substances and that it would be foolish not to believe First XV rugby was facing the same risks in New Zealand.

A major survey in 2013-14 confirmed what DFSNZ feared, that many First XV players were using supplements to help them become bigger, stronger and faster.

The concern isn't whether supplement use will graduate to steroid abuse. The concern is that the vast majority of supplement products - protein powders and primers - contain banned substances.

A blossoming career could be unwittingly ruined by ignorance, which is why DFSNZ, the New Zealand Rugby Union and the Rugby Players' Association have all developed education programmes to help young players understand the risks and pitfalls.

Rieko Ioane.

The sudden shift to testing at next month's Top Four has been both shocking and disappointing for schools, many of whom feel the change has been brought about on a false premise.

Several commentators this week said that schools have been reluctant to embrace DFSNZ's education programme and have then extrapolated from that there is little interest in managing the issue of supplement use in First XV rugby and in some cases total denial of its existence.

The decision to test, therefore, is seen as a way for DFSNZ to hammer home its point - and to force schools to take the issue more seriously.

But plenty of schools spoken to by the Herald say that's simply not true. They accept the reality of the First XV world that has been created and recognise their duty of care and obligation to support and guide boys and parents through it.

Many schools haven't embraced DFSNZ's education seminars because they feel they are already educating their students more effectively and thoroughly as part of their respective long-running well-being programmes.

Advising pupils about the dangers and consequences of drug and illicit substance use is built into the every day education and some schools that have welcomed DFSNZ, have reported back to others that the seminar was weak, irrelevant and off topic.

One of those schools which did invite DFSNZ to speak was St Peter's College in Auckland, whose principal James Bentley, says: "The presentation they are rolling out is not that beneficial to us.

"We are doing better things with our own teams during our health classes and so I think to say that because you didn't take up the seminar, that you are not interested is unfair because it wasn't a good enough standard in the first place.

"The other thing I am concerned about is how this is being rushed through. There has been no consultation [about the move to testing]. We have had no guidance from the NZRU or Auckland Rugby Union and that is something we are surprised about.

"I think the implication that the schools are not educating their boys on this is wrong.
"We are well aware it is an issue and well aware of the concerns that are out there and the examples from overseas in the UK and South Africa. But it is not fair to say schools are burying their heads in the sand because they are not."

The concern for Bentley, and several other principals, is that a positive drugs test at the Top Four could have a far-reaching, damaging impact beyond affecting the individual who fails.

One failed test will inevitably be portrayed as the tip of the ice-berg and schools will no doubt be blamed en masse for failing to tackle the issue.

What looms down the track is the prospect of schools being told they will have to agree to compulsory, less effective, expensive education programmes from external providers that leave kids less educated than they currently are about supplement use.

And further down the track, because pressure will mount, it's a reality to see that schools will have to agree to regular testing in all competitions.

Such an outcome would be driving a nail through the heart of schoolboy rugby as a holistic offering, promoting all that is good and pure about sport.

For many principals, teachers and volunteer coaches, the prospect of regularly asking children to go through the degradation of a drugs test will be a bridge they cannot cross.
A monster has been made, but at the moment, it is at least a monster that is being controlled as best schools can.