0
![Not allowed!](images/buttons/down_dis.png)
![Not allowed!](images/buttons/up_dis.png)
Darren Walton
March 5, 2015, 2:43 pm
Wallabies halfback Nick Phipps is adamant social drugs are "absolutely not" widespread in Australian rugby despite Queensland Reds star Karmichael Hunt on Thursday pleading guilty to cocaine possession.
Code-hopping Hunt, in his first season of Super Rugby after stints in the NRL and AFL, was fined $2500 in a Gold Coast court for purchasing a total of 12.5 grams of the drug on four occasions from September 1 to October 3 last year.
Several Gold Coast Titans players, as well as former NRL stars, have also been caught up in the Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission's investigation that netted Hunt.
Phipps, though, said he had never come across social drugs and vouched for every member of the reigning Super Rugby champions after NSW Waratahs training on Thursday.
Asked if social drugs were widespread in rugby circles, Phipps said: "Absolutely not".
"It's pretty evident by the people that keep getting dragged into it that it's definitely not a rugby thing," he said.
"That's a testament to the sport that we have, and to some of the characters we have in our game. We're quite lucky ... that nothing like that has ever come across my desk.
"So I wouldn't know about it and neither would any of the other players actually. I'm confident in saying that.
"So that's a thing for another code and for us ... to brush it under the rug and move on."
Phipps said there had never been any need for his state and national coach Michael Cheika to address the Waratahs about the dangers of using social drugs because the ARU and the Players' Association constantly held their own educational forums.
"We've done that many modules and presentations through various different doctors, police, members of the community; they all come in all the time and speak to us," he said.
"To be honest, the kind of blokes we have (in our game), no one's really interested in that stuff anyway ... it's great that that education program is working for our code."
Phipps estimated that he and every other Waratahs player were drug-tested by ASADA, WADA and the ARU between 12 to 15 times a season.
"So we get people rocking up all the time to our club," he said.
"We get people turning up to our house - we've got three players at our house so they come around a little bit and just walk in at any time of the day to drug test us.
"I'm fine with that. A lot of people would say it's an invasion of privacy but I couldn't care less. As long as it's keeping our code clean and out of trouble.
"I'm happy to do a drug test whenever they want.
"It's also good to be able to show that record and how many times that people have been tested and have that confidence that the code's clean.
"I wouldn't even care if they upped it. It's not a problem for us.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/sp...-rugby-phipps/
80 Minutes, 15 Positions, No Protection, Wanna Ruck?
Ruck Me, Maul Me, Make Me Scrum!
Education is Important, but Rugby is Importanter!
I can recall as others that were at Canberra Captain's Run a two years ago when Mark took us through the change rooms and explained all about the post match testing and how often and widespread it happened. From memory he said Bam was always a target when he was the Force, obviously not for the old Charlie or the like, but they probably had some suspicions about his mass and thus he seemed to be targeted more than most. Obviously he came up trumps every time or we would have heard about it![]()
80 Minutes, 15 Positions, No Protection, Wanna Ruck?
Ruck Me, Maul Me, Make Me Scrum!
Education is Important, but Rugby is Importanter!
Guessing Phipps was the only one who answered his phone today?
Maybe he was the only one who gave the answer the reporter wanted to print.
I wouldn't be making any generalized statements that could be taken to apply for the whole sport if I was a player, because you can't really tell what your teammates are doing in secret, let alone blokes who play in a different team/city/country.
C'mon the![]()
![]()
I totally agree.. Did Phipps know about KH..I doubt it..the same he wouldn't be privvy to anyone else... First I thought when I saw the headline was.."How would he know?" Agree with Jono he was only one who answered his phone or said what the reporter wanted to hear and could report on without the fear of litigation... ..
Have to maintain our hard line on drugs, continue the education and to all our players, coaches, etc. use the FAT approach if anyone should ever even think of dabbling. ( Fear, Apprehension and Terror).
Agree hands down.
The stupid bit is that he's admitted to using & gets to sit out a few weeks. Where if he had've tested positive it would have been a 2 year ban...
It's all about the paper trail.
y'know what peeves me off. One law enforcement agency can tip off a foreign police force, putting two of ours in front of a firing squad and another enforcement agency that would know we are in contract negotiations with KH and yet they could not drop Bill Pulver a line and say " mate back off for a while" . Unwittingly and innocently our code has been tarred because he's a Red.
I do hope he gets tested every week and if he gets to the end of his career, clean as a whistle, then good on him.
KH was technically still an AFL player when he got nabbed. He's obviously cleaned up his act since changing to union...
coz Stone Cold says so