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Matt Stevens, the England prop forward who has been heavily backed to make a second successive tour with the British and Irish Lions this summer, last night admitted to struggling with a serious drug problem after testing positive for a "recreational" substance following a match last month.
His immediate suspension from all rugby comes as a nasty setback to the national manager, Martin Johnson, on the eve of the Six Nations Championship, but the real victim is Stevens himself. His career, one of the brightest in the world game, is in ruins.
The 26-year-old Bath player was selected for a random test following a Heineken Cup match against Glasgow. He has already been removed from the England elite player squad and will not attend next week's Six Nations training camp in Portugal.
"He will not be involved until the resolution of the case, when a further decision on his inclusion will be made," said a spokesman for the Rugby Football Union, which takes drug-related misdemeanours so seriously that it recently broke new ground in the sport by appointing its own anti-doping officer.
When the punishment comes - and as Stevens made a painfully open and honest admission of his wrongdoing in a television interview yesterday evening, he can expect to be dealt with rapidly - it is unlikely to be of the lenient variety.
Drugs cases in rugby union, rare as they are, tend to vary in their detail, but there is a widespread acceptance across international sport of a two-year ban as the going rate.
Stevens is a high-profile individual, both as a tight-head prop of considerable talent and as a singer good enough to have reached the final of a competition broadcast on network TV, and will therefore be held to have tarnished the game's image, as well as offended its sensibilities.
"I was tested for a prohibited substance, but it's not performance-enhancing so you can take what you want from that," said Stevens, who has already experienced the trauma of dealing with a career-threatening shoulder injury and now faces an even harsher test of his survival instincts.
"It's pretty distressing talking about this. When you think about how much time people have put into my career ... and I have thrown it away. Like any drug problem, you don't know it's happening and then it mounts up. Before you know it, you have a problem and an illness.
"It started off with just a couple of nights, taking it with friends. It wasn't a big deal, but the thing about drugs is that it so quickly becomes a big deal. I owe it to everyone to admit that. I want to say I'm truly very sorry. I want to change my life and get back the faith that people had in me."
Born in South Africa to wealthy parents - his father is an Englishman who has enjoyed considerable success in business - Stevens played representative youth rugby in his homeland before declaring himself available for England in 2003.
A graduate in politics and economics, he quickly demonstrated a cleverness on the rugby field to match his academic abilities: indeed, he has frequently been described as the most gifted footballing prop in the international game.
As such, he was expected to be a core figure in England's next World Cup campaign, in New Zealand in 2011. He will be extremely fortunate to feature in that tournament now.
Neither the Bath club nor officials from European Rugby Cup, which administers the Heineken Cup competition, were willing to discuss the ramifications of Stevens' predicament yesterday, but Damien Hopley, the chief executive of the Professional Rugby Players' Association, expressed his shock at the news.
Ironically, Stevens' regular front-row partner at Bath, the loose-head prop David Barnes, is chairman of the players' union.
"This is very out of character for Matt," said Hopley, a former England international. "He had built a reputation as an ambassador for the game, doing a tremendous amount of voluntary work for a number of charities and good causes. We will be doing everything we can to provide him with the support he needs at this most difficult time."
Hopley added that the PRA condemned the use of performance-enhancing and recreational drugs - a refrain echoed by Bath.
Both club and country now find themselves in difficulties, albeit ones that pale into insignificance compared to those confronting Stevens as he contemplates his fall from sporting grace.
The West Countrymen play their biggest game of the season to date - a win-or-bust Heineken Cup match against the three-time European champions Toulouse - at the Recreation Ground on Sunday.
The national selectors must find themselves a Six Nations replacement, uneasy in the knowledge that Phil Vickery, their other senior tight-head, is, at 32, rather too senior for comfort.
Scotland will have two uncapped players in their squad when the Six Nations unfolds next month in Geoff Cross and Ruaridh Jackson.
- THE INDEPENDENT
